Microsoft is currently on a comprehensive once-a-month release of security updates. Microsoft releases updates on the second Tuesday of each month. Immediately after each Microsoft release, Rackspace will proceed to test the updates internally. Once the updates have been tested and approved by our Engineering teams, Rackspace will update our systems.

The Rackspace update schedule for security updates, service packs, hot-fixes and hardware BIOS, firmware and drivers is:

1. Microsoft releases security bulletins on the second Tuesday of each month.
2. Rackspace will proceed to test the updates internally.
3. Once the updates have passed our internal QA, they will be approved for release on a monthly basis. Unless an issue is discovered that was not found during testing, all systems will have the updates applied before the next monthly release.

Application and Server updates

Any update that affects the web application framework (ASP.NET, ASP and SQL) will be communicated to customers before they are deployed to our environment. This is intended to allow customers proper time to test functional with existing code and make any adjustments necessary to function under the new updates.

Critical Updates

From time to time Microsoft determines that an update is too critical to wait for the regular update release (for example zero days exploit vulnerabilities). These updates are handled by Rackspace on a case by case basis. These emergency updates are applied within as quickly as possible from when they are released once they are verified with Microsoft as an immediate security risk. Customers will be notified of the scheduled critical update run at which time these updates become known.