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Overview of migration from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager

  • Article

Applies to: ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ On-premises environment ✔️ Azure Arc-enabled servers

This article provides guidance to move virtual machines from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager.

Azure Update Manager provides a SaaS solution to manage and govern software updates to Windows and Linux machines across Azure, on-premises, and multicloud environments. It's an evolution of Azure Automation Update management solution with new features and functionality, for assessment and deployment of software updates on a single machine or on multiple machines at scale.

Note

  • On 31 August 2024, both Azure Automation Update Management and the Log Analytics agent it uses have retired. If you are still using the Azure Automation Update Management solution, we recommend that you move to Azure Update Manager for your software update needs. Follow the guidance in this document to move your machines and schedules from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager. For more information, see the FAQs on retirement.
  • If you are still using Azure Automation Update Management Solution, we recommend that you don't remove the the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) agents from the machines before completing the migration to Azure Update Manager as the migration tools expect the agent to be installed on the machines to be migrated. Additionally, if you remove the MMA agent from the machine before moving to Azure Update Manager, it will break the Automation Update Management patching workflows for that machine.

Azure Update Manager has no dependency on either the Azure Monitor Agent(AMA) or MMA agents. as it relies on the Microsoft Azure Windows VM Agent or the Microsoft Azure Linux VM Agent for Azure VMs and the Azure connected machine agent for Arc-enabled servers. When you perform an update operation for the first time on a machine, an extension is pushed to the machine, and it interacts with the agents to assess missing updates and install updates.

We provide three methods to move from Automation Update Management to Azure Update Manager which are explained in detail in the links below:

Next steps