If you use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to deploy software and updates for Microsoft products, VMware vCenter Protect Update Catalog expands your solution to deploy updates for 3rd party applications. Get started pushing updates for applications such as Adobe, Apple, and JAVA in just seconds.

SCCM does a great job of distributing software and deploying updates for the latest Microsoft operating systems and Microsoft applications like Office 2010. What about Adobe Reader and hundreds of other vulnerable applications?

vCenter Protect Update Catalog address a major business pain (keeping up with third party updates) and puts time back into IT admin’s schedule.

How? Read on..

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While browsing the Shavlik.com website I stumbled on a small but powerful hidden away gem in the pages named VMware Security Advisor.

Are you aware of all your security risks? Security Advisor provides you with the ability to perform a no-cost security scan on your machine, domain, or IP range. It instantly reports the following critical information, all ranked by severity:

• A snapshot of your environment including the number of missing patches, missing security patches and the average number of missing patches per machine as compared to the community
• Systems Center ranks machines by severity and identifies the machines requiring patches
• Software Center shows the software by vendor as well as the software titles requiring patches
• Patch Center indicates the percent of products missing patches not covered by WSUS as well the number of missing patches and number of vulnerable machines
• Community Center identifies how the security of your IT environment compares to the community

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Recently VMware released the latest version of vCenter Protect Essentials. This product is a combination of several technologies but the major part is from Shavlik Technologies, which VMware acquired earlier this year.

VMware vCenter Protect Essentials provides centralized patch management and asset inventory for SMBs/SMEs and departmental needs. vCenter Protect Essentials Plus adds anti virus, power management, ITScripts, and configuration management for both virtual and legacy physical systems in an integrated solution.

This includes centralized management for Windows operating systems and the most widely used Windows-hosted applications running on both virtual and physical servers and workstations.

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