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Smoke Testing Servers

Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied.

The process typically involves making sure servers are rebooted in the right order, making sure they have completely rebooted, restarting applications in the right order, and then testing to be certain everything is working properly when users return to work in the morning.

This typically takes 30 minutes per server, depending upon your environment.

PCs are not typically smoke tested, or if so, not all of them.

How To Estimate Hours

Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.

There are many variables to consider. Some are:

How long does it take you to download patches for each system/site?
Are you able to patch multiple systems in parallel?
How many software applications are you patching?
How many reboots are involved, etc.?
What kind of reporting must be completed to satisfy auditors and regulators? And how will you collect and document that information to prove compliance?

How To Estimate The Hourly Rate

You want to enter in a fully burdened labor rate for this field. What that means is that you want to take the base hourly rate, plus 25-30% for employer payroll taxes, benefits, vacation/holiday time, etc.

For example, someone making $80,000 per year will typically work 52 weeks of 40 hours, or 2080 hours. $80,000 divided by 2080 is $38.46/hour. Multiply that hourly rate by 1.3, and you get $50.00/hour. Of course, rates of pay, taxes and benefits will vary from city, state and company; but 30% is usually a good number to use. Don’t forget to account for time-and-a-half or after-hours rates of pay if patching is being done in the late evening, early morning, or weekends (in order to avoid impacting user productivity).

About The Cost Calculator

This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.

If you are presenting to management for a budget, and using this calculator as the basis for a Return on Investment (ROI), you will need to do more homework. An ROI measures as a ratio of the cost of investment against its expected benefit. For patching, calculating benefit can be very difficult to determine. How do you measure the cost of a system breach you have not yet had? You can estimate what expenses, penalties, and losses a company might incur when a breach occurs; but there is no certainty of a breach event and what those costs actually are. There are also regulatory compliance issues and/or potential fines for not patching, but those, too, can be vague. For calculating these potential risks and costs, it is advisable to enter into a discussion with your management team.

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Speaker Bio – Kevin McDonald

Kevin is a trusted technology and security practitioner and public policy advisor to some of America’s most influential people and organizations. He advises corporate executives, federal and state legislators, law enforcement, high net worth individuals and other business leaders. He is a sought after consultant, writer, presenter and trainer on the issues surrounding personal, physical and cyber security, compliance and advanced technology. Kevin has written for and been interviewed by dozens of national publications and on major television, radio and digital outlets.

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Investigator Lance Larson. Ph. D., – Lance Larson is a Cyber Investigator for the Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center (OCIAC), a Department of Homeland Security-funded fusion center. Lance has been a police officer with a law enforcement agency for nineteen years. During his tenure with the department, he has served multiple assignments including a role as the technical leader for the first online crimes against children sting in California, patrol, special investigations, and his current role helping to protect the cyber security infrastructure within Orange County at OCIAC. Dr. Larson holds a Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences – Information Systems management, is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), GIAC Certified Cybersecurity Incident Handler (GCIH) has authored two books, and teaches both undergraduate and graduate information systems and homeland security courses for the California State University System in San Diego.

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Search: patch management

Alvaka is available 24×7 to assist you with any of your cybersecurity needs. Fill out the form on this page or call us at (949)428-5000!

24x7x365 Rapid Response & Recovery

Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied.

CEO Message

Alvaka's Philosophy

Alvaka Facilities

Management Solutions

Services Overview

Ransomware Prevention

Ransomware Recovery

Infrastructure Monitoring

DFARS Compliance

NIST 800-171

Vulnerability Management as a Service

"Net" Solutions

AlvakaNet

NetPlan

NetSecure

Network Management Consulting

"Worx" Solutions

Software Patching

Backup & Disaster Restore

Advanced Email Security

Advanced Email Filtering

Staff Augmentation

Search: patch management

Alvaka is available 24×7 to assist you with any of your cybersecurity needs. Fill out the form on this page or call us at (949)428-5000!

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24x7x365 Rapid Response & Recovery

Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied.