Efficient Software Distribution instead of Update Stagnation

The challenge of bringing installed software products to a uniform status on all OT clients and also keeping them there is personnel- and time-intensive for many manufacturing companies and often hardly manageable. In the case of the car manufacturer, too, the trainer administration came into play. Instead of a central and automated software administration, the specialized staff in production was busy going from OT client to OT client and installing corresponding software updates.

Due to the high time expenditure, necessary security updates were delayed, which posed a considerable security risk for the group. The sneaker administration also meant that there was no holistic overview of the installed software versions on the OT clients. The global introduction of ondeso SR solved this problem and there is now both an up-to-date overview of the installed software products and versions as well as a uniform virus scanner version.

The automotive group initially decided to implement it in a production area with 200 OT clients in a plant in Hungary. Our software ondeso SR was already known to the OT managers, as it has been used worldwide within the group since 2018.

Together with ondeso’s professional services team, the asset inventory function of ondeso SR was started. All OT clients were inventoried to obtain an overview of the industrial IT infrastructure and to determine the information on the currently installed virus scanner version of the OT clients. If necessary, the versions were then automatically updated in a second step. So-called Operations from ondeso SR, which are automated workflows, were used for this. This meant that the manual software distribution process could be completely automated, saving the group valuable time and sources of error.

With the automatic reporting, all executed installations could be tracked in detail after completion. This makes it possible to see which software was installed in which version.

Thanks to ondeso SR, the group received a clear overview of the installed software versions of the OT clients in a very short time and was able to completely standardize them. The implementation in other plants is currently being planned. „Thanks to the automated software distribution via ondeso SR, our customer has minimized the manual effort and now has more time for other important tasks,“ says Christoph Ackermann, Head of Professional Services and responsible OT consultant for this project.

„In addition, the asset inventory carried out makes it easier for him to continue managing the OT clients.“ With this project, the automotive group is taking another important step towards increasing security in production.

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