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Accepted
TimK
Asked: 2010-06-24 09:20:28 +0800 CST

Using WSUS to install updates over a mult-site network

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I have searched through SF and could not really find what I was looking for.

My question is this:

I have a network containing of 50 remote locations that all connect over a MPLS network. I am needing to update all of the workstations. I am currently using WSUS SP 3 to deploy updates to the head office.

There is a total of about 1000 workstations. Can my current WSUS server handle updating this many locations or do I need to move to SCCM? All locations connect to us over a T1 circuit.

windows-server-2003 wsus

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I'm handling nearly that may clients (between 900 and 1000) w/ a single WSUS server with no problems (on an underpowered old box, too). I don't think your problems are going to come from the WSUS server side.

    Bandwidth to get updates deployed in an expedited fashion is going to be your biggest concern (especially if by "All locations connect to us over a T1 circuit" you mean that your head-office has only a T1 to the MPLS cloud).

    If you have some locations with larger concentrations of client computers than others I'd consider deploying a replica WSUS server into those locations to cut down on duplicate update traffic crossing the wire. You're going to have to expend Windows Server licenses to deploy those replicas, but it may be worth the cost re: WAN bandwidth usage and expedited update deployment. It looks like WSUS can be hosted from a machine running the "Windows Web Server 2008 R2" edition of Windows, so you should be able to get by w/ cheap licensing (obviously, try it in a VM and see before you commit to spending money).

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  2. There should be no issues with your configuration. The bandwidth may be a small issue but WSUS updates download from the parent server using BITS and you should not have an issue. I am fairly certain you can configure the clients to get approvals from the parent server but still use the internet connection to get the updates from Microsoft. This may be an easier solution to cut down the WAN traffic. It will only work if you have a connection to the internet for all of your hosts.

    SCCM will not give you much of an advantage if you are just trying to patch the Microsoft products. The only significant advantage you will get from SCCM is that you can set a workstation OS up as the DP however you will still be limited with the 10 concurrent connections issue of the workstation OS.

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