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Applying patches is like eating vegetables or exercising: you may not like it, but you've got to do it to stay healthy. Several companies are releasing products to make patch management more palatable. The majority of these products scan your network to find machines that lack the latest fixes. Two, however, take a different approach: PatchLink Update 4.0 and BigFix Enterprise Suite 2.0 use agents to track the patch history of the desktops and servers they're installed on, and regularly query a management server to see if there are new patches or hotfixes to be installed.
The agent system has its pros and cons. On the plus side, agents mean you don't have to eat up network bandwidth every time you want to test your machines. Also, users who aren't connected to the network or have their machines turned off won't miss important updates, because the agent can be configured to check for updates whenever it connects to the network. Agents can also function as a basic asset management system, reporting back on applications and system configurations present on each machine.
On the downside, administrators have to install a client on each device, which can be time-consuming. In...