Announcing Public Preview of Update management center

We are excited to announce the Public Preview of the Update management center (UMC), the next iteration of the Azure Automation Update Management solution. In addition to zero onboarding steps, and no dependency on Azure Automation and Log Analytics, you also get new capabilities such as flexible scheduling options and on-demand assessments that help you manage a patch workflow that is best suited for your needs. 

Ongoing management of operating system and application patches is critical in order to ensure your machines remain secure and meet compliance policies. With the increasing size of IT estates today, this could be a complex process. UMC eases this process of managing and automating patching of Windows and Linux Operating systems. It provides a consolidated view to centrally manage the process of patching on Azure virtual machines and devices in on-premises or other public clouds (via Azure Arc). It facilitates you to assess and install patches on a single VM or at scale. 

What’s new in the UMC? 

• The “overview” tab is a facelift from the previous one. The intuitive GUI offers a wide range of filters, charts and categories to easily digest data. The tab provides a unified and single pane of glass view of all updates and enables tracking of compliance and deployment status of all Windows and Linux machines on both Azure and Azure Arc-enabled servers. 
• The benefits of Azure Automation Update management are well known. The existing Azure Automation Update Management solution has a multi-step onboarding process, which is cumbersome and error prone for many. UMC leverages native functionality on Azure Compute and Azure Arc for Servers platform, has no dependency on Log Analytics and Azure Automation, effectively eliminating the multi-step onboarding.  
• UMC offers granular access control at individual resource level instead of that at Automation account and Log Analytics workspace level. It allows RBAC and roles based of ARM in Azure, enabling fine grained control on who can manage, assess and update a machine in Azure. 
• The enhanced flexibility in UMC allows deployment of patches on a flexible schedule. UMC provides on-demand assessment and installation of patches, customizable scheduled patching, periodic assessment, and offers patching methods such as automatic VM guest patching in Azure, hotpatch or custom maintenance schedules and more. 

Getting Started 

Once you deploy your Azure VMs or Non-Azure VMs using Azure Arc, you can find the Update Management solution either in the “updates” option of the ToC in your VM page or you can use the search bar on top.  

The overview page for UM enables you to view the patching compliance and status for all your Azure and Non-Azure machines. You can use the filters on top to drill down to a specific set of machines, view a breakdown of machines and their statuses based on multiple categories, and identify the machines that are non-compliant to quickly take corrective action. The “No updates data” status tells you the count of machines that have not been assessed in the past 7 days or do not have Periodic assessment setup. 

The machines tab shows the list of all VMs under a given subscription. You can access the features of UMC from the menu on the top. Broadly, “Check for updates” allows you to assess updates on-demand while “One-time update” allows to install patches on-demand. The Scheduled updates and Updates Settings options allow you to enable customized patching schedules. 

Overall, Update management center offers an easy to use one-stop location for all operating system and application patching scenarios for a single VM or VMs at scale. 

What’s next in UMC? 

• Extend supported to all Azure endorsed distros and OSes including custom images (Shared Image Gallery images). 
• Extend patch management to all Arc workloads including Arc for Private cloud, VMSS, and AKS. 
• Provide additional control to customers with features such as pre and post tasks, dynamic scoping of machines. 
• Introduce advanced capabilities such as native support of Third-Party application patching in Windows etc. 

 Stay tuned for more announcements! 

Additional Resources 

• You can try the experience at Update management center (Preview) - Microsoft Azure. 
• Read more on the capabilities of UMC ACOM Product page and Public Preview documentation
  1. Assess now/ check for updates now and check compliance 
  2. Patch now/One-time update and track results 
  3. Enable Periodic assessment at scale through Policy 
  4. Schedule updates on machines(s) 
  5. Change or manage update settings  
• If you have suggestions and feedback, reach out to us here 
• Follow us on Twitter (@AzureUpdateMgmt) to interact and get updates.