KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Reviews

We have KACE SMA and KACE SDA. The SMA is to image all of our desktops. There are 3,000 desktops, and we use KACE SMA for Windows imaging and security patching and updates. We're using KACE SDA for our software library, so our client base can go to the software library and install software from there. We're using the support component and the trouble ticket system.

It increases security. We can target any machine or any device that is connected to it and update security if there is a vulnerability that comes out, especially this day of cyber attack. If we're notified by a vendor of vulnerabilities, we can push out an update within minutes. It has really increased the security of the network.

It is easy to use and pretty intuitive. It is pretty much a GUI interface. Its ease of use has affected the time to value because we can get our staff quickly up to speed on all of the components and how to support it best. Because it has a graphical user interface and is easy to use, it really decreases the training time and increases our efficiency in implementing things.

It provides a single pane of glass for everything that we need for endpoint management of all our devices, which has made things more secure. It gives us full visibility into every endpoint device that has the KACE agent on it.

It saves a lot of time. It has probably saved us a good month of person-time a year. It also saved a lot of training and a lot of lost productivity, not only for the technical staff but also for the staff, students, and faculty.

We also use KACE SDA, and it is fantastic for automating our deployments. We can literally push out an image to all 3,000 desktops at the same time and have everything imaged and done within three hours.

All of the features are valuable. We find everything we're using very valuable because they increase security and efficiency.

It is excellent in terms of updating and configuring everything the way we need. For anything more complex, we do professional service engagements, and they're exceptional. For anything less complex, we just need to ask questions. Their support division is extremely good too.

If we have any issues, we've had great success with their professional services team and their support team. Their technical support is excellent. They're very responsive and fast. Within an hour of initiating a support request, we've got somebody on it.

The only pain point I have is with their salespeople. They call too often. They're too aggressive in trying to upsell. We know what we need, and we know if we want to expand. I don't mind quarterly calls from them, but sometimes, it is weekly. They need to get their sales team under control. The main goal of their support people and professional services is to make sure they deliver the service, and they deliver it well, whereas their salespeople are so interested in making a sale that they're wasting my time. 

We did look at MDM, and I was misguided by their salespeople. When I talked to their tactical people, I found out that I hadn't been given the full picture on MDM, and it wouldn't have been what we wanted if we had moved forward with it. I really value their technical services, their professional services, and their support services, but their sales team needs to really up their game and not phone every week.

I have been using this solution for three years.

It is extremely stable. We've never had any downtime. There has never been any unexpected downtime with the KBOX, SDA, or SMA. They just seem to be extremely robust.

We're asking for it to be scalable for up to 10,000 end-user devices. When we purchased it, it was for 3,000 with scalability of up to 10,000. We haven't tried to scale up that much yet, but they say we're sized appropriately for that.

We use Quest's Premier Support for KACE solutions. The biggest value of having Premier Support is the response time. Their response time is phenomenal. We've never created a support ticket that they haven't responded to within an hour and resolved. They're professionals. Their support team is extremely knowledgeable. 

Their Premier Support has added value to our overall investment in the Quest solution. Their responsiveness and their technical skillsets are amazing.

Their Premier Support had an influence in purchasing additional licenses or additional products from Quest. We decided to customize the support desk component because the first implementation of just the standard SMA stuff was so good. We also implemented a Request for Change and a custom Request for Service based on how greatly satisfied we were with the KBOX, their support, and their professional services. If it wasn't for all of those three things, we wouldn't have looked at expanding.

We used Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). It just wasn't scalable enough for us, and it also wasn't customizable enough for us.

We used SCCM as well. It is much more complex, and it takes a lot of end-user training. That's why we decided to go with KACE.

After using other products, we want to stay with KACE. Earlier, we had a separate Request for Change application and a separate support system. We merged all those into KACE. It saved us a lot of money and a lot of time, and everything is central for our client base. They go to one spot in the self-service user portal, and everything is right there. This consolidation has probably saved us a couple hundred thousand a year. It is hard for us to do money points because anything that's Microsoft, such as MDT, SCCM, we get free through the Department of National Defense Microsoft Enterprise agreement. For us, there are no costs.

It was straightforward, but we did engage professional services.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we wanted the support component configured for all of our different support queues. We were asking for customizations, and it took about two weeks for the professional services person to implement them based on our requirements, but out of the box, everything is easy. We just had a bunch of customizations made.

We engaged professional services.

We have seen a return on investment. It is the fact that my IT staff can come quickly up to speed on the KACE appliance. It doesn't require a lot of in-depth training. It is fast to implement and get people trained on and able to support. It is also fast to get end-users using the self-service portal.

Based on other solutions that we had implemented, its pricing seems to be quite competitive. It is not inexpensive, but it is also not more expensive than any other solution. They have the standard licensing fees and support fees.

We evaluated several other solutions, including support desk solutions, and we settled on KACE just because of their ability to customize what we need. Their professional service is excellent, and so is their support, so we decided to go with KACE.

We found other municipal companies in the area that were using it, and we went and met with them to get their use cases and their experience. If anyone is looking into using it, I would recommend talking to people who have implemented it and seeing if it's going to meet their needs. I highly recommended it as a chosen solution, just for the fact that it's end-to-end. It's extremely robust and reliable, and their professional services and their support teams are stellar.

I would rate Quest KACE Systems Management a 10 out of 10.

We use it for a lot of things. We use it to deploy software, configure Windows via scripts, and to deploy some certificates for our customers. We are a call center and we have a lot of large companies as clients, so we need to deploy several kinds of software, such as Office 365 and applications from our customers themselves. We use a scripting framework from our consultants and that works great.

KACE SMA is the main software I'm using. I'm responsible for the KACE solution, and if there are any questions related to it, my colleagues come to me.

We have local KACE Appliances with VMware workstations, computers, servers, and we are using OVF files.

