Expired Updates Removal - Best Practices

http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2012/04/12/software-update-content-cleanup-in-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
I was searching for best practices for removing expired updates from environment and found this useful link.
There are some queries :
1) It actually says to remove all the expired updates in one go without removing them from SUG's first. When the expired updates which are also part of active SUG are removed, wouldn't this trigger a software update rescan request for all clients in the collection
to which these SUG's were targeted to, to rescan the patches required as there was a change in the SUG ?
2) How about deleting the deployments from collections and then removing the expired updates from only those SUG and proceed in this way. Wouldn't this lower the processing ?
3) The expired update not part of any SUG will be removed, just to make sure, if the expired update is part of SUG but not targeted to any collection, will it still be removed ?
4) Once the expired update is removed, what will be the process of its removal from the Distribution Point. What other automated tasks will be triggered for this like updatation of software update packages on DP once there is any change etc? I have been prestaging
software update packages and extracting them on DP's. For any new DP, as the prestage still contains the older updates (expired, which were removed), Will they get extracted on new DP ?
Are all the steps i mentioned above valid in case of superseded updates instead of expired ?

I am not clear of the below Jacob :
If you delete the deployment, all of the policy for those updates will be removed.
But, that removes every single update and not just the ones you removed. A bit more processing goes into removing everything.
What my concern here is, suppose there are 10 SUG's deployed to 40 collections each. lets
say there are 1000 updates.
If i select all the expired updates and just edit their membership, suppose random udpates
are part of all 10 SUG deployments. Removing these will trigger the policy cycle for all the collection clients.
What i was talking about is, if I pick up 1 SUG out of 10 and remove it from 40 collections
first. Once it is done, then go ahead with removing the expired updates from this SUG.
This is what i need some clarification on.

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Creating Software Update Packages - Best Practice?

I am setting up our SCCM 2012 R2 environment to begin using it for Windows Updates, however I'm not sure 100% the best method of setting it up.
Currently my plan is to break out the deployment packages by OS, but I read\told that I should avoid creating to many dynamic deployment packages, as every time it changes all the computers will re-scan that package. So What I want to do is create
various packages for OS and years, so I would have a package that contains all updates for Windows 7, older then January 31, 2013 (assuming the package doesn't have 1000+ updates), and are not superseded\Expired. Then I would create Packages for the 2014
monthly updates each month, then at the end 2014, combine them all in 1 package, and restart the process for 2015. Is this a sound plan or is there a better course of action?
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something. The only way I can see doing this is going into All Software Updates, and filtering on my requirements, and then manually creating the package, but this would less desirable, as after each year I would like to remove the superseded and expired
without having to recreate the package.
Mark.

First, please learn what the different objects are -- not trying to be rude, just stating that if you don't do this, you will have fundamental issues. Packages are effectively meaningless when it comes to deploying updates. Packages are simply a way of grouping
the binary files so they can be distributed to DPs and in-turn made available to clients. The package an update is in is irrelevant. Also, you do not "deploy" update packages and packages are not scanned by clients. The terminology is very important because
there are implications that go along with it).
What you are actually talking about above are software update groups. These are separate and distinct objects from update packages. Software Update groups group updates (not the update binaries) into logical groups that can be in-turn deployed or used for
compliance reporting.
Thus, you have two different containers that you need to be concerned about, update packages and update groups. As mentioned, the update package an update is in is pretty meaningless as long as the update is in a package that is also available to the clients
that need it. Thus, the best way (IMO) to organize packages is by calendar period. Yearly or semi-annually usually works well. This is done more less to avoid putting all the updates into a single package that could get corrupted or will be difficult to deploy
to new DPs.
As for update groups, IMO, the best way is to create a new group every month for each class of products. This typically equates to one for servers, one for workstations, and one for Office every month. Then at the end of every year (or some other timeframe),
rolling these monthly updates into a larger update group. Keep in mind that a single update group can have no more than 1,000 updates in it though. (There is no explicit limit on packages at all except see my comments above about not wanting one huge package
for all updates.)
Initially populating packages (like 2009, 2010, 2011, etc) is a manual process as is populating the update groups. From then on, you can use an ADR (or really three: one for workstations, one for servers, and one for Office) that runs every month, scans
for updates released in the past month, and creates a new update group.
Depending upon your update process, you may have to go back and add additional deployments to each update group also, but that won't take too long. Also, always QC your update groups created by an ADR. You don't want IE11 slipping through if it will break
your main LOB application.
Jason | http://blog.configmgrftw.com

SCCM 2012 Update deployment best practices?

I have recently upgraded our environment from SCCM 2007 to 2012. In switching over from WSUS to SCCM Updates, I am having to learn how the new deployments work. I've got the majority of it working just fine. Microsoft Updates, Adobe Updates (via
SCUP)... etc.
A few users have complained that the systems seem to be taking up more processing power during the update scans... I am wondering what the best practices are for this...
I am deploying all Windows 7 updates (32 and 64 bit) to a collection with all Windows 7 computers (32 and 64 bit)
I am deploying all Windows 8 updates (32 and 64 bit) to a collection with all Windows 8 computers (32 and 64 bit)
I am deploying all office updates (2010, and 2013) to all computers
I am deploying all Adobe updates to all computers... etc.
I'm wondering if it is best to be more granular than that? For example: should I deploy Windows 7 32-bit patches to only Windows 7 32-bit machines? Should I deploy Office 2010 Updates only to computers with Office 2010?
It's certainly easier to deploy most things to everyone and let the update scan take care of it... but I'm wondering if I'm being too general?

