BigFix Reviews

We rely on BigFix to provide patch remediations in conjunction with instant response engagements that we have. Once CyFIR finds a problem, we tend to leverage BigFix to automate the solution across the entire environment.

We rely on BigFix as part of our consulting engagements. It's more efficient from a visibility and discovery standpoint on the initial phase, the consulting engagement. It also increases our efficiencies on the remediation phase of our engagements. 

We use it to compare the current state of patch and diff that with where it should be and to also push CVE patches and things out that are specific to a problem we have found. 

The combination of CyFIR and BigFix has allowed one of our major customers, one of the top Fortune 50 financial firms in the world, to reduce their forensic investigator count by about 4 FTE with the combination of CyFIR and BigFix.

Compared to SCCM it's much more robust, much more capable, and you can be much more targeted with SCCM. The challenge with SCCM is it doesn't have much of a discovery module so if we're going in blind to a network, we really want to know what's there, not what they think is there. BigFix provides us that picture.

With BigFix, the ability to do device discovery and the installation of our CyFIR agent across the environment is a very autonomous, automatic-type function that is a very significant feature for us. We combine CyFIR and BigFix to provide a total cybersecurity solution, including computer forensics disk imaging, memory analysis imaging. As part of that, we tend to leverage BigFix from the remediation side and from the installation side. 

The peer to peer file transfers as a solution are fine. 

I'd like to see better API integration with BigFix. We have some tremendous API capability inside of CyFIR and the ability to take textual search results, for example, and bring that back into the BigFix dashboard. This would be of extreme interest to us and our customers. 

It's very stable. 

Scalability is very good. 

Their technical support is very responsive. 

We're always looking for innovation and the most efficient and effective way to serve our client base. BigFix came up on our radar as part of that continual enhancement search.

From our perspective, it's pretty easy engagement. It's not just for our network, we use this for our engagements with our clients so the complexity is typically not introduced by BigFix but by the customer client networks and their specific requirements.

We implemented it ourselves. 

The fewer consulting hours that we spend is ROI for us. BigFix enables us to produce maximum results.

I would rate it a 9.5 out of ten. It's pretty close to being perfect. It's stellar.

We use this solution to import management across all of our stores, desktops and server infrastructures.

Having higher visibility on patching level, on patching successful, and non-successful has been a way that BigFix has improved my organization. Also, the ability to customize the content to do what we need it to do is very powerful and very flexible for us. Finally, in the area of custom interfaces, like REST API, really gives us the ability to provide for our external customers.

It has immensely helped to reduce network traffic when it comes to downloading patches. Downloading once and distributing to all endpoints applicable greatly reduces bandwidth.

The most valuable feature is the ability to make the platform do almost anything you want it to do. Out-of-the-box features are very powerful, but with creativity you can make the platform do almost anything you want it to do.

I would like to see more flexibility on how queries are run through the API. We've got some of our desktop customers that use the API to query a lot, and that actually impacts our server automation plan sometimes. On a day when they might be heavily querying and it hits a web report server, that messes with our server automation plans and the reporting for it. The server automation should be hitting the actual BigFix database versus the web reports.

I would also like to see improvement on configuring where the logs go. It's been annoying for both of our desktop teams. Even on the Linux side, we should be able to set the property to have the logs go to a different location. It's annoying because sometimes if you need to clear out the best data you end up losing all the logs. You can try to save it off but it's an extra step. If you try to move those logs ahead of time with the client property it shouldn't be an issue, install the BigFix agent into a nonstandard location. It's important for some of our UNIX endpoints who don't give enough space. It should be supported from the install, out of the box.

It'll scale almost as big as you need it. You just throw hardware at it.

In regards to technical support, level 2 is very helpful, but when things need to get more visibility you can get their core developers to help which is really helpful.

The initial setup was complex. There are a lot of steps to set it up, at least on the Linux side.

License management isn't quite as easy as it should be to deal with the licensing. You need to take the server down to import the new licenses which I find to be annoying. 