It saves a lot of time because, in the past, before we used KACE, when we installed a new version of a given software, we had to go to each computer individually and install it manually. Now we just set the labels and the software goes by itself. It also saves a lot of money because we have time to do other jobs.

We have seven locations. In the past, if we had to deploy new software or install user PCs, we had to drive with a large number of people to get the work done quickly. Now, we can deploy the software from one desktop. One person can do it and that saves a lot of time. It makes a lot of things easier. It has had a huge impact.

Another example of a benefit is that I developed a script because my CEO wanted to know how many computers are connected to our home office network from the outside. Every hour I run the script to import the information to an external SQL Server Express with a report engine. With the KACE, you can use information for other reports.

The most valuable feature is the software deployment. That's the main thing we use, daily, all day long.

It's also very intuitive and easy to handle. It's clearly structured. For example, we are still using Microsoft Intune as our MDM software. With Intune, you get lost very quickly, but with KACE SMA, it's clearly structured and easy to understand.

We handle our local computers within the company with it. We handle our home-office computers as well. We have about 3,000 computers in SMA and, currently, about 1,200 computers are in our home office with it. Everything goes, everything's possible, without problems. We couldn't ask for more. We are able to manage all of the devices in the solution's single pane of glass. We see our computers there.

It also does patch management. At the moment, I'm rolling out a new feature update, 20.8.2, and it's a great challenge because we have to deploy it to 1,200 computers in the home office. We want to do it without interrupting production, but KACE is reliable and it's easy to adapt it to my needs for how and when to deploy the feature update.

Another feature we use is the Systems Deployment Appliance. If we install new computers, we run a script within the SDA at the end of the installation and that installs the required software for the computer, depending on which department it is part of. "Customer A" needs this set of software and we have a system image for it. And for "Customer B" we have another image with other software. We just have to start the computer, choose the required image, and everything is done automatically. There is no need to configure it. We just deploy Windows and, when that's done, shut it down, bring it to the location, connect it, and it works. Some software needs some manual configuration because it's not scriptable, but about 95 percent is automated.

KACE.uservoice.com is a platform where users can post suggestions for improving the software. A lot of ideas that have ended up in the development of KACE have come from this. For example, in version 10.2 KACE implemented the possibility of reducing the network speed of the KACE agent. You can set it so that it takes whatever network speed you want or you can set it to 5 Mb, to save network speed. You set it for all the computers, but it would be preferable to separate between VPN connections in our home office and the local area. It would be great to be able to set separate speeds for different VLANs. I posted this idea on Uservoice.

I've been using Quest KACE Systems Management for five or six years.

There have been no problems. It has never crashed. If I hadn't had to update it, it would just run.

Scaling it is easy. Last year I increased the memory because we got a lot of new computers in our company and we added some new locations. I saw it was getting a little bit slower, but I added some more memory and it was easy to scale. If you need more RAM or more CPUs, just add them and the KACE will say, "Okay, I'll take them."

Currently, we don't have plans to increase our usage.

We use their standard technical support and our experience with them has been great. Every time I have asked them something it has been perfect. I get quick answers, especially from one of the Quest technicians in Cologne, Germany.

Before I came to the IT department, we used software from CA. It was a pain. But we switched because of the price. Also, the support wasn't that good from CA, as far as I remember. That was before my time. I moved to my current position after we shut down the CA software deployment.

The initial setup is very easy. Before we upgraded to the current version—from 10.2 to 11.0—I tried it here on my local virtual machine. It took about five minutes and the SMA was running. That was how long it took from starting the virtual machine until the moment I got to the login screen. The information from Quest itself in the support area of their webpage, and on YouTube, is very effective and informative. It's easy.

It takes a little more configuration after logging in, because you have to deploy the KACE agent and create a token. To get everything working, the grids, the configuration, with Active Directory, it might take about half a day until you can say, "Okay, the KACE is working. I've downloaded the test catalog. The KACE agent is deploying on the computers and the computers are coming into the database."

My team consists of three people, including me. One person is mainly taking care of the software installations. He's looking at whether there are any new versions. I am taking care of the feature updates and software deployment, and the third person is my apprentice.

Users of SMA in our company include our service desk, our client and service first-level support. A total of about 20 people from our IT department.

The initial setup was done with our consultant, Stephan Sporrer, from OFF LIMITS IT. At that time it took five days, but at that time we also scripted all the software installations we have. He also taught us how to use it.

Setup took longer the first time because he had to teach us the whole system. Now, if I had to set up a whole new environment, it would take half a day because I know how it works.

The pricing and licensing are absolutely fair.

As far as I know there are no other costs that come with using it. It's just the licenses for the KACE based on the number of computers. Our VMware servers already existed, so there were no other costs for us.

In the future, we are looking at implementing a proof of concept for the KACE MDM, so our iPhones would be manageable with KACE SMA as well. Quest MDM is very intuitive and easy to handle. There is no comparison to Intune. If you don't work with Intune eight hours a day, every day, you get lost. In the KACE product, it's simple and easy. It's very easy for me to train new colleagues to use the KACE MDM, SMA, and SDA.

KACE MDM is also much cheaper than Intune. I calculated the savings with KACE MDM over a three-year period and they came to about €25,000, just on the licenses. That's a lot of money. And the time saved can't be measured. In the next month there will be more work with it because we have to upgrade all our iPhones. After that it will be easier because we can automate a lot of things with the policies, with restrictions and packages within the KACE MDM. When a new phone comes in we will bring it into the MDM, and the software will be automatically deployed. This will save a lot of time because Intune requires you to do a lot more steps. It's too complex for us.

We didn't evaluate any options other than KACE. The supplier of all our computers suggested KACE and that's how we came to it.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using KACE SMA is to never deploy software to many computers at one time. A few times in the past I killed the network with it. It's not good if you deploy a new Office 365 installation to about 700 computers at one time.

