KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) Reviews

We use this solution to manage our workstations and desktops. We can manage our hardware inventory and licenses, remotely install software, update software, and generate reports.

We do not use it to manage servers, only workstations.

We have a lot of different machines and devices in our environment. When I need to upgrade or install specific software applications, they can be deployed en masse and over a short period of time. It saves us a lot of time, which is the biggest help that KACE provides.

This product has helped our IT operations increase productivity. We have been able to create labels for machines and users, which has been useful. Also, we have been able to create rules in KACE that segregate software according to each area. Using this capability, our team management has improved as well as our customer relationships. 

This solution makes it easy to control assets and upgrade all types of software.

The mass deployment of software is easy to do.

KACE is very intuitive and easy to use. I am new to using the KACE Systems Management solution. Today, I was amalgamating software for the first time. It was easy to do. The employee that I was helping liked the way that it resolved the problem. It is also easy and fast to transfer my knowledge of KACE to another person.

This product provides good visibility into our machines, which is useful. It provides details about the software, hardware, and what is connected to it. It is very easy to use.

I would like them to implement VBScript language in KACE Systems Management. Currently, we can only use PowerShell.

We recently updated to the latest version, and we haven't yet seen all the features that it previously had.

I have been using Quest KACE Systems Management for between three and four years. It was deployed several years before I joined the company.

Stability-wise, it is fine. I have never seen this product crash or timeout.

If the server is working, then KACE Systems Management is fine.

We have four help desk staff who work with it. We don't manage servers with KACE; we just manage stations. We do not use it in our daily routine.

As our company and environment have grown, scalability has not been a problem. The scalability of the tool seems to be good. We currently manage 639 endpoints.

We use Quest Premier Support and contact them a lot. They have a Brazilian analyst who is very good to work with. He is skilled, has complete knowledge of the product, and has helped to resolve several problems that we have had in our environment. He never leaves us with big problems.

I would rate technical support a ten out of ten.

I have worked with SCCM, which is quite like this product, but the KACE Systems Management interface is better. 

KACE Systems Management makes it easy to find information because it is intuitive. 

The pros of SCCM are that it has more integrations and APIs with Microsoft software. This is useful when it comes to managing an environment. Because it is a Microsoft product, it has more integrations than other competing software.

I was not involved in the initial deployment.

KACE saves us time when it comes to maintaining our machines. For example, we sometimes need to retrieve information from the operating system of our machines. Normally, this has to be done manually, and we move from station to station to complete the task. With KACE filtering the results, we can do it in 20 seconds.

The pricing is fair.

KACE is a useful product for us. As I am new to it, I don't have very many suggestions for improvement. Rather, it has been very good, useful software.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

We use KACE SMA and KACE SDA. We use all but a few of the features that both appliances have to offer. We are in a VM environment with the KACE SMA, however, we use a physical appliance for the SDA.  

The ticketing system, real-time inventory, patching, software license, and imaging are commonly used. We also use this for scans - with this and aggressive patching we have been able to pass several outside pen tests. Scripts are used to push out software so the clients don't have to wait and it takes the pressure off of the technicians.

The solution has helped with real-time inventory, advertising and pushing out software, patching, and oval and SCAP scans. We can get the majority of what we need with this product and do not have to spend money on something else. 

In terms of imaging, we don't have to have an image for every model of Dell computer we have due to drivers. The SDA pulls and installs the correct drivers for each model. 

Post-installation tasks make it easy to add or remove software to images without having to download, change the image, and upload them back onto the server.

The streamlined processes and procedures are great. Automating processes is helpful. Patching is huge as it's set it and forget it for the most part. Real-time software and hardware inventory is great. 

We can track software licenses in one place. We can have a ticketing system and be able to create processes so that when one ticket closes, the next one is assigned in the process. 

Being able to add and remove software from images without having to recreate the image every time is helpful. 

Being able to create labels to group items we want to keep track of makes it very easy for us. 

The notifications (up to 60 days pre-renewal for contracts) are a great way to know when a renewal is coming instead of finding out last minute. 

The ticketing system works for us and we like using it. That said, some processes that seem like they should be simple either can't be done or are cumbersome in setting them up. I managed a different ticketing system previously and we were able to have certain questions come up for the client based on the category picked. It was easy to set up and use. Being able to auto have a KB article with questions needed for certain categories easily auto inserted into the ticket based on category was also an option. 

