Home windows Server Replace Companies (WSUS) has been a go-to patch administration device for over twenty years, offering IT directors with a strategy to distribute Microsoft updates throughout their environments.
Nevertheless, as Microsoft has formally deprecated WSUS and the device struggles to maintain up with trendy IT calls for, many directors are actively looking for a substitute.
Action1, a cloud-native patch administration platform, has turn into one of the crucial engaging alternate options. Immediately we are going to exhibit a part of why that’s, and the way the longer term seems for WSUS and a world with out it.
This text takes a hands-on have a look at how Action1 compares to WSUS throughout set up, upkeep, day-to-day operations, and total capabilities.
1. Set up and Setup
WSUS: Establishing WSUS is just not a small process. It requires a Home windows Server license, SQL Server or Home windows Inner Database, adequate disk house for storing replace information, and correct IIS configuration. Directors should additionally deal with function set up, synchronization schedules, and Group Coverage Objects (GPOs) to direct endpoints to the WSUS server.
Many configurations in lots of locations that each one should align correctly to get correct perform. Misconfigurations are frequent, and plenty of admins spend hours to days simply getting WSUS to sync and function reliably throughout a community.
Action1: Action1 requires no server set up, database setup, or GPO juggling. As a cloud-native service, it may be accessed instantly after signup. Brokers are deployed to endpoints straight, and as soon as put in, they start checking in with the Action1 platform robotically. Setup usually takes minutes to get began, to hours max for big scale deploys, doubtlessly saving days of overhead within the implementation phases alone.
Backside line: WSUS requires important infrastructure and setup effort, whereas Action1 presents a near-instant deployment with no on-premises footprint.
2. Infrastructure and Upkeep
WSUS: Working WSUS means you’re additionally managing its infrastructure. That features patching the server itself, monitoring disk utilization, and sustaining the database. Replace shops can eat a whole lot of gigabytes, as you need to preserve all patches from a base OS or Picture to the newest usually throughout a number of architectures. WSUS is notoriously liable to database corruption, stale approvals, and synchronization failures. Directors usually depend on PowerShell scripts or third-party cleanup instruments to maintain the system practical.
Action1: Action1 has no infrastructure to take care of. It’s absolutely hosted and maintained by the seller, together with availability, scalability, and safety. Updates are all the time present, and directors by no means want to fret about cleansing up databases or reclaiming storage.
Backside Line: With WSUS, admins should additionally preserve servers; with Action1, admins focus solely on patching endpoints.
Nonetheless having Patch Tuesday nightmares? Action1 ends them with real-time visibility, automated third-party patching, and no want for on-prem infrastructure, VPNs, or packaging.
Improve Intune and change WSUS with cloud-native patching for Home windows 11 and Home windows Server—at no additional price.
3. Scope of Protection
WSUS: WSUS can solely distribute updates for Microsoft merchandise. It doesn’t patch third-party functions similar to Chrome, Adobe Reader, or Zoom. To cowl these, directors should both manually bundle updates, deploy them by way of one other device, or go away endpoints uncovered to vulnerabilities in non-Microsoft software program. In trendy knowledge breaches and vulnerability exploitation, third get together functions account for about a 3rd of the profitable assaults.
Action1: Action1 covers each Microsoft and third-party functions. Updates for frequent enterprise apps are pre-packaged and obtainable inside the platform. This closes one of many largest gaps in WSUS, decreasing the necessity for guide effort or a number of patching instruments. As properly if area of interest conditions, Action1 supplies instruments to increase its perform to your surroundings’s wants, compiling and distributing your individual packages with the identical effectivity as repository native functions.
Backside Line: WSUS = Microsoft solely. Action1 = Microsoft plus third-party protection.
4. Replace Supply to Endpoints
WSUS: Endpoints should connect with the WSUS server, normally over company LAN or VPN. For distributed or distant workforces, this creates challenges. Distant customers usually miss updates if they don’t seem to be linked to VPN lengthy sufficient, leaving them un-patched and susceptible. In addition to, usually the VPN is maintained solely for this goal, growing assault floor and including vectors unnecessarily.
Action1: Endpoints talk straight with the Action1 cloud platform over the web. Distant or roaming units are patched wherever they’re, with out requiring VPN. That is significantly helpful in hybrid and remote-first organizations.
Backside Line: WSUS is dependent upon company community connectivity. Action1 patches anyplace, anytime.
5. Automation and Insurance policies
WSUS: WSUS requires guide synchronization and approval of updates. Whereas GPOs can automate some features, directors should nonetheless recurrently verify for failed deployments and regulate approval guidelines. The method is labor-intensive, and delays usually happen between patch launch and deployment. Or worse nonetheless patch failure and detection of that state.
Action1: Action1 helps policy-driven automation. Directors can set guidelines similar to “deploy all essential safety patches inside 48 hours” or “delay characteristic updates for 30 days” and let the platform implement them robotically. Failed patches could be retried robotically with out guide intervention.
Backside Line: WSUS is essentially guide check-in. Action1 is automated and policy-driven push out.