We're running Salesforce, which is older than the KACE, as our ticketing system. Because that ticketing system already exists, our CEO doesn't want to change it. They're planning to connect Salesforce with the SMA to grab the information from the computers. That way, my colleagues at the service desk will just have to type in the computer to see all the information that is stored in the KACE SMA. That's something that is currently planned but not implemented yet.

We use the KACE solution for endpoint management, since our posture is based on endpoints. We have almost 2,000 endpoints.

We have two KACE boxes. It's not a virtual appliance, it is a physical appliance.

It's not only saving time but increasing IT productivity. If you have a KACE box, you're going to save a lot. Having KACE is a blessing for IT administrators for endpoint management. They can do a lot of work remotely, as well as troubleshooting, mass deployment, and mass uninstallation. KACE is very intelligent and it has its own uninstaller.

An example of how KACE helped is that there was a McAfee service-provider who was visiting us to do a McAfee upgrade for our antivirus system. They are experienced people, the subject matter experts for deploying McAfee, the client, the agent, et cetera. He was having an issue uninstalling a McAfee firewall client. If you deploy a McAfee in your network, the uninstaller should be from McAfee, but the uninstaller from McAfee was an outdated version. Uninstalling the firewall client from McAfee requires a lot of effort. It's not impossible, but it's time-consuming and if you try to uninstall from the control panel, of course it won't allow you. There is a popup for the password and, without that, a lot of problems are going to occur. 

He told me he was facing this issue. The solution for uninstalling it was provided by KACE. I demonstrated it to him for one of our clients and he was shocked. He started writing that command, and the next day he sent me a text message, saying, "Thank you. You made my life easier." He gave that command to another customer, a client of his who is an IT administrator, to run that command via a batch file to all the end-users, because they didn't have KACE. 

For an IT department in any organization that pays for endpoint management, KACE is really a blessing for them.

The most valuable feature of KACE is the mass package deployment. There are a lot of endpoint management solutions in the market. The way KACE responds is with the installation management feature, which is done in a very intelligent way, as well as scripting. It's wow. It's really wow. On top of that, there is a mass undeployment feature as well.

For example, we had an issue a while back where there was a plugin for the SAP module being deployed to almost 1,800 computers. It was taking a backup, restarting the machine, and updating it automatically. Our end-users were complaining every day. We were receiving hundreds of calls. We found out that the issue was this plugin. It was updating and restarting machines without informing the users. When we did inventory, we started finding this application, but we didn't know about the history of that application. Luckily, KACE gave us an uninstallation path, the command line. When we deployed it, believe it or not, it worked as a massive uninstallation feature and it took care of almost 1,800 computers within one hour.

It's really very time-saving stuff. It's all up to you, how you are going to utilize KACE, but if you know the way, the features are very user-friendly and it does not require scripting. There are built-in features where you can build your own script and execute it remotely through KACE. 

I have never officially worked on the service desk model of KACE, but when I went through it, it was fine. It's good for a small IT department. It's more than enough. It has asset inventory and printer inventory. You enable the SNMP features and you can get reports on printers and even printer cartridge utilization reports. It's a very handy tool for organizations that have a lot of endpoints in place.

We also used the Systems Deployment Appliance for Windows 7. Now, we are planning to use it for the Windows 10 upgrade for the rest of our machines. If you're going to capture the image of a machine and re-image that machine, it's great. Over the network, it took us 18 minutes to deploy 19 GB of images. And that was not on the same campus. It was a remote campus. For the same campus, we also used it to deploy and it took us, I think, 16 minutes and a few seconds for almost 18 GB of Windows 7 images.

There are a lot of nice features.

There is a module for agent management when you right-click on the inventory. If you want to connect remotely you can do so. But sometimes the agent check-in does not happen. You can do the first check-in through a script, at the same time. 

But there should be a mini toolbox, like the competitors of KACE have, with the small features for KACE administrators. That would make their lives easier. If you are troubleshooting a specific endpoint, remote control is available as is Wake-on-LAN. But if you want to execute some commands, you have to use a third-party tool, the PS tool. If they would integrate those small things, it would make KACE more powerful.

I have been using Quest KACE Systems Management for almost five years.

Initially, four years back, we were having a lot of issues with the KACE agent. But as the solution has grown, the maturity level has really increased and the stability and the reliability have as well. My KACE machine has not been down for a single day in the last five years. It's a very stable product.

It's really reliable now and very intelligent on top of that. When we do a mass deployment, there isn't a single day when my network admin asks me, "Why are you deploying this?" I deployed Office 2013 with KACE, in a massive way, and our network guys never said, "Oh, we can see there is a bandwidth spike." The way that KACE intelligently deploys and manages installation is great. It's really kind of a miracle. I believe that they select a group, copy the file over the network to the cache of the local machine, execute the command, and then install the media file on the local machine.

KACE is very scalable.

We started with 700 clients and today we are at almost 2,000 clients. There hasn't been a single day where I have been concerned about the scalability or the of KACE. 

Quest Support for KACE is good. They are responsive and they always give you a solution in a  timely manner. 

We faced a problem two or three years back, an issue with the inventory of Forescout Secure Connector. We could not find out how many machines had Secure Connect Connector because it's installed as a service. It was a very complex problem for us and KACE support came up with a solution: Create a new, customized inventory to get Secure Connect to be considered as a process. On that basis, we had a new entry and this solved our problem.

We have not used another asset management solution in this organization. I did use SCCM in my old company.

For us, the initial setup was not complex. The problem was that the environment, the network we work in, is a very restrictive environment. We have a lot of firewall policies and a layer of firewalls across the network. Because of the complex network architecture, we struggled a bit with the network discovery of the endpoints. We used one of the best practices: Do auto-discovery and then apply the agents.

