The National Trust is saving up to £50,000 each time it applies a security patch to its widely dispersed IT systems by using remote management software.

The UK heritage charity has replaced manual processes for making changes to IT systems at its properties and sites located across the country.

Alan Mersom, National Trust IT systems management consultant, says the charity’s sites have limited bandwidth, which made it difficult to remotely update software and apply patches.

‘The main problem is that the Trust’s IT infrastructure is distributed across the UK and managed by region,’ said Mersom.

‘Each region had support analysts who received a CD to deploy patches. They then had to visit each site to install the package from the CD.

‘It was quite a long and costly process, which had a big impact on their workload. And we discovered it was costing £50,000, including travel, for each patching exercise.’

The National Trust applies about two patches a month.

Mersom says its ageing management software was not capable of delivering the necessary functionality.

The charity has replaced it with a client and server management suite from vendor Altiris.

The National Trust initially intended the software to be used just for patching, but has been able to employ it for more general functions.

‘We have a broad range of systems that need to be supported,’ said Mersom.

‘The transition from a patch management tool to a full management product came when we realised the cost of dedicated patch management tools wasn’t too dissimilar to that of a full management suite.’

He adds that reliable remote patch management distribution is allowing the Trust to make significant staff time and cost savings. The suite is also managing software updates, support and maintenance.

‘An ongoing, common desktop rollout of Windows XP across the Trust is at pilot stage at the moment,’ said Mersom.

‘We have found that, although it was not originally in the scope of the patch management investment, by using Altiris to deploy this desktop environment we are realising massive savings.’