Device Grouping with Business Units

What Are Business Units?

Business Units are a foundational element of Adaptiva's system, designed to help IT administrators logically group devices and resources. Business Units in OneSite Patch give administrators the power to group devices in logical, hierarchical structures. These groupings can be organized by geographic location, department, or business function, allowing for tailored management of policies, settings, and patch deployments.

Each Business Unit can have its own configurations, such as rollout processes, interaction settings, and evaluation schedules. Additionally, settings can be inherited from parent Business Units, reducing repetitive administrative tasks and ensuring consistency across the organization.

How Business Units Work

1. Creating and Managing Business Units

Administrators can create Business Units using several methods:

• Manually selecting devices.
• Defining scopes based on office locations, device groups, SQL queries, or sensors.

The flexibility of these methods ensures that every organization, regardless of complexity, can tailor Business Units to its unique requirements.

2. Hierarchical Structure

Business Units are arranged in a parent-child hierarchy, enabling cascading inheritance of settings. For example:

• Parent Business Units can define global policies.
• Child Business Units inherit these policies but can also apply additional configurations specific to their scope.

This structure reduces duplication of effort and simplifies management across large organizations.

3. Membership Evaluation

Dynamic Business Units can update their membership based on predefined schedules. This is particularly useful for:

• Devices that move between locations.
• Memberships determined by sensor data or SQL queries.

Evaluation schedules ensure that Business Units always reflect the current state of the organization’s devices.

Efficient Device Group Management

1. Organizational Efficiency

By grouping devices into logical units, administrators can easily manage policies and deployments without individually configuring each device. This structure simplifies workflows and ensures consistency across all managed endpoints.

2. Tailored Management

Each Business Unit can have unique settings, including:

• Rollout processes that determine how patches are deployed.
• Maintenance windows to minimize disruptions.
• Approval chains to maintain oversight and compliance.

This customization ensures that patching strategies align with the needs of specific departments or locations.

3. Reduced Administrative Burden

The hierarchical inheritance of settings eliminates the need to replicate configurations manually across multiple units. Once a policy is defined at the parent level, it applies automatically to all child Business Units.

4. Scalability

Business Units make it easier to manage thousands of devices across global enterprises. As organizations grow, new devices or locations can be seamlessly integrated into the existing hierarchy.

Key Capabilities of Business Units

Scopes: Scopes determine which devices belong to a Business Unit. Options include:

• Locations: Define membership based on office IP ranges or geographic boundaries.
• SQL Queries: Use database queries to identify devices.
• Sensors: Leverage Adaptiva’s sensor-based inventory for dynamic membership.
• Device Groups: Manually select devices or combine groups for advanced logic.

This flexibility ensures every Business Unit aligns with real-world organizational needs.

Rollout Processes: Rollout processes control how patches are deployed. These can include:

• Load leveling.
• Staggered deployments.
• Automated workflows for high-availability systems.

For instance, in environments with high-availability devices, the process ensures one device is fully updated before the next is patched. This approach minimizes disruptions while maintaining patch consistency.

Maintenance Windows: Maintenance windows limit updates to specific timeframes, ensuring that end-user productivity or critical systems are not impacted during business hours.

Approval Chains: Approval chains add an additional layer of oversight by requiring sign-off from designated roles or departments before deploying patches. This feature helps organizations meet compliance requirements and maintain control over sensitive deployments.

Set it and Forget It

What sets Business Units in OneSite Patch apart is their seamless integration with Adaptiva's broader platform. Features such as dynamic membership evaluation, intelligent workflows, and robust inheritance models ensure that patching processes are both efficient and scalable.

Unlike other solutions that require manual configuration for each patch or device, OneSite Patch allows you to define rules once and apply them consistently across your organization. This "set it and forget it" approach reduces the time and effort needed to manage complex environments.

Accelerating Deployments with Content Prestaging

Content Prestaging in Business Units is another standout feature. It ensures that deployment content is sent to devices ahead of time, reducing deployment delays and network strain. There are two options:

• Server Content Push: Sends content to designated sources for distribution.
• Client Content Pull: Allows devices to download and cache content before deployment.

This capability minimizes the risk of missing service windows and ensures a smooth, uninterrupted deployment process.

Reducing Manual Workloads with OneSite Patch

For organizations managing large and diverse environments, Business Units are indispensable. They simplify patch management by:

• Reducing manual work with automated configurations and dynamic memberships.
• Providing tailored deployment processes that fit specific business needs.
• Ensuring consistency and control through hierarchical inheritance and approval workflows.

With Business Units in OneSite Patch, IT teams can focus on strategic priorities instead of repetitive administrative tasks.

Ready to Optimize Your Patch Management?

Business Units in OneSite Patch bring order, precision, and efficiency to patch management, making it easier than ever to secure and maintain large IT environments. To learn more about how autonomous patching can transform your patch management strategy, take a look at OneSite Patch or talk to one of our engineers. You can also explore more about setting up business units in our technical library.