At that point in time, I didn't really know KACE. It was a new box. I started discovering what would be next. The next thing that happened was another blessing from KACE which was having it do the Active Directory group policy deployment for the agents. I deployed it and that discovery was running for almost a week, but we started installing the agent within about four to five days. It was time-consuming. It took us two weeks because we ran it organization-to-organization because it would have slowed down the network. We did not want to take any risks. If we had taken the risk, it wouldn't have been an issue, as far as the KACE agent deployment is concerned. 

Now, whenever a new machine comes into our network, the KACE agent is automatically installed. Right after that, KACE is installing one of our NEC client agents automatically. Then, KACE will discover that this machine is a part of the McAfee agent, and if it is not, it will automatically install the McAfee agent. Then I configure McAfee to sync with Active Directory. 

So for us, when a new machine is joining, the desktop engineer will run only one command, GPUpdate. The machine will restart and then all the group policies, the KACE policies will be deployed. KACE will then install all of our small plugins automatically and they're good to go.

One of the best parts of KACE is when you go for a version upgrade. Once you do a version upgrade for any KACE module—any KACE virtual appliance or physical appliance—it's very user-friendly. In addition, the agent upgrade is a miracle. When you do the agent upgrade for the KACE appliance for the first time, it's "super-wow". The last upgrade I did was for almost 1,900 PCs, and all the agents were updated automatically when I upgraded the agent package. It took only 24 hours.

I am the only KACE administrator in our organization, but there are desktop engineers who log in to KACE. They review machines, but I do all the administration and configuration. They use it to take inventory or check the memory and see what replacements are required. They are read-only administrators.

We have seen a lot of return on our investment in KACE. One area is headcount. We are a military hospital. Imagine having 2,000 computers on the ground in different remote locations, yet having only seven desktop support engineers. If you do the math, there should be no way that seven desktop engineers can support 2,000 endpoints. Even the best-case scenario is one engineer working with 100 desktop machines, max. That gives you an idea of the headcount savings.

We are also saving on the licensing fee, compared to other endpoint management solutions.

KACE is very easy to use and user-friendly compared to the other endpoint management tools, like Microsoft SCCM and other third-party tools, in terms of IT administration. Compared to its competitors, it's easy to get machine inventory.

If any organization wants to manage its endpoints, having KACE, as I said, is a blessing for the IT administrators.

I would give it an eight out of 10. I am being demanding because there are some more improvements that can be made. But KACE can be a superpower in endpoint management.

With KACE Systems Management, we can deploy this specialized software for students and teachers in separate computer rooms. In the beginning, we used a master PC. We edited one PC with all the usable software, then enrolled this master PC at the beginning of the semester. However, a big problem was when (in the middle of the semester) one of the teachers told us, "We needed another software," or, "We need updates." We did not have the possibility to go into the computer rooms during our work time. We had to do it at night and on the weekends. That was a big problem for us, so we looked for a solution to this problem. So, we installed the specialized software for the students and teachers in a short amount of time.

During the first years, we used the hardware/server from Dell in our environment. We then switched to the virtual appliance, which we use now in our network for one of my university's faculties.

It is a private cloud because we can't use a third-party cloud due to data protections for our university researchers.

There is a course for students where they learn to build buildings. They have to buy parts for the buildings: stones, wood, etc. The updates for the software come inside one semester, and we have two semesters in one year. Inside of a semester, there will be a very important update for the teacher. So, in April and October, we have to update this software during the semester. We get the new software and install it on one of our test PCs, then we create an executable file and ZIP file with all the configurations for our environment. Then, we distribute it with KACE Systems Management. 

With the information from KACE Systems Management, I am able to make a report. For example, in the next 30 days, if the pro support is running out, it is very important to see that because I can then extend the pro support for our hardware. In another example, the reports allow us to see if older software is not working after an update, which is also interesting and important for us.

The scripting part increases IT productivity because of the specialized software in our environments for students' courses. You need to use software which is not programmed by developers. A lot of software for building houses or other things is developed by normal guys, who do not have much skill in programming. When you need to install this type of software, it is very difficult. You have to install registry keys, etc. For that, it is very good to use the scripting part of this solution. So, you can automate this part as well.

• Reports
• The security part with updates
• Patch management, because we can update all the standards and software in our environment. 
• Asset management with license compliance 
• The overview with all the Dell EMC-specialized information.

We use only Dell EMC hardware in our environment. Therefore, it is good for us to use a system which can read information from hardware.

It has a single interface for us to be able to see everything that we might need for the endpoint management of devices, which is absolutely important. We also use the single sign-on service. Of course, we have other systems in our environment which we use for DHCP servers and to manage other things, but for this kind of information, it is very good for us that there is only one system that I have to use; where I can see everything I need for asset management and license compliances as well as for the monitoring of the system, e.g., which system is active and which system maybe was not there in the last two or three days or weeks.

The asset management and license compliances are very important and good for us to see which software is over-licensed or under-licensed.

I use their patch management to look at the security of our systems. Because of the research programs and the researchers who use these software systems and the computer, that is all secured for intrusion detections or interventions from criminals. So, it is very important for us that the patch management is working 100 percent.

It is a little bit difficult to use the license compliances because you need to decide when you are using the software catalog if you are using it with their license compliance or the normal software part. Under the inventory, you can use software as a menu link or software catalog. Most of my specialist software is not in the software catalog. When I try to import them, in my license compliances overview, there are cryptic names for this software that I have to import. That is not very good for the reports that I use. When I take them to my bosses, they see cryptic names of software that they don't understand. It would be much better for me if I could use software and the software catalog as well for the license compliances. 

