We performed a comparison between BMC TrueSight Network Automation and Chef based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."
"I can see that the patch management process is much improved with the bundled patch management option available in Microsoft Intune compared to the KPI deployment required by the other deployment solutions."
"It is a very helpful solution."
"Fortunately, now everything is streamlined into a single, unified platform."
"One of the best features is Windows Autopilot because if you change any of your devices, whatever security policies and compliance policies that applied can be easily migrated to the new devices. Windows Autopilot gives you that flexibility."
"The key benefit of Intune is its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem."
"The solution is easy to use, simple to understand for those new to using it, and combined with the other Microsoft products it makes for an overall good package."
"Compliance and the policies that can be set are the most valuable features."
"This product has helped us because we can now do many tasks at once. Rather than copy one file to one device, we can do an entire group at one time."
"The log audit and historical configurations are the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of BMC TrueSight Network Automation is compliance management, configuration backup, and configuration management."
"It is helpful if you schedule daily or weekly archiving for your config groups. Then, you can go by what are in those configuration groups, before and after, if you make changes. So, configuration management is really helpful in network management."
"We use it to back up configurations so the configuration management is valuable for us."
"Depending on who's looking at the data, they need to configure that data in different ways, and the dashboards help us to do that better than what was previously available."
"It has the best automation features."
"The backup and restore configurations are really helpful for a number of network devices, as you can automate them, then know what changes have been done, who made the changes, etc. So, it's quite helpful in the network management area."
"If you're handy enough with DSL and you can present your own front-facing interface to your developers, then you can actually have a lot more granular control with Chef in operations over what developers can perform and what they can't."
"One thing that we've been able to do is a tiered permission model, allowing developers and their managers to perform their own operations in lower environments. This means a manager can go in and make changes to a whole environment, whereas a developer with less access may only be able to change individual components or be able to upgrade the version for software that they have control over."
"Chef is a great tool for an automation person who wants to do configuration management with infrastructure as a code."
"Stable and scalable configuration management and automation tool. Installing it is easy. Its most valuable feature is its compliance, e.g. it's very good."
"It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop."
"Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy."
"It is a well thought out product which integrates well with what developers and customers are looking for."
"I wanted to monitor a hybrid cloud environment, one using AWS and Azure. If I have to provision/orchestrate between multiple cloud platforms, I can use Chef as a one-stop solution, to broker between those cloud platforms and orchestrate around them, rather than going directly into each of the cloud-vendors' consoles."
"A new Intune feature allows application packaging, but it incurs additional licensing costs for a significant number of applications."
"The pricing could be improved."
"In terms of what can be improved, I am looking for better enhancements regarding Apple management, not only on the mobile device, but also on the laptop."
"I'm still playing around with it and haven't had any issues with the product yet, but support can definitely be improved."
"Microsoft Intune fails a lot when it comes to device compliance."
"In the next release, I would like a feature to be able to properly lock down the device. For example, if an attacker or somebody steals the phone, you can be sure that the pin cannot be broken."
"It would help if administrators could pinpoint the exact location of a stolen device to help law enforcement retrieve it and apprehend the suspect."
"The reporting needs to be a bit more interactive."
"It is tedious to scale the solution."
"I'd like to be able to get more devices into compliance with standards, but that means running additional rule sets and that takes time."
"I would like to see more device supported features, mostly on the new brands and models coming in. For any new version or model, it should be supported by the tool, especially the newest versions. For example, the newest devices, like Aruba Wireless, and routers need support from the tool."
"They need to have a single sign-on."
"BMC TrueSight Network Automation can improve by having a better UI. The overall quality of the UI could be better."
"I believe there could be new features in terms of the latest technology."
"The product should be expanded to include more hardware, beyond Cisco and Juniper devices."
"For customized compliance, it takes some effort to implement things. If the device configuration is quite complex, then you have to do quite number of customizations in the DNA tool for out-of-the-box compliance. These regular expressions have to be modified based on the requirements of the compliance."
"I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages."
"The AWS monitoring, AWS X-Ray, and some other features could be improved."
"I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten."
"It is an old technology."
"Chef could get better by being more widely available, adapting to different needs, and providing better documentation."
"I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation."
"There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based."
"I would also like to see more analytics and reporting features. Currently, the analytics and reporting features are limited. I'll have to start building my own custom solution with Power BI or Tableau or something like that. If it came with built-in analytics and reporting features that would be great."
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BMC TrueSight Network Automation is ranked 18th in Configuration Management with 10 reviews while Chef is ranked 16th in Configuration Management with 18 reviews. BMC TrueSight Network Automation is rated 7.8, while Chef is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of BMC TrueSight Network Automation writes "Helps with patching, OS upgrade, and security vulnerability management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Chef writes "Useful for large infrastructure, reliable, but steep learning cureve". BMC TrueSight Network Automation is most compared with Cisco DNA Center and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, whereas Chef is most compared with Jenkins, AWS Systems Manager, Microsoft Azure DevOps, Microsoft Configuration Manager and SaltStack. See our BMC TrueSight Network Automation vs. Chef report.
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