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TuxCare BlogWhen Live Patching Becomes a Checkbox: The Hidden Cost of Bundled IT Support Services
by Joao Correia
March 12, 2025 - Technical Evangelist
A concerning pattern has emerged: critical security technologies being reduced to mere line items on bloated service contracts. Live patching – a revolutionary approach that should eliminate downtime while maintaining security – has increasingly fallen victim to this troubling trend. Also called “rebootless patching,” what began as an innovative solution for maintaining system availability is now frequently bundled into comprehensive support packages, where its implementation often becomes an afterthought rather than a priority.
The Invoice Padding Phenomenon
Enterprise support agreements from major vendors often arrive with impressive-looking lists of included services. These extensive line items create the perception of comprehensive value, justifying premium price points that can run into thousands of dollars per system annually. However, a closer inspection frequently reveals a different reality – many of these bundled features deliver minimal practical benefit or address such niche scenarios that most organizations will never utilize them.
This “invoice padding” strategy serves two purposes for vendors: it artificially inflates the perceived value of the overall package and allows them to bundle services that would struggle to stand on their own merits. In many cases, rebootless patching has fallen into this second category – included as a bullet point rather than delivered as the essential security tool it should be.
Rebootless Live Patching: Feature or Fundamental Security Approach?
Live patching represents a fundamental shift in how we approach system security and availability. Rather than forcing the traditional choice between security (through regular patching) and uptime (by delaying updates), properly implemented rebootless patching eliminates this false dichotomy. Systems can remain continuously available while maintaining robust security postures – a genuine technological advancement with measurable business impact.
However, when major vendors bundle live patching capabilities within broader support agreements, they often implement these solutions as minimal viable features rather than comprehensive security approaches. The evidence is in the coverage statistics: when a live patching solution addresses only 5-10% of all vulnerabilities, as we see with Canonical’s Livepatch, it has clearly been relegated to “checkbox feature” status.
This approach fundamentally misrepresents the technology’s purpose. Rebootless live patching isn’t meant to be a partial solution or an occasional convenience – it’s designed to transform how organizations manage the constant stream of security vulnerabilities without disrupting critical operations.
The Double Devaluation
When support vendors bundle live patching as a minor feature within expensive packages while delivering only fractional coverage, they commit a double devaluation:
- They devalue the customer’s investment: Organizations pay premium prices for comprehensive support but receive only token implementation of key security technologies. In the case of a live patching service that addresses only a small percentage of vulnerabilities, customers still face the same fundamental challenges the technology was designed to solve – they must still schedule maintenance windows, endure downtime, and balance security against availability.
- They devalue the technology itself: By implementing live patching as a minimal feature rather than a comprehensive solution, vendors undermine the perception of its effectiveness in the broader market. The message becomes “live patching is a nice-to-have convenience” rather than “live patching is a transformative approach to system security.”
This devaluation has real consequences. Organizations that experience the limitations of bundled live patching solutions may dismiss the entire approach as ineffective, missing the opportunity to implement more comprehensive solutions that deliver on the technology’s full promise.
The Hidden Maintenance Tax
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this bundling approach is what we might call the “hidden maintenance tax.” When organizations implement a live patching solution that addresses only a small fraction of vulnerabilities, they still face most of the same operational challenges they hoped to eliminate:
- IT teams must still schedule regular maintenance windows
- Critical systems still experience downtime for most security updates
- Organizations still face the difficult choice between timely security patching and system availability
In essence, these organizations pay a premium for live patching but still bear nearly the full operational cost of traditional patching approaches. The promise of continuous availability with continuous security remains largely unfulfilled.
Adding further injury, many bundled live patching solutions, like Canonical’s Livepatch, impose artificial limitations such as mandatory reboots after specified periods (e.g., 13 months). These constraints fundamentally contradict the core value proposition of live patching technology — removing the need for reboots and maintenance windows entirely.
The True Cost Calculation
When evaluating support agreements that include live patching, organizations should look beyond the impressive feature lists and ask more penetrating questions:
- What percentage of total CVEs does the live patching solution actually address? If the answer is only 5-10%, as with some major vendor offerings, the solution will have minimal impact on overall security operations.
- Are there hidden limitations that undermine the core benefit? Forced reboots after set periods, inability to roll back problematic patches without downtime, or coverage limited to only specific distributions can all significantly diminish the value.
- Would a dedicated solution provide better value? In many cases, standalone live patching solutions like KernelCare Enterprise deliver far more comprehensive protection (up to 100% of CVEs) at a fraction of the cost of bundled support packages.
The reality is that a properly implemented live patching solution should transform how organizations approach security updates – eliminating the disruptive cycle of scheduled maintenance windows and reboots while maintaining robust security. When live patching is reduced to a checkbox feature within a support agreement, this transformation fails to materialize, and organizations continue to bear the full operational burden of traditional patching.
Breaking Free from the Bundling Trap
Forward-thinking organizations are increasingly recognizing the shortcomings of bundled live patching solutions and seeking alternatives that deliver on the technology’s full promise. They’re asking harder questions about the actual coverage and limitations of included features and calculating the true operational cost of incomplete solutions.
The results often lead them to a dedicated live patching provider such as TuxCare, that specializes in delivering comprehensive protection across diverse environments and has been treating rebootless live patching as a core concern for many years. These specialized solutions typically provide:
- Near-complete vulnerability coverage (addressing up to 100% of CVEs)
- No artificial reboot requirements or time limitations
- Ability to roll back problematic patches without downtime
- Support for diverse Linux distributions and versions
- Coverage beyond just the kernel to include critical userspace components
Most importantly, these specialized solutions deliver what bundled options often only promise: true elimination of the traditional trade-off between security and availability.
Recognizing True Value in IT Support
The practice of padding support agreements with partially implemented features ultimately serves vendor interests rather than customer needs. When critical security technologies like live patching are reduced to checkbox items on lengthy feature lists, they fail to deliver their transformative potential.
Organizations serious about maximizing both security and availability should look beyond bundled support packages to solutions purpose-built for comprehensive protection. The difference isn’t just in technical coverage statistics – it’s in the fundamental transformation of security operations and the elimination of the hidden maintenance tax that partial solutions still impose.
When system availability directly impacts business success and security vulnerabilities emerge at an unprecedented pace, accepting token implementation of critical security technology is a compromise organizations can no longer afford. The true value of live patching isn’t as another line item on a support agreement – it’s in the operational transformation it enables when properly implemented.