If it could be possible to use GUI to create reports, where I could drag and drop like in Microsoft Access where you can create reports, e.g., when you take columns from tables from the drag and drop menu, then you can slide it down in another area and sort columns or create new columns. This would be nice to see in the graphical user interface as well as be much more developed for the reporting part than it is at the moment.

It has been at least 10 years. We started with the physical appliance from Dell.

It is a very stable system. In the last 10 years, there has been only one breach to the system. That was very quickly closed with the help of the technical support. I can't remember another problem with the system where it went down. 

We can buy new licenses for clients. There is no problem to import these new clients into the environment, which is pretty nice.

We are using SMA at its full potential at the moment. It is also possible to import printers, and you don't need any extra licenses for that. This is a nice feature as well.

What has been very good for me has been the ITNinja websites where I can look for information. For example, if I need something, then there has been a solution there. Also, the help system of the help sites inside of the KACE Systems Management Appliance are very helpful and easy to understand.

I use the support system of the KACE. So, I use the ticket system to stay in contact with KACE support, which has been very good for me. It has been very positive because they know what to do. Every time, I have had a solution in a couple of days, and that was very good for me. 

I use the ITNinja websites. I think KACE developed these ITNinja websites with Dell EMC, which has a lot of information about KACE SMA and SDA. We don't use third-party companies. We only use KACE support when needed.

We don't use WSUS in our environment anymore. However, we also don't use SMA for Windows updates. We use the Windows updates on the Microsoft website.

In the beginning, when you try to install new software, you need a little bit more time. That's absolutely normal. Then, I installed this software on over 160 PCs. In the past, I had to go to every PC in real-time by remoting on every PC and installing the computer software on every PC. Now, I can install the software in half an hour. In the past, I needed two days. For me, this has been very good. It has been very nice to see how fast it can install new/used software on new hardware.

For every upgrade over the years, SMA has been very intuitive and easy to use. Also, when I changed the physical appliance to the virtual appliance four or five years ago, it was easier to make a backup. Then, I could import the backup from the physical SMA to the virtual SMA. That was very easy to make. The surface of the website has not changed very much in its paths, which are very good. Parts of those paths are easier to look inside or adopt more functionality, but the surface is not so state of the art. Some websites, like WordPress sites, are a little bit difficult to see where information is and what to look for. However, in the KACE Systems Management, I know where the information is, and that is very good for me.

To deploy the appliance, it takes maybe an hour with all of the configuration and the DHCP server. When you start a system for the first time, you have to import all the information that you need or connect your clients with a system, which needs a bit more time. Also, when you are trying to distribute software, you need more time with the managed installations. I needed half a year with all my software products, maybe longer. For all my software products, I had to use them with a managed installation script or other scripting tools. However, if you have used other systems, then you can very quickly switch to SMA.

Two to four people are needed for deployment. In my environment, we have a network administrator and me as an administrator for the system. There are also one or two other administrators for the solution in my company.

We saw ROI after the first year. Every year, the system becomes so much more valuable for us. Maybe the quality of our service is much better now. The students at our university can use more software, so the knowledge of students using state-of-the-art software is much better than in the past. We can react to requests from our teachers when they want to use new software in their courses. We can manage that in a short amount of time.

Most of the time, we install software in two months between semesters. So, we are saving four or five days over the year.

We are a university. So, we have a very good price for the system. I think the price for the system is worth it because of the security patch management. The security patch management is very important for us. The price is very good for KACE SMA, the functionality you get, and the patch management. 

The technical support you get from KACE is sometimes priceless. Sometimes, you don't need very much support. However, if you need support, it is good for me to know that there are people who have very good knowledge about the system. I am willing to pay for that.

When we bought the SMA system, we researched other systems. I did some tests with SCCM and other systems as well as open-source software. It was very difficult for me to configure the other systems. Also, the open-source software was a bit too difficult for me to configure just in time. There was not so much time for me to sit there for a couple of weeks doing trial and error. 

I am very happy that I found a solution which was easy to install and use. That is also a reason for me to look at SDA from Quest because I know the system and it works fine. I don't have time to configure a new system from scratch. It just has to work.

It is very important for me to see that there is one GUI/website where I can have an overview of my computers and environment, see which computers are healthy, which ones might be damaged, or if everything is fine with the software. Another thing is that I can distribute software with executable files using the system. This was also a very important reason to use SMA because we have so many software systems where you get only a setup executable file, not an MSI file to convert the executable file, which is sometimes very time-sensitive.

I had a very good start with the software because I had training with one of the specialists from Dell EMC in the past, which was very good. Now, it is very intuitive for me to use the software, which is also very good. It is very clear. You can look for information in one of the paths, such as, home inventory monitoring and asset management. 

When you buy this software, use a bit more money and buy a training program as well. What you learn in such a short amount of time when you get the training is so much more valuable than when you do trial and error for yourself. That is my advice. They will help you to configure your environment in a very short time, then you can use it very quickly.

Mobile device management is not very important for us at the moment because we only use our physical PCs and sometimes our laptops. I have used tablets as well. However, for mobile devices, we don't distribute software on these kinds of systems. 

I am on a way to using KACE's Systems Deployment Appliance in the future. At the moment, we only use KACE SMA, but I want to try to buy SDA as well. I hope that I can this year. It makes total sense to use SDA as well when you use SMA. Both systems are integrated with one another. At the moment, we have installed the operating system on the computer physically. This is a very bad time with the pandemic, as it is very difficult for us to go to our workplace and into the computer rooms. Doing our work there physically is not possible now. I live in the UK at the moment and my work is in Berlin, Germany, so it is very difficult for me to go there and install new hardware. However, I am looking forward to getting SDA as well.

I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10.

We use Quest KACE Systems Management for things like deploying software packages, inventorying, and versioning what we currently have.

