What's new in Azure Update Manager
Azure Update Manager helps you manage and govern updates for all your machines. You can monitor Windows and Linux update compliance across your deployments in Azure, on-premises, and on the other cloud platforms from a single dashboard. This article summarizes new releases and features in Azure Update Manager.
November 2024
Hotpatching (preview) on Arc-enabled machines
Public preview: Azure Update Manager now supports Hotpatching on Arc enabled servers. Learn more.
August 2024
Support for 35 CIS images added along with 59 other images
Azure Update Manager now supports CIS images along with 59 other popular images. For more information, see the latest list of supported images.
Pre and Post events
General Availability: Azure Update Manager now supports creating and managing pre and post events on scheduled maintenance configurations. Learn more.
July 2024
Support for Windows IoT Enterprise on Arc enabled servers
Public preview: Azure Update Manager now supports Windows IoT Enterprise on Arc enabled servers. For more information, see supported Windows IoT enterprise releases.
June 2024
New region support
General Availability: Azure Update Manager is now supported in US Government and Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet. Learn more.
May 2024
Migration portal experience and scripts: Generally Available
Azure Update Manager offers migration portal experience and automated migration scripts to move machines and schedules from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager. Learn more
Updates blade in Azure Update Manager: Generally Available
The purpose of this new blade is to present information from Updates pivot instead of machines. It would be useful for Central IT admins, Security admins who care about vulnerabilities in the system and want to act on them by applying updates. Learn more.
April 2024
Added support for new VM images
Support for ubuntu pro 22.04 gen1 and gen2, redhat 8.8, centos-hpc 7.1 and 7.3, oracle8 has been added. For more information, see support matrix for the latest list of supported VM images.
New region support
Azure Update Manager (preview) is now supported in US Government and Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet. Learn more
February 2024
Billing enabled for Arc-enabled severs
Billing has been enabled for Arc-enabled servers, starting from February. Azure Update Manager is charged $5/server/month (assuming 31 days of connected usage). It's charged at a daily prorated value. Refer to FAQs for pricing here.
Migration scripts to move machines and schedules from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager (preview)
Migration scripts allow you to move all machines and schedules in an automation account from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Management in an automated fashion. Learn more.
Updates blade in Azure Update Manager (preview)
The purpose of this new blade is to present information from Updates pivot instead of machines. It would be useful for Central IT admins, Security admins who care about vulnerabilities in the system and want to act on them by applying updates. Learn more.
December 2023
Pre and Post Events (preview)
Azure Update Manager allows you to create and manage pre and post events on scheduled maintenance configurations. Learn more.
November 2023
Alerting (preview)
Azure Update Manager allows you to enable alerts to address events as captured in updates data. Learn more.
Azure Stack HCI patching
Azure Update Manager allows you to patch Azure Stack HCI cluster. Learn more
October 2023
Azure Migrate, Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery VMs support
Azure Update Manager now supports specialized VMs including the VMs created by Azure Migrate, Azure Backup, and Azure Site Recovery. Learn more.
September 2023
Azure Update Manager is now Generally Available.
For more information, see the announcement.
August 2023
Service rebranding
Update management center is now rebranded as Azure Update Manager.
New region support
Azure Update Manager is now available in Canada East and Sweden Central regions for Arc-enabled servers. Learn more.
SQL Server patching
SQL Server patching allows you to patch SQL Servers. You can now manage and govern updates for all your SQL Servers using the patching capabilities provided by Azure Update Manager. Learn more.
July 2023
Dynamic scope
Dynamic scope is an advanced capability of schedule patching. You can now create a group of machines based on a schedule and apply patches on those machines at scale. Learn more.
May 2023
Customized image support
Update Manager now supports generalized custom images, and a combination of offer, publisher, and SKU for Marketplace/PIR images. See the list of supported operating systems.
Multi-subscription support
The limit on the number of subscriptions that you can manage to use the Update Manager portal has now been removed. You can now manage all your subscriptions using the Update Manager portal.
April 2023
New prerequisite for scheduled patching
A new patch orchestration - Customer Managed Schedules (Preview) is introduced as a prerequisite to enable scheduled patching on Azure VMs. The new patch enables the Azure-orchestrated and BypassPlatformSafteyChecksOnUserSchedule VM properties on your behalf after receiving the consent. Learn more.
Important
For a seamless scheduled patching experience, we recommend that for all Azure VMs, you update the patch orchestration to Customer Managed Schedules (Preview) by 30th June 2023. If you fail to update the patch orchestration by 30th June 2023, you can experience a disruption in business continuity because the schedules will fail to patch the VMs.
November 2022
New region support
Update Manager now supports new five regions for Azure Arc-enabled servers. Learn more.
October 2022
Improved on-boarding experience
You can now enable periodic assessment for your machines at scale using Policy or from the portal.
Next steps
- Learn more about supported regions.