My experience with SCCM maintenance reboots is pretty reliable. I do our updates on Saturday's between 5pm and 10pm, so I'm usually VPNed in and baby them to make sure everything comes up. I set up the domain controllers for some really long pending reboot timeout before reboot automatically. That way I can manually reboot them to make sure they don't all reboot at the same time. I like your idea of breaking them up and deploying at different times. The only other way I think of handing this would be like how I handle my clients. All updates as available, I have a powershell script I push out that installs all available updates and I have another after that I use to check for pending reboots and reboot if needed. I run these a few times each update window to catch any updates that need another cycle through installing to install.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Beardsley, James Sent: Monday, November 3, 2014 3:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [mssms] Server reboots after patching I'm looking for some guidance on how to handle server reboots after they've been patched. I have all of my maintenance windows configured so servers only get patched between 1am and 4am and I separate the servers in different collections so they don't all patch on the same night but I'm extremely hesitant to allow the servers to reboot automatically when finished. Certainly others have had the same reservations at some point in time. How does everyone handle their server reboots? I've been patching PC's for several years now but the server responsibility is now being transitioned over to me. The person who patched servers before me just used WSUS (no SCCM) and he set up scheduled tasks via GPO that would patch and then reboot at 5am on a Sunday morning. Then he used a script to monitor and alert him if the servers didn't come back up or a particular service doesn't start. I thought about going that route and do a similar script but I'm trying to avoid having to get up early on a Sunday morning :) I worry that if I allow the servers to reboot on their own, if for some reason they don't come back up (which admittedly is rare), its going to be a terrible day. Do you have some sort of monitoring mechanism in place to alert you if they don't come back up? We're implementing SCOM at some point over the next year but we aren't there yet. Do you allow all of your servers to reboot automatically? Or for the more important servers, do you handle the reboots manually (ie: DC's, SQL servers, etc)? Thanks, James ________________________________ Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail is intended only for the addressee named above. It contains information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from use and disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, disclosure, copying, or dissemination of this transmission, or taking of any action in reliance on its contents, or other use is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission in error, please reply to the sender listed above immediately and permanently delete this message from your inbox. Thank you for your cooperation.