For me, specifically, the use case is for package deployment. When I need to push out a new package. We use a new 8x8 client, or I have Chrome set to update, and if it doesn't, we'll post it here. We use this solution to push packages because we don't have an SCCM solution or anything similar that I am more familiar with.

SCCM is a Microsoft solution, which is now known as MECM.

Right now, it's just a stopgap until we can set up and configure a proper environment. This product was acquired and brought over from an acquisition. As a result, there is some net overlapping and other issues that prevent it from being fully integrated everywhere, and there is a problem with firewall separation. 

It helps in some ways, and for the most part, it makes my life easier. It doesn't seem to hit everywhere.

I like how when you click on the device, it shows you everything that has changed as well as the software versioning. I am really enjoying the inventory aspect of it.

The deployment process for both deploying and creating a package is straightforward.

I believe the inventory in KACE is superior to SCCM's. 

I know with SCCM I could do things like remote console into machines via the agent's remote console, but that is not a feature that is provided in KACE. I know that at least in the Systems Management Appliance, I can't get to it.

I'm not sure how distribution works, with distribution points. I'm not sure if KACE has that feature. You could use an SCCM to set up distribution points at remote sites so that they don't have to download patches or software from across the country. If you have a DP or something similar, they could pull it down.

With KACE, you have to use smart labels and groups, and it can be annoying. It's aggravating if you don't know what you're doing because you have to figure out how to do it.

In terms of improvement, I would recommend the labeling process, also known as label management. With  SCCM, you have collections, here they do Label management.

The labeling process should be more streamlined. It should be easier to do. It gets confusing at times.

The only issue I have is with label creation.

I have been using Quest KACE Systems Management for nine months.

We are not working with the latest version. I don't see a way of determining the version, but It wouldn't be the most recent because even the application catalog is out of date, and the company decided not to purchase a new software catalog.

I believe that it is hybrid because I'm aware of a machine that checks in but isn't in our environment. It's a machine that was given to an employee and was never re-imaged. I'm aware that the client logs in from time to time. They have to re-image it to remove the agent, and then it will stop popping in. As a result, it's a hybrid.

I'm not very familiar with it. I was never taught how to do it. 

Everything I learned from experimenting with it for tasks that were assigned to me. There was no training.

I believe that once the agent is installed on a machine, it is very reliable. It easily tells you when it last logged in. You don't have to search for it. Aside from the labels, I believe it would be a great tool to use if properly configured with proper access everywhere.

We have approximately 800 employees with 67 to 71 data centers.

We don't have a lot of machines in there for scalability. We only have about 300 or 400 people out of a total of 12 or 13. I can't respond to that. 

We had 7,000 employees in the last environment I worked in, and SCCM handled it all with the 300 or 400 domain controllers we had. I can't comment on this because we don't have a large enough environment.

We have 200 or 300 users in our organization.

It is not being extensively used because it is only hitting approximately 30% of the machines. Because this is pushing toward workstations. 

I don't believe that we have plans to increase our usage. That's why we started looking for a third party. I don't think they're heading for KACE. I believe they're discussing BigFix right now, but that's a different department, and we could be drawn into that.

I have never had to contact technical support.

We use an internal application. For ticketing or our change management process, we don't use any solutions such as ServiceNow, Remedy, or Magic.

I'm not involved in networking. I work in internal IT. As a result, they use Palo Altos and Ciscos.

WSUS and KACE are currently in use.

At my previous job, I used SCCM, System Center Configuration Manager.

I was not involved with the initial setup. I came to it in the state that it's in.

I am responsible for the maintenance of this solution. It does not require a lot of maintenance. It is truly low-maintenance. However, we do not send patches via KACE. We use WSUS to distribute patches. If there isn't anything for me to do in KACE, there isn't anything for me to do. If there isn't a new package coming out, maintenance is minimal, and the agent is pushed using a GPO, leaving nothing to do until we deploy agents, which is handled by the GPO.

I was only looking for something to patch our internal workstations and servers, not anything for customers.

I would suggest taking a training course. Take a training course on its fundamental administration. That would've been nice because it would've probably helped me with label creation and other things like that. Even though the KBE isn't too bad, you'll need to figure out who has the account in order to log into their knowledge base.

I would give it an eight out of ten, but I haven't seen everything it's capable of. And the reason I say that is because I have 10 years of SCCM experience. I love SCCM, this isn't as bad, but I can't really compare this to that. 

I really like what I am seeing, I would rate Quest KACE Systems Management an eight out of ten. I can't rate it any higher than that.

We use it for the asset management of all our computers, servers, desktops, and laptops that are internal and external. We have multiple offices who use it to deploy some of our software. It is the system that we use for our help desk when people have issues.

We were using a physical server with a physical device up until the end of last year. Now, it is a virtual device but we are still hosting it internally.

It gets everybody on the same standard, standardizing software and versions. That is one of the key things to it. Everybody has the same version of stuff. It helps with reporting by seeing who doesn't have that same version and the help desk side of having one place for people to put in their help or technical support requests. 

It has one place where we can look at the history. For example, if several people are having the problem, we can go look at how we solved the problem last time. So, it provides us with historic data.

There is one place for a lot of different things. If somebody has a problem with their computer, they will put in a ticket. From there, we will know who it is and the assets assigned to them, because there is one place to go look for what we are talking about and with whom we are talking. Just having one place for everything is really convenient. For example, we are able to deploy software to hundreds of computers. We don't need to go to each individual device.

It seems to do what we need it to do. It is pretty intuitive.

In regards to managing computers, our help desk, and handling help desk tickets, it is a single pane of glass for what we need. This includes the reporting and our asset management, e.g., when we loan things out. This is one of the key reasons that we are keeping it. It is not six different systems.

We use it for IT asset management, software asset management, and patch management. These features are all very important for us. Without each one of them, it would be problematic. It is easier to use them all in one place. We do not need to jump to different systems or technologies to do things because we could do it from this solution.

