Patch Impacts

Patches are classified into four types based on their impacts. Each impact is described as follows:

Critical: Novell has determined that this type of patch is critical, and should be installed as soon as possible. Most of the recent security updates fall in this category. ZENworks Server automatically downloads and saves the patches that have critical impact.
Recommended: Novell has determined that this patch, although not critical or security related, is useful and should be applied to maintain the health of your computers. You should install patches that fall into this category.
Software Installers: These types of patches are software applications. Typically, this includes software installers. The patches show Not Patched if the application has not been installed on a machine.
Informational: This type of patch detects a condition that Novell has determined as informational. Informational patches are used for information only. There is no actual patch to be installed.

Novell ZENworks Patch Management impact terminology for its patch subscription closely follows the vendor impact terminology for patch criticality. Each operating system has a vendor-specific impact rating and that impact is mapped to a Novell rating as described in this section. Novell ZENworks Patch Management follows the recommendations of Lumension Security and increases or steps up the severity of the impact rating. For example, Microsoft classifications for “Critical”, “Important”, and “Moderate” patches are all classified as Critical by Novell.

Novell Patch Impacts	Windows	Other
Critical	Critical Security Important Moderate	NA
Recommended	Recommended Low Example: Microsoft Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail Filter Update	NA
Software Installers	Software Distribution Example: Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (Virus Removal)	Adobe 8.1 software installer
Informational	NA	NA

Source: Lumension Security