What is patch coverage?

Answer 1

Patches are typically small updates to some software that either fix a security flaw or another functional flaw in part of the software. They are usually one or a few files that are changed to fix the flaw by replacing older versions of these files. Another kind of much larger patch is called a service pack and this usually is just a wrapping together of the changes that were previously made by smaller patches into a larger package. Software products exist to manage the patching process on larger groups of machines for network administrators. These products typically try to focus their "patch coverage" on the most commonly exploited (for the security flaws patches) or used products that require patches on these networks, most commonly for Windows networks. Patch coverage is related to the number of products patched by the management software.