# SUS06-BP02 Keep your workload up-to-date
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 Up-to-date operating systems, libraries, and applications can improve workload efficiency and enable easier adoption of more efficient technologies. Up-to-date software might also include features to measure the sustainability impact of your workload more accurately, as vendors deliver features to meet their own sustainability goals. 

 **Common anti-patterns:** 
+  You assume your current architecture will become static with no updates over time. 
+  You do not have any systems or a regular cadence to evaluate if updated software and packages are compatible with your workload. 
+  You introduce architecture changes over time without justification. 

 **Benefits of establishing this best practice:** By establishing a process to keep your workload up to date, you will be able to adopt new features and capabilities, resolve issues, and improve workload efficiency.

 **Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established:** Low 

## Implementation guidance
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+  Define a process and a schedule to evaluate new features or instances for your workload. Take advantage of agility in the cloud to quickly test how new features can improve your workload to: 
  +  Reduce sustainability impacts. 
  +  Gain performance efficiencies. 
  +  Remove barriers for a planned improvement. 
  +  Improve your ability to measure and manage sustainability impacts. 
+  Inventory your workload software and architecture and identify components that need to be updated. You can use [AWS Systems Manager Inventory](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-inventory.html) to collect operating system (OS), application, and instance metadata from your Amazon EC2 instances and quickly understand which instances are running the software and configurations required by your software policy and which instances need to be updated. 
+  Understand how to update the components of your workload.     
[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/2022-03-31/framework/sus_sus_dev_a3.html)
+  Use automation for the update process to reduce the level of effort to deploy new features and limit errors caused by manual processes. Use tools such as [AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-patch.html) to automate the process of system updates, and schedule the activity using [AWS Systems Manager Maintenance Windows](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-maintenance.html). 

## Resources
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 **Related documents:** 
+  [AWS Architecture Center](https://aws.amazon.com/architecture) 
+  [What's New with AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/new/?ref=wellarchitected&ref=wellarchitected) 
+  [AWS Developer Tools](https://aws.amazon.com/products/developer-tools/) 
+  [AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-patch.html) 

 **Related examples:** 
+  [Well-Architected Labs: Inventory and Patch Management](https://wellarchitectedlabs.com/operational-excellence/100_labs/100_inventory_patch_management/) 
+  [Lab: AWS Systems Manager](https://mng.workshop.aws/ssm.html)