Introduction to Landscape
Landscape is a system management tool designed to let you easily manage multiple Ubuntu systems - up to 40,000 with a single Landscape instance. From a single dashboard you can apply package updates and perform other administrative tasks on many machines. You can categorize machines by group, and manage each group separately. You can make changes to targeted machines even when they are offline; the changes will be applied next time they start. Landscape lets you create scripts to automate routine work such as starting and stopping services and performing backups. It lets you use both common Ubuntu repositories and any custom repositories you may create for your own computers. Landscape is particularly adept at security updates; it can highlight newly available packages that involve security fixes so they can be applied quickly.
Landscape is available in two flavors, as a SaaS service or as a On-Premises standalone version. The SaaS variant, found at at landscape.canonical.com can be used as a hosted service part of a Ubuntu Advantage subscription. Landscape On-Premises is meant for those wanting to have the server installed and managed by themselves, on dedicated hardware.
The main difference between the two flavors of Landscape is that On-Premises has repository management. In general, the SaaS version receives new features first. Therefore, there is the possibility for differences between the two versions. The base code is the same, but the SaaS version might get new features and bug fixes faster than Landscape On-Premises.