Cloud patches are essential for keeping your applications secure and up to date, but they can also disrupt your availability and performance. How do you balance the need for frequent patches with the risk of downtime and errors? Here are some tips to help you manage your cloud patching strategy.
Not all patches are equally critical or urgent. You need to evaluate the severity, impact, and relevance of each patch for your cloud environment. For example, you may want to prioritize patches that address high-risk vulnerabilities, compliance issues, or functional bugs. You also need to consider the compatibility and dependencies of each patch with your existing cloud infrastructure and applications. Some patches may require additional testing, configuration, or coordination before applying them.
Once you have identified your patch requirements, you need to plan your patch schedule. You want to avoid patching during peak hours, high-demand periods, or major events. You also want to align your patch schedule with your cloud provider's maintenance windows, if possible. You can use tools like calendars, alerts, or automation to keep track of your patch schedule and notify your team and stakeholders. You should also have a contingency plan in case of unexpected issues or delays.
Patch management tools can help you automate, monitor, and control your cloud patching process. They can scan your cloud environment for vulnerabilities, identify available patches, apply patches across multiple cloud platforms and services, and report on patch status and results. Some examples of patch management tools are AWS Systems Manager, Azure Automation, and Google Cloud Security Command Center. You can also use third-party tools like CloudBolt, Qualys, or Patch Manager Plus.
Before applying patches to your production environment, you should test them in a separate staging or development environment. This can help you verify the functionality, compatibility, and performance of your patches and avoid potential issues or conflicts. You should also have a backup and restore strategy in case you need to roll back a patch. You can use tools like snapshots, checkpoints, or version control to save and restore your cloud state.
In addition to isolating the patch in a testing or staging environment, I am very big on version control and infrastructure as code (IaC). IaC is a software code template that helps with version control and state management. You have AWS CloudFormation and Azure Resource Management. Terraform is one of the top cloud agnostic (not produced by a cloud provider). Having a template available to revert back to just in case the patch does not take is a great time saver. Then your cloud team can rollback the changes without it affecting any business operations.
After applying patches to your production environment, you should monitor their impact and effectiveness. You should use metrics and indicators like availability, latency, errors, throughput, and security incidents to measure your patch performance and identify any problems or anomalies. You should also collect feedback from your users, customers, and partners to evaluate their satisfaction and experience. You should document and review your patch results and lessons learned to improve your patching strategy.