Windows and SQL Server Updates
If we don’t apply Automatic Updates for Windows or SQL Server, what becomes a good practice. Our recent series on Automatic Updates was overwhelming to disable the engine. Robert wants to know what practices are being followed instead?
Some companies don’t apply updates, or apply them haphazardly. I helped a company fix a bug that had emerged on their SQL Server. They were running the Original release version of SQL Server 2008 on Windows Server 2003 with various patches. The bug they were experiencing was fixed in Service Pack 2. They upgraded to SQL Server 2008 SP 3.
The assumption was that everything was secure because the server and database were behind a firewall. Therefore, no updates were necessary unless something was broken. Since the server ran solid for years, no updates were made until a SQL Server bug emerged.
What do you think? Is it a reasonable practice simply to ignore updates unless you run into an issue on the machine? Do you have a preferred method to get updates into your production environments? Drop a note to btaylor@sswug.org to let us know what you think.
Cheers,
Ben
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