WSUS 3.0 Officially Released!
It appears that Microsoft has finally released WSUS 3.0! After nearly a year in Beta and even more time as a Release Candidate, this update to the freeware Microsoft patching engine is ready for prime time.
That's excellent news in my book, because this update includes some great new features and capabilities not present in the previous version. And, as according to the product team, one of the biggest priorities of the team in the update was to make the in-place upgrade of previous WSUS versions to 3.0 very, very easy. So, unlike before, you should be able to do an in-place upgrade fairly easily this time.
Some of the features in this release that you should care about are...
Improvements to performance. This grants a single WSUS server the ability to support more clients.A move to MMC 3.0 rather than a web interface, making the administration and reporting components much easier.
A MOM/SCOM pack for monitoring of the WSUS server itself.
The ability to create multiple target groups and assign clients into multiple target groups.
Better branch office support. Less data going down the pipe to branch offices.
Supersedence information!
Continued scripting exposure. Your scripts for WSUS 2.0 will work in 3.0.
Update rollup reports for downstream WSUS servers. Great for large and branch office environments.
With the upgrade this easy, there's no reason to download it today and get started with this new tool. You can get it from: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/wsus/default.mspx