The customization of the interface needs improvement for things like end user tickets. While the functionality is good, some of that UI stuff does need improvement. Though, I don't receive a lot of complaints about it.

Some of the reporting could be a little more intuitive. This is something that could be worked on.

You really need to take the training. There is a learning curve when using it because it is just different from other things. 

There are some newer things coming out where it won't cover quite as much with some of the Microsoft Azure stuff.

I have been using it for at least eight years.

The stability is good. There were some people who were hesitant to go onto the VM, but we did have a physical appliance. We haven't had any issues with it, hardware-wise or software-wise. There have been the occasional questions, but it is reliable as far I am concerned.

It has scaled for us. We are not using thousands of machines, but we are definitely double what we were, and it wasn't even noticeable.

We have hundreds of people putting tickets in. There are six help desk admins who are using it to administer and handle help desk tickets

We have a support contract with them. If there is a critical issue, I can call them and talk to somebody. 

The technical support has been pretty good. We haven't had any huge issues. There have been a few questions here and there over the years. When I have needed stuff, e.g., if there is a big upgrade, I will definitely reach out and call them to get a little background on what is going on and what to expect when we do it. They have been receptive to that. They have gotten back to us quickly.

When we switched over to the VM, we had some issues at first. We called them. We definitely were able to talk to somebody right away. 

They have been receptive and helpful. The people that I have talked to have been very helpful and knowledgeable. They have understood the issues and got through them quickly, which is definitely a positive.

I would rate technical support as nine out of 10 because there is always room for improvement.

Positive

We used Track-It! for some of our components previously, which definitely didn't do everything. In that case, it was just for asset management, not even for the help desk stuff. We switched to Quest KACE for what it offered and all the capabilities of what it did.

We watched quite a few demos, then we did a mini demo onsite where we applied it to a handful of computers for testing.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was well-documented. It was one of the better solutions that I have had to implement.

The deployment took about a week, then we did another week of monitoring. If we would have pushed it, then we probably could have been done in a couple days.

When we bought it, there was an implementation period. We were one-on-one with somebody who walked us through the setup process. A little after that, we customized some stuff a bit more for our environment.

It definitely saves us all kinds of time and value.

For a software solution in the past doing this stuff, it would probably take us a week to get software deployed everywhere. Now, we are able to do it in a couple nights with just a variety of things, e.g., people not restarting computers. It saves us well over half the time because we are not having to touch individual things or micromanage them.

It definitely frees up time. We are not doing redundant things on multiple machines, which frees us up to do other stuff. It makes us more responsive and able to come up with solutions faster when fixing some people's problems.

We definitely looked at a few options. When we got it, one of the key things was the pricing. It was good compared to some of the other solutions. Some of the other solutions were just astronomical in price compared with KACE and didn't necessarily have the ease of use either. So, we chose Quest KACE for its easy-to-use features and cost.

Quest KACE's ease of use is good, and it has gotten better. It was never bad. Compared to other solutions that we looked at, Quest KACE was nicer and easier to use, but there was definitely a learning curve. 

We are still using it. We are not even thinking about using anything else, e.g., Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly System Center) which is way easier to use. 

I would recommend watching demos and getting hands-on demonstrations.

We are in talks about getting the solution's Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA). It is on our wish list.

I would rate the solution overall as eight out of 10. The reporting and UI could be improved. Some of the other solutions are a little more user-friendly.

We use K1000 as multiple ticket queues, as well as 1 queue setup as a KanBan project management type of setup.

We also have a custom queue (we're still setting it up) for our new hire/employee change/employee exit process (with over 50 custom ticket rules).

We use K1000 for our patch management of over 2000 workstations.

We also use K1000 for all (or most) software deployment and for purchase order tracking and some asset controls

It is definitely an all in one platform.

Patching is more accurate. The ticket system workflow is good.

It is nice to be able to see right on the home page how the patching went from the night before.

The software installs are better now that there is only one place to get the install from. This helps to maintain consistency of the software that is installed on our workstations.

The tracking down of assets that have gone offline has been nice with the ability to configure and set up custom weekly reports for devices that have not been seen in X days etc.

The patching and scripting are great. Both have helped to streamline and improve the workflow and the integrity of our workstations.

When vulnerabilities are exploited so much, it is nice to be able to quickly detect or deploy what is needed within our off-work hours or during work hours without a reboot.

Being able to create a custom install for a new piece of software and/or set them up as a managed install is nice to ensure that systems have the software that is needed for the user and their job duties.

The fact that there is so much that can be customized with K1000 is great, however, some lack real-world higher-level customization without having to get other(s) (professional services) involved (and the extra costs in general) would be ideal.

Paying for the product should come with full and extended training anytime it is needed.

I am not sure if our organization is just ahead of the pack on what we demand and or how we want to utilize the K1000, however, even if it takes a little bit of time, so far, we have always been able to figure out what we need and make it happen with the K1000.

I've used the solution for over four years.

Knock on wood, we have not had any major issues. The backups are easy to restore if there is an issue (just make sure they are set up and you keep them off-site).

No one wants or ever expects any of their servers to get corrupt, but it CAN happen..

If and when there are any issues.. ALWAYS make sure your backups are running as well as being stored off site.

We had to rebuild our k1000 VM 1 time and luckily we had a "good" backup that we were able to restore...

Other than needing to update our VM resources, it seems to scale very well.

Chat support is awesome, and if needed to elevate to full support, they usually get with you quickly. Although it seems we (my company) always discover strange issues with K1000, they are always there to help

Positive

For patching we used WSUS and we always had issues with the patches not being applied and or reboots happening - causing end users to lose data. etc.

The setup process was not good with the Dell people. We had horrible training and the setup was not right on a bunch of stuff. It took almost a year before the patching was working 100% due to the original setup not done correctly.