I haven't considered cleaning it up yet because the server has only been active for a few months... and I've only connected the bulk of our domain computers to it a few weeks ago. (550 PCs)
I checked several PCs, some that were complaining and some not. I'm not familiar with what the standard size of that file should be, but they seemed to range from 50M to 130M. My own is 130M but mine is 64-bit, the others are not. Not sure if that makes
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Briefly read over that website. I'm confused, It was my impression that WSUS was no longer used and only needed to be installed so SCCM can use some of the functions for its own purposes. I thought the PCs no longer even connected to it.
I'm running the WSUS cleanup wizard now, but I'm not sure it'll clean anything because I've never approved a single update in it. I do everything in the Software Update Point in SCCM, and I've been removing expired and superseded updates fairly regularly.
The wizard just finished, a few thousand updates deleted, disk space freed: 0 MB.
I found a script here in technet that's supposed to clean out old updates..
http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2012/04/12/software-update-content-cleanup-in-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
Haven't had the chance to run it yet.

Best Practice for Expired updates cleanup in SCCM 2012 SP1 R2

Hello,
I am looking for assistance in finding a best practice method for dealing with expired updates in SCCM SP1 R2. I have read a blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2012/04/12/software-update-content-cleanup-in-system-center-2012-configuration-manager.aspx
I have been led to believe there may be a better method, or a more up to date best practice process in dealing with expired updates.
On one side I was hoping to keep a software update group intact, to have a history of what was deployed, but also wanting to keep things clean and avoid issues down the road as i used to in 2007 with expired updates.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!
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Sean

The best idea is still to remove expired updates from software update groups. The process describes in that post is still how it works. That also means that if you don't remove the expired updates from your software update groups the expired updates will
still show...
To automatically remove the expired updates from a software update group, have a look at this script:
http://www.scconfigmgr.com/2014/11/18/remove-expired-and-superseded-updates-from-a-software-update-group-with-powershell/
My Blog: http://www.petervanderwoude.nl/
Follow me on twitter: pvanderwoude

Best Practice for Retiring Superseded or Expired Updates

If you want to clear out superseded or expired updates, do you delete them from your update package, the deployment package, or both? Or is there another best practice for this?
Thanks,
Bryan

Hi Torsten, im reading this article because im actualy planing to solve some kind of the the same problem.
I create Software Update Groups with monthly patches, and then i will deploy this to certain Client Collections.
If there becomes a single Patch, the Status, "expired", out of the Software Update Group, what would be the effect for the whole Software Update Group wich still have an active deployment?
Thanks for your sugestion.

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Gary

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IOS Update Best Practices for Business Devices

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Best Practice for Software Update Structure?

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Hi,
Meanwhile, please refer to the following blog get more inspire.
Managing Software Updates in Configuration Manager 2012
http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/02/20/managing-software-updates-in-configuration-manager-2012.aspx
We
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Best Practice for CQ Updates in complex installations (clustering, replication)?

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Hey drkstr
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Not a question, but a suggestion on updating software and best practice (Adobe we need to create stickies for the forums)

Lots of you are hitting the brick wall in updating, and end result is non-recoverable project. In a production environment and with projects due, it's best that you never update while in the middle of projects. Wait until you have a day or two of down time, then test.
For best practice, get into the habit of saving off your projects to a new name by incremental versions. i.e. "project_name_v001", v002, etc.
Before you close a project, save it, then save it again to a new version. In this way you'll always have two copies and will not loose the entire project. Most projects crash upon opening (at least in my experience).
At the end of the day, copy off your current project to an external drive. I have a 1TB USB3 drive for this purpose, but you can just as easily save off just the PPro, AE and PS files to a stick. If the video corrupts, you can always re-ingest.
Which leads us to the next tip: never clear off your cards or wipe the tapes until the project is archived. Always cheaper to buy more memory than recouping lost hours of work, and your sanity.
I've been doing this for over a decade and the number of projects I've lost? Zero. Have I crashed? Oh, yeah. But I just open the previous version, save a new one and resume the edit.

Ctrl + B to show the Top Menu
View > Show Sidebar
View > Show Staus Bar
Deactivate Search Entire Library to speed things up.
This should make managing your iPhone the same as it was before.

Best Practice on Updating From a DB

Hi Everyone,
What are some best practices surrounding getting data from an oracle database into the cache layer when a data change event (insert, update, delete) happens? I've searched far and wide and the best answer I can find is to use Extractor/Replicator -> JMS -> Subscriber -> cache.
Thank you for your help.

You're right, DCN is interesting idea, but it's again the case where technology is working on simple Hello World things, but fails to deliver on real word.
To me DCN looks like an unfinished Oracle project, lot of marketing stuff, but poor features, it's good mostly to student's works or testlabs, but not for real world complexity.
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In order to make a whole system fail-safe and scalable, you have to implement listener in fail-safe fashion, in a form of workmanager + slave processes, spawned on the other nodes.Work manager has to be auto fail-safe and auto scalable, so that if the node holding work manager instance fails due to cache cluster member departure or reset or smth else, another workmanager is automatically spawned on first available node.
Also, workmanager should spread & synchronize the work among the slave listener processes based on the current cache cluster members, automatically re-balancing and recovering work in case of cache member join/departure.
Out-of-the box Coherence has an implementation of workmanager, but it's not fail-safe and does not provide automatic scale-up/recover work features described above, so you have to implement your own.
All the features I've described are implemented and happily used in complex OLTP + workflow system backed up by big Oracle RAC cluster with huge workload, processing millions transactions per day.

Expired Updates Removal - Best Practices

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