I would rate it a nine out of ten. It's incredibly flexible. I've managed and worked with several endpoint management solutions like ITMS, or ZENworks. I haven't worked with SCCM, but it's like if SCCM was a Ferrari, BixFix is an incredibly tweak-able, tunable, indie car. It can do a lot of cool stuff but you have to tweak it, and you have to know how to use it. 

I would advise someone considering this solution to throw out all of your expectation on how you think things need to work. Throw out how you did things before. Don't try to shoehorn what you did before into a product you might move to because it's probably going to do things better than you did before. 

We use it for patching our AIX servers and we also use it for deploying and up keeping our Tivoli workload scheduler application.

We've been able to fully automate our TWS installs, to the point where a user requests it and we don't do anything. Also, our upgrades are much more refined than the manual processes we did before.

The most valuable feature for us is the ability to manage TWS, the relevance is really what sets it apart. Also, using it as a software deployment tool is the key for us.

I'm looking for them to make big web UI improvements.

Stability is very good. We've had very little downtime.

Scalability is very good. We're a smaller client in the BigFix realm. We're 4,500 clients around just the servers but it's very good for us.

Technical support has been good. When IBM first took over it was kind of rocky but in the last few years, it's definitely improved.

The initial setup was very straight forward and very easy to set up.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. It's very useful, very powerful, and you can do a lot with it. 

I would tell a colleague who's considering this solution to check it out, it's great.

Our primary use case is for content automation and application delivery.

The use of fast query has been extremely valuable providing insight in real time of the endpoints.

Reliability of the agent and the ability to troubleshoot actions after they've been taken are the most valuable features. 

The self-service application seems to need some work to replace the client UI. There are a lot of pop-ups if you use a baseline as the object that you're setting to a workstation. Unless you're using web UI, the message is not customizable in the user notification.

The stability is good overall. 

The scalability seems to be fine. 

I have to contact technical support infrequently, which is good. When I have to use them, I do get responses in a relatively timely manner.

Our previous solution was extremely unstable. We had a lot of downtime and the inability to reach clients. We ended up choosing BigFix because it was already in an aspect of our organization, and so it was easy to adopt for our endpoints.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. The applications are stable, although at times a little dated on how they display information or how they chunk through information. It's stable and it functions.

The best advice I can give is to reach out to the user community when you're running into trouble. You'll find a lot of the answers have already been asked and answered for you on the forums.

Our primary use case is for endpoint configuration management.

Our patch cycles are much faster. They usually all happen within a few days or less.

The most valuable feature is the patching. 

It's much more flexible than SCCM. There are more things we can do and especially the cross-platform support is better. 

It actually increased network traffic. Microsoft and Apple have incredibly large downloads, so when you're downloading to thousands of machines it's huge.

I would like to see more emphasis on using the web console, to have the same power as the full fat client console that they do they now. It's a lighter way to log in and it would be faster for our operators to do their work. The console tends to take a long time for a large number of clients.

It's stable. I've been running it for more than ten years and it's generally pretty good. 

Scalability is very good. It's scaled to our current needs.

Their technical support is decent. 

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We implement in-house. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I would advise a colleague considering this solution to definitely understand what your needs are and see if the product meets those needs. Don't try to shoehorn your needs into a tool.

Primarily my clients use it for being able to not only patch but also to be able to detect and remediate vulnerabilities in their environment. In addition, to be able to provide an accurate inventory of both the hardware and software of what they currently have deployed.

Some of my clients have gone from it taking months to be able to get through a patch cycle or to discover what's out there, down to days. A lot of it's been over a 90% improvement.

BigFix is incredibly fast and accurate in patching, reporting, and remediation.

• More integration with external data
• Extending the reporting capabilities
• Integration with some of the service ticket providers

The solution is extremely stable and it communicates very well.

Their support is very good. 

We had one of our clients with over 30,000 endpoints, and within two days all of those 30,000 endpoints were installed and reporting back, and they were ready to patch. Installation is fairly simple.

