I have been working towards improving our monthly Windows Server update process. The goal is to remove as much of the manual process as possible. Our process has been 1) Present updates to servers via WSUS 2) Manually reboot 3) Manually check that the server has come back up after the reboot. I have setup SCCM 2012 SP1 to deploy software to the servers and they now reboot during the maintenance windows. There still exists the possibility though, as it did with GPO/auto-approvals in WSUS, that the server doesn't come back up after the reboot. That the server comes up in some partial state.
What is some automated way to be notified of a server that isn't in a 100% up state? Would monitoring services be the best? Should I try to script, or buy, something that will have interactive or non-interactive RDP logons in a batch of servers? What have you guys done to reduce the manual work and increase your confidence that your servers have came back up cleanly after monthly updates?
