Business Challenge

Cluster HPC environments are complex to manage with multiple ISV solutions, installed on hundreds of nodes. The client, a healthcare and pet product company, with several research labs, evaluated various solutions to streamline and automate their patch management for HIPPA/PHI security compliances. This was done across all nodes of their high compute cluster environment, used in their research labs.

Transformation

With ISVs continually announcing new releases, we identified the client’s need for an automated Patch Management solution, which could help them streamline their patch management cycles. Our PMaaS solution used modern tools to manage multiple agents at scale, simplified patch cycles, and met the health and compliance needs of the client.

Results

• Reduced time for patch cycles by 85%
• Increased operational eciency and productivity
• Reduced costs due to negligible manual patching activities (Decreased the eorts of three FTEs)
• ROI positive within the first quarter
• Analytics-driven decision making
• Automated patch management
• No delays in securing systems

Towards Safety and Compliance

Computer software often have errors that malicious actors channel to infiltrate hardware. In our current times, when companies are rapidly digitizing their infrastructures and systems, it’s not uncommon for research labs to be the targets of hackings due to firmware/software vulnerabilities. What more? Healthcare and research labs need to constantly deal with HIPAA patch management requirements to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI. Our client, a healthcare product major, was aiming to achieve compliance with government regulations by ensuring the safety and integrity of their ePHI.

Assessing the Situation

The company engaged our Patch Management as-a-Service solution, and initiated an assessment to identify critical vulnerabilities and define a remediation plan. They chose this solution as it helped them patch both, on-premises cluster environments as well as on-demand resources on the public cloud.

A cycle that would have manually taken months, was completed successfully within a few weeks, ensuring that all exposed services remained secure and data-protected.

Gaining Real-Time Visibility

After implementing the PMaaS solution, the company had real-time visibility into compliance via dashboards, which provided a bird’s-eye view of the environment and the governance status.

“There has never been a time in the past where we have been better equipped to manage the latest patches updates/agents. PMaaS helps us to stay ahead of the curve,” says Ron Miller, the Research Manager for the company.

Compliance Made Easy

Additionally, the company got custom reports, which helped them manage regulatory compliances and significantly reduced their manual eorts that was required in the past. In nearly three weeks, the company could ensure that any technical debt with patch remediation was addressed and the time for patch cycles was cut by over 85%

Boosted Operational Eciency and Productivity

With new software vulnerabilities being witnessed daily, every organization needs to constantly protect and when required, remediate its endpoints. PMaaS provided the methodology and tools that the company needed for asset discovery, process orchestration, and remediation, all as a comprehensive service

By using an AI-enabled patch management service to identify and remediate vulnerabilities, the company was able to automate patch cycles and increase its eciency and productivity. The solution also helped them to utilize their scarce IT resources better and focus on other business-critical tasks.