We originally purchased through a vendor (from what I can remember) and it was installed via a Dell trainer/remote software etc. 

I'm not sure about my ROI (my boss might know), however, I am sure it has paid for itself by now.

I would advise others to ensure you get the initial training when it is set up (we bought into KACE when Dell owned them). We did not get trained very well at all.

Make sure to know what all of you want, and ask questions.

We looked into a few other products. I do not remember which ones now.

K1000 just works - plain and simple.

We use KACE internally in our company to deliver and manage services for our customers. We access it every day. We are on the support page every day. KACE is open in my browser all the time.

We provide our own KACE services to customers. We are managing more than 85,000 machines by using KACE. In terms of the setup, sometimes, there is a shared environment, and sometimes, there is a dedicated environment. 

Our customers are in retail, power, healthcare, and education. We have more than 20 customers with recurring contracts, and we have had many customers for one-time projects. 

Our customers use KACE for inventory and software delivery and distribution. They use it to apply policies and generate reports. We have some customers who use it for Service Desk. We have done some customizations on Service Desk for ITSM in terms of assets and CMDB to maintain all information related to IT assets.

It provides IT asset management, compliance, software asset management, mobile device management, and patch management. We don't use mobile device management and patch management internally, but we do provide it to our customers. We have some customers who use MDM and patch management. Having all these in one solution is very important for us because Unirede provides monitoring to customers. By using the KACE solution, we are able to provide endpoint management for our customers. This is a gap that KACE filled for us. It is very important for us. We get more than 30% of the revenue through endpoint management for our customers.

It saves time, which is its most important benefit. When you automate tasks, there is a lot of time-saving. Based on the feedback from our customers, it has saved more than 50% time.

It provides what we need for updating and configuring everything the way we need it to be in our environment. For me, it is very easy. It is not a big deal to update when necessary. 

We use Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) for Windows and Linux devices in our environment. We have used SDA for internal use, for training, and for our customers. We have a few customers who have SDA in place on-premise. We sometimes also use the product to migrate the environment. For example, we use it for migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 10. At the beginning of the pandemic, some of the customers bought a lot of notebooks to make their employees work from home, and we provided migration services to them. By using SDA, we are able to do implementation in a short period, such as one, two, or three months. It is very good for automating the deployments, but, of course, it can be improved. Improvements are always welcomed.

It has increased IT productivity. With SDA, we can reduce a lot of time to provide a new installation. From hours, it gets reduced to minutes. Some customers have told us that their technicians used to spend the whole shift deploying one machine, whereas, with SDA, they could do it in less than one hour for one machine. They were also able to provide a new installation in 30 minutes.

We use machine profiles. We have profiles for the HR department, technicians, etc. We create smart labels related to this information, and we associate the tasks for software, scripts, installation, updates, etc. When the computer is turned on and has the agents installed on it, we detect the profile, and we install and run everything in a few minutes. This is another way to reduce the effort to keep our environment up to date and do automatic installations.

Asset management is most valuable. It is essential for all customers. The other features are also useful, but asset management is most important.

Everything is easy to use. KACE was created to be easy. It is very easy as compared to other solutions such as System Center, but it is important to have knowledge of some of the important concepts. For example, the knowledge of smart labels is critical. If you don't have knowledge of smart labels, you won't get its 100% benefit.

We use the Cloud MDM functionality. Its Windows and Mac enrollment capabilities for allowing IT admins to bypass manual device setup are fine. We provide management as a service to some customers, and they have Windows, Linux, and Mac. We also use it for our internal use in the company.

Its dashboard needs improvement. Currently, there is no way to modify the dashboard. There should be more flexibility so that we can create views according to our use case.

They can add some tips in the UI to help with the configuration. It will make the interface more user-friendly.

Its reporting also needs to be improved. Its reports are just textual, but we need a graphical report. We should be able to create dashboard views by using different types of graphics, such as pivot graphics. This functionality is currently missing.

We use the Cloud MDM functionality. Its interface is a little bit different from the SDA interface and the SMA interface. The concept related to the labels is also a little bit different. The SDA interface could be changed a little bit to have the same functionality as MDM. It is easier to create smart labels in MDM than in SDA. 

It can also be improved in terms of the consumption of resources or the size of the virtual machine. Currently, we are using a lot of memory and CPU power, and these can be reduced, but it is not a big deal.

I have been using KACE for more than 10 years. I have so far handled 600 implementations of K1000 and K2000 in Brazil and Latin America. I have delivered training for more than 5,000 hours.

In 2010 or 2011, I was trained at KACE headquarters in the USA, and after that, I was in charge of supporting customers in Brazil. I helped them with project implementations, training, and quick starts. In 2016, I joined Dell, and I was in charge of all services related to KACE in Brazil and Latin America. In our company, we started using KACE four years ago.

It is very stable, but your infrastructure should meet the requirements for stability. To have stability, you need to meet all the requirements. You need static file systems. If you are using dynamic file systems on the Hyper-V or VM, you might have some issues with stability. You also need to take care of certain things related to the network.

If you have met all requirements and you have 100% compatibility as per the compatibility matrix, it is very stable. If you miss something, you can get into trouble. 

We have their Premier Support because it is very important to have very fast support. I would rate them a nine out of 10. Sometimes, when you have a new hire or a new technician, they don't understand everything before denying some requests. They need to be more flexible.

It is not complex. It is easy, but you need to have knowledge of various concepts, such as smart labels. It is important. Otherwise, it won't be so easy. To make it easier and more user-friendly, they can provide some tips in the UI during the configuration.

Its ease of use has helped in getting an ROI in a very short time. We sell KACE as a service, and we got our ROI within three months.   

I would rate it a nine out of 10. It could be improved a little bit more.