We always were able to get our client the best cost from the vendor, so pricing was not really an issue.

We also evaluated Microsoft. BigFix was more accurate in the reporting, the patching, and overall functionality.

I would rate it ten out of ten for reliability, dependability, and being able to get the job done the first time around. 

Try it in a test run, you'll be really satisfied with the results.

We use this solution for patch management and software distribution.

Initially, for the customers that we consult for,  their IT Security and IT Operations units were working in silos, especially with regards to patch management and vulnerability and compliance reporting. BigFix effectively bridged the gap between both teams while providing a single robust reporting interface for both teams.

Compliance is the most valuable feature. It allows you to build custom policy checklist while leveraging recommended industry security compliance checklists e.g DISA-STIG, CIS, PCI-DSS

Upgrading from an Evaluation license to a production license is not error free. Managed endpoints still gets stuck with the evaluation masthead and as such would not let you execute actions outside the BigFix management client maintenance actions. This needs to be improved

It's very scalable. The highest I did was between 9000 to 11,000 networks and I didn't lose any performance with that.

I initially onboarded with Microsoft SCCM. The user interface leaves a lot to be desired, performance impact as you go above 10,000 endpoints and also maintenance tasks like setting up of distribution points are not available at the click of a button.

The initial setup is straight forward. I deployed it in around three weeks. I started with installing the servers and the primary relay, then I installed 2 relays per subnet,  made the relays deployment points and then installed the BigFix clients locally from the deployment points.

Compliance, and lifestyle are a bit pricey especially to customers that get SCCM included as part of their ELA. It's makes convincing harder.

I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and we will have a solution right away. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. To make it a ten they should improve on the issues stated above

I have various use cases for this solution. It has many varieties of infrastructure. For example, if you have a very high bandwidth in your network infrastructure, it will work very well. If it doesn't have an internet connection, it also works very well. If you have a lower bandwidth within your offices, it will also work very well. This is lacking in many other tools. 

My company provides support services to a lot of customers and companies. We have reduced a huge amount of man-effort. Along with the man-effort, we have reduced the timeline to fix the compliance and security gaps. We have an unbroken record. The documentation clearly says that we have done the patching of newly released patches, including Microsoft and third-party patches, in up to 80% of the computers, within 72 hours of the release of the production. That was a very massive benefit that we have seen. When I talk about the 80% endpoints, it is 100 or 200. I am talking about 25,000 endpoints.

There are 250,000 endpoint scans that can be handled by one single server. We can build a robust infrastructure within BigFix, which is a feature that other tools are lacking. Second, you can customize the tool. We can use the tool according to how we need it. By using IBM BigFix, we can get whatever we need done. All tools will have limitations but when compared to other solutions, BigFix has significantly fewer limitation. In terms of scalability, the limitations are in the data transfer from the main server to the regional servers, or regional endpoints, or the end users. It provides various aspects to what is endpoint protection management.

The first and foremost thing that I would like to see improved is the insight into the right-click menu context itself. The second thing is that IBM has sold IBM BigFix to another company. That's negative feedback that we can give them. For the next quarter, BigFix will not be a part of IBM. That's another drawback that we are going to see. 

I would request them to build robots, or an easier way for integration with other tools, like ITSM tools.

When it comes to stability, it is very stable and it has a robust infrastructure.

I have a good grip on this solution so I don't need to contact technical support for anything. 

When considering a solution the criteria we consider are the features, whether the specific tool provided by that vendor will cater to our services or our requirements. Second, we look into the credibility of the OEM. Third, is the cost.

The initial setup depends on the network infrastructure. Sometimes it will be very easy to implement, and sometimes it may become complex. I did the entire solution implementation in four hours but I took almost four months with another implementation because of the complexity. Sometimes it's straightforward, sometimes it's complex.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. It has great scalability and customization. It also has one console that can be used for many endpoint management tasks. I deducted two points because BigFix is not a brand that you can just use. It is not very user-friendly. You need to have some training before you use the tool.