6. Troubleshooting and Reliability
WSUS: Directors are all too accustomed to WSUS error codes like 0x80244022 or synchronization failures. Usually spending time researching and testing group suggestion as a result of new beforehand unknown points for which there isn’t any guide. Troubleshooting usually requires poring by way of log information, operating SQL queries, or making use of registry fixes. Many IT professionals depend on group boards and scripts simply to maintain WSUS operating.
Action1: With Action1, there are not any server-side errors to troubleshoot. Endpoint points are seen within the dashboard with plain-language explanations. Failed updates could be retried remotely, and help is out there with out requiring registry edits or database restore.
Backside Line: WSUS troubleshooting is advanced and time-consuming. Action1 troubleshooting is streamlined, intuitive, and clear.
7. Reporting and Compliance
WSUS: Reporting in WSUS is restricted. Whilst you can see which updates are authorized or put in, the reporting capabilities are fundamental, and extracting compliance proof usually requires customized SQL queries or exporting logs. For audits, directors normally piece collectively knowledge manually.
Action1: Action1 supplies real-time dashboards and ready-to-use compliance experiences. Experiences present patch standing throughout all endpoints proper now, in stay time, they spotlight vulnerabilities, and could be exported for auditors in seconds. The readability of reporting makes it a lot simpler to exhibit compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, PCI DSS, or ISO 27001.
Backside Line: WSUS experiences are minimal and outdated. Action1 experiences are trendy, real-time, extensible, configurable, and audit-ready.
8. Scalability
WSUS: Scaling WSUS means extra servers, extra storage, and extra administrative overhead. Giant organizations usually run a number of WSUS servers and reproduction servers to distribute the load, every of which should be maintained.
Action1: Action1 scales robotically within the cloud. Whether or not you handle 200 endpoints or 20,000, the expertise is identical. The platform handles distribution with out further infrastructure.
Backside Line: WSUS scales poorly and provides complexity. Action1 scales seamlessly.
9. Price and Overhead
WSUS: WSUS is “free” is a fantasy, perpetuated for ages, as a result of it by no means straight asks you to pay. However the hidden prices are important. You want Home windows Server licensing, a CAL for each system accessing it, SQL licensing (for bigger deployments), server {hardware}, storage, and the labor hours required for setup, upkeep, and troubleshooting. After which there are HW assets devoted if bodily, consumed if digital.
Action1: Action1’s SaaS pricing contains every thing. No {hardware}, no SQL licenses, and minimal administrative effort. The predictable price mannequin usually finally ends up being decrease than the “free” WSUS as soon as labor and infrastructure are accounted for.
Backside Line: WSUS is just not free. Action1 is decrease price in follow.
10. Platform protection
WSUS: Home windows or some remoted vendor driver patches that come down by way of home windows replace.
Action1: Home windows, Mac, and Linux agent on the best way.
Backside Line: Seldom is enterprise vulnerability and patch administration about “Simply Home windows” anymore. Extra complete options like Action1 are designed to develop into tomorrow’s wants.
Ultimate verdict?
WSUS was constructed when the tech actuality we stay in couldn’t have been conceived, although it had been propped up as a greatest in school resolution, it has lengthy since not been one. Action1 nevertheless, was constructed on this trendy surroundings with higher understanding of how it’s evolving and the challenges that brings the on a regular basis admin to remain safe.
From set up to reporting, the comparability is obvious. WSUS is an getting old, on-premises device that requires fixed repairs, delivers restricted performance, and is now formally deprecated. Action1, alternatively, is a contemporary cloud-native resolution that addresses each most main shortcoming of WSUS, launching companies into the trendy age of patch administration.
The one higher hand WSUS has over any trendy patching resolution, is the power to sync and deploy offline.
For directors who’ve spent hours repairing WSUS databases, writing cleanup scripts, or explaining compliance gaps throughout audits, the enchantment of Action1 is clear. It installs rapidly, automates patching for each Microsoft and third-party apps, scales effortlessly, and supplies the visibility and reporting trendy IT environments require.
As properly Action1 brings choices to the desk WSUS by no means needed to start with, similar to patching functions that aren’t delivered by way of home windows replace catalog, which additionally use inside P2P to handle bandwidth internally much like how Microsoft Supply Optimization does for home windows updates. Add to that extra superior scheduling, automated replace rings, scripting & automation, stay reporting & alerting, distant entry and extra.
As organizations transfer away from WSUS as a result of its unsure future, Action1 is not only a substitute, it’s a veritable enchancment, representing a significant step ahead in simplifying and strengthening patch administration.
It’s like buying and selling your wagon for a sports activities automotive. Certain the wagon would get you from A to B, and as soon as it was the normal for interstate journey. However every so often you needed to get out and push it to get the place you wanted to go.
Action1 is a founder lead firm, dropped at you by the unique minds behind Netwrix. On the time of this writing it’s the quickest rising personal software program firm within the US. That is taking place as a result of persons are getting smart to the very fact outdated requirements like WSUS merely don’t lower it in a contemporary menace panorama. You want autonomous actions, as much as the minute compliance stats, instantaneous vulnerability posture, and the power to reply to rising threats in actual time. So when you find yourself checking off packing containers for what you want in a contemporary patch administration resolution, Action1 is the field for ‘all the above’.
Attempt it free and see how efficient patch administration can rework your staff’s effectivity and safety.
Sponsored and written by Action1.
