GPOs: Not the End-all of Configuration Management

Over-reliance creates a false sense of security

by Chris Schwartzbauer, Vice President, Shavlik Technologies

An international beverage manufacturer was losing millions in production capacity when servers that controlled the manufacturing equipment started going down, without warning. Analysis revealed that existing techniques for applying critical patches required system reboots, which hampered production. The company had used Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to confine critical system reboots to after hours; unfortunately, this effort did not override the patch management process.

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