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We have a couple of windows servers (2019) that will be running High Availability services (redis, sql server, in-house software etc). Currently don't have the budget to go for clustering, so need to ensure that existing servers stay up as much as possible.

With Microsoft releasing updates every other Tuesday, it usually means a reboot every fortnight as well. Is it a standard practice to set a specific time on patch tuesday to shut services down for a few mins and apply updates? Or do some companies go a month or more without applying patches? Out of curosity, I often hear that a particular windows/linux machine has been running for several months. How are they applying updates on such servers?

tunafish24
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    For Linux the mechanism is called kernel live patching https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/livepatch/livepatch.txt But I don't think it is possible to achieve a high level of availability on the long run without clustering as there are also things like hardware failures and human errors. – Henrik Pingel Apr 22 '20 at 11:59

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With Microsoft releasing updates every other Tuesday

It's actually the second Tuesday of every month, not every other Tuesday, unless things have changed that I'm not aware of.

do some companies go a month or more without applying patches?

If they do, they're monumentally foolish and negligent.

My two cents: Figure out a schedule that will allow you to install new updates every update cycle with the least disruption to your services. I personally wouldn't want to be in a position of being liable due to negligent patching.

joeqwerty
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