Customer Testimonials

We have multiple departments at University of York, many of which run their own IT systems, and these departments were in need of a robust patching solution for both managed and unmanaged machines. Microsoft’s WSUS comes as part of our University Select Agreement, but WSUS is limited and does not provide the application coverage we need. Different software tools are used by different departments to resolve and manage the patching process, such as custom-built scripts, in order to handle applications not supported by WSUS - which add to IT cost and resources.

I had experience with UpdateEXPERT at my previous employer, but after learning UE was now owned by Shavlik we investigated Shavlik NetChk Protect. We found that Shavlik NetChk Protect is fast, efficient, and simple to use – which is critical to our environment as we have multiple IT staff members with varying levels of experience, all of whom support the patching process. And the fact that we didn’t have to install new agents on our systems in order to patch them was an added bonus.

We also discovered that our VMware solution also contains the Shavlik security engine inside, so we are pleased that the same technology driving security for our physical machines, is also driving our virtual security patching.

We were also invited to participate in the beta program for the latest release, Shavlik NetChk Protect 6.0, and were pleased to see immediate results from our feedback on new features. The most important new feature of Protect 6.0 is Custom Patch – this capability is critical for York University as we must support multiple applications, many of which may not be supported by Shavlik NetChk out-of-the-box. The Custom Patch feature allows us to easily create a patch and then deploy it using the standard NetChk Protect remediation process. In addition to patches, we can also deploy non-standard applications using NetChk Protect – many departments have in-house applications for teaching, research, or other that must be deployed and supported, and Shavlik NetChk Protect will deploy and patch these applications as well.

--Pritpal S. Rehal, Senior IT Systems Administrator for University of York

"Now that we have implemented Shavlik NetChk® Protect, I can go to Herrington & Carmichael management and state with a high degree of confidence that our computers are patched and protected. This was something I did not feel comfortable doing before we implemented Shavlik NetChk Protect."

--Jason Quilliam, IT Manager for Herrington & Carmichael

"On a day to day basis, Shavlik NetChk Protect is also simple to manage. It doesn't require a lot of babysitting. It also provides lots of options for how patches should be deployed, including hidden deployments, automated or scheduled reboots, and offering end users a snooze button. It's obvious Shavlik developers have used this product and taken feedback from people who have used it. Additionally, the product's integration with Active Directory makes it an easy choice for a Windows-centric environment like CDW's."

"In addition, the advanced reporting capabilities provided by Shavlik NetChk Protect provide CDW with a more accurate view of their overall security posture, allowing the CDW security team to more easily mandate and enforce stricter compliance to security policy across the enterprise."

--Min Ju, Manager of Information Security, CDW

"Our needs were not being met through the use of WSUS and other free security tools. Not only were our users experiencing downtime, but after recently conducting a full system assessment we discovered that 80% of required patches and updates had not been applied to our systems. The Shavlik solution provides us with the a simpler, more streamlined way to fully assess, remediate and manage our widely distributed network with the ease of use, accuracy and completeness required to maintain full system health and availability. And it's extremely valuable to our efforts when we can call Shavlik support and immediately talk to a live person with solid security expertise."

--Frank Paterno, Chief Information Officer for Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens.

"When we went in search of a patch management solution, speed was of the essence. We needed to find a viable patch management solution quickly. As we performed our review of existing patch management solutions, it immediately became clear that Shavlik NetChk Protect was head and shoulders above other solutions in the market. In a short trial period, Shavlik NetChk Protect proved itself right away. It just worked."

--Steve Shuttleworth, Head of IT Services, Chiron (now a part of Novartis Pharmaceuticals)

"We are a former UE customer and have just migrated to Shavlik NetChk. Our experience with NetChk for patch management has been a very positive one for the simple reason that the Shavlik product just works. I no longer feel the need to baby-sit patch deployments. If a critical patch needs to be deployed during the middle of the night, I can be confident that it will be successful. And when there is a need to micro-manage a job, I especially like NetChk's "In Process" reporting that provides up-to-the-minute deployment status throughout the cycle."

--Mike Edmondson, Senior Systems Engineer, IT Operations, Intervoice, Inc.

"We were very impressed with the enterprise capabilities of Shavlik NetChk Protect. Out of ten competing products, Shavlik's was the only solution that could deliver the capabilities we required for our highly distributed environment, 40% of which represent laptop users spread across the globe."

--Adrian Phillips, Leader of Microsoft Services, PMC-Sierra

"We are a former UE customer and just migrated to NetChk Protect. The Shavlik support team is friendly, professional, and knowledgeable, and we experienced minimal hold times - which was critical to us as we just migrated to new software and were faced with pushing out the DST patch to almost 700 users - the product is extremely easy to use and everything went very smoothly."

"Patch management is even more important now than when we first rolled out Shavlik NetChk Protect into our organization. Five years ago, we did not view patch management as a necessity. However, over time we have seen the risk unpatched computers present to our network security and availability. We clearly recognize the benefits that Shavlik NetChk Protect provides in our environment. After we introduced Shavlik NetChk Protect, we were able to better protect the security and availability of the Yule Catto network without increasing our IT staff levels. We could not have done this without the Shavlik NetChk Protect solution."

--Richard Ling, Division IT Manager, Yule Catto & Company

"Our team manages numerous desktop applications, such as Adobe, Java, and QuickTime, which have required us to devote the equivalent of two full time employees, continually applying patches to these applications manually. We chose the Shavlik solution because, out-of-the-box, it provides us with the support we need to auto-deploy patches to these applications, and we expect that, once fully deployed, NetChk Protect will allow us to reduce this resource allocation by almost 90% and significantly shorten our window of risk. Additional savings are being recognized due to Shavlik NetChk's ease of use - we can now assign our entry level system administrators to manage the patch process and focus our senior engineers on projects that drive our business."

--Hal Armstrong, IS Technology Manager, Manitowoc Company, Inc.

"Thanks for making a no brainer product. You guys let me go home at night during patch week."

--Mark T. Iwankow B.Sc. MCSE CCNP, Senior Information Technology Specialist, Guardian Telecom Inc.