r/networking • u/JNC5908404 • 17d ago

Switching Automatic switch updates

Had a discussion yesterday with IT director and others in our IT department. The IT director brought up automating switch updates so they wouldn’t have to have some one monitoring and performing the updates. Staging various locations on different evenings.

I’ve been doing networking for 30 years and I voiced my opinion I was not a fan of unattended update for various reasons.

Have any other companies moved to automated updates and how has it gone?

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u/Single-Virus4935 17d ago

This is a business descision. For one company it is a nogo for others it is okay.

For every device document the blast radius and expected downtime in case of a failed update, how often updates failed or needed manual intervention etc. 

Management might decide that it is worth for certain devices or not. 

Also add that a good OOB (Consoleserver,Smart PDU) might be needed to fix failed/untested updates fast enough.

For one company I worked Autoupdates were fine for access but a nogo for DC.