There may be a good reason why some things are not easily able to be done, yet it needs work to compete with some of the other ticketing systems out there now.

I've been using the solution since 2010.

We had a few different solutions. We had an access database we were using for ticketing and inventory, and patching was manual. Imaging was with a product that required an image for every different model of computer we had.

The setup was straightforward.

We worked with a vendor team, and they were excellent.

We can do more with less staff. And, unfortunately, due to budgeting, we now have fewer staff.

The cost is reasonable. I would definitely take the JumpStart training that is offered as it helps to get you started.

We evaluated an in-house system, School Dude, and a ticketing system that is no longer in business.

We Primarily use KACE as a diverse deployment and management solution. 

Our environment includes multiple locations, so having a single point of deployment for automation/patches/software/scripts and response management is ideal. 

We work in the banking industry, so having this single point and not having to worry about security is enormous. We have to go through multiple government security audits a year and our auditors are always blown away with our KACE environment. We need KACE to keep our organization going.

Previously, we were working with upwards of 200 different applications and tools, the amount of compatibility issues and clutter was unbelievable. One update on one application could ruin a whole environment at times. Thank goodness we found KACE to consolidate our environment and really cut down on resources! 

They've saved us so much time and money it's unreal. They have so much flexibility in what you want to configure or script. In some of my deployments, I've built entire applications on KACE to work with, while in others I have small built-in batch files. The only thing that limits KACE is your imagination.

The ability to build scripts right on the deployment center itself, as well as building groups that take those scripts/task chains has been absolutely invaluable and one of the most important parts of my whole environment. Without it, we would need to hire at least six to seven more employees to do what I'm able to do myself with those tools. 

On top of this, they have multiple forums that are super active. I've gone to tech support, ITninja, and even Reddit. One time, I asked a question on the KACE subReddit on how to improve a function and a KACE team member responded in five minutes. That's honestly unheard of for a company like this.

The GUI needs some work. I love all that it can do, however, it can be just be so cluttered at times. I wish we could see them spend some time improving the interface.

Sometimes when I run certain functions or need to do a one-off massive deployment, it lacks in "mobility". It can be a pain, having to go back a page and re-type in all the same information in the "run now" tab when I have a whole bunch of one-off situations. It's not like I can't do what I need to do, however, I seem to just spend more time than I'd like having to type in the same information over and over.

I've used the solution for the past five years.

In all the years we've had this product we've never had a stability issue.

The solution can scale. The product can be a help desk ticket system, all the way up to the entirety of your virtual machine environment - making updates and changes at a click of a button.

They take their role in support extremely seriously. We don't have to reach out too often due to the lack of problems, however, when we do, they respond within an hour or two at the very longest.

Positive

We did not use another solution. Once we got KACE, I just don't understand how we held on for so long without it.

We had a vendor assist us so that we never had a single hiccup during the entire setup.

The vendor was, without a doubt, an expert. We assisted and learned everything they could teach us.

We had ROI about a year into this and have saved so much ever since.

If your team is small like ours, I highly recommend working with an install vendor. For us, it wasn't as much a technically challenging thing to implement as much as what the vendor showed us during setup and installation that was just so helpful. With their help, we were able to hit the ground running and had much less of a learning curve.

Other options were discussed however, it was so long ago I can't recall what they were.

I would say start by looking at all of the services/products that KACE offers - don't feel overwhelmed as they will integrate very well with each other.

We use most of the modules, although the Service Desk is one of the most important ones for us. We, as an IT department, handle a large volume of calls that includes different requests. We tried to make it accessible for all of the different teams within the IT department, not just the Service Desk, but networking servers, admins, and applications. We try to make it so that all of our IT requests come in from a central point, basically.

In addition to that, there are a number of other Service Desk queues or departments outside of IT. Those have been either initiated by us asking if someone needed some way of tracking their own work or issues, or they've come to us and asked for the same thing. 

The second feature that we use most often is device inventory. We have our KACE agent deployed on all of our workstations and servers, and it provides us with reports on the hardware and software inventory for those. The other half of that is that we take that data and report on it for things like accuracy, renewals, and replenishment.

We also rely very heavily on the patching module, which is part of the security module. This feature ensures that our workstations and servers are up-to-date with the latest patches.

I'm also using it for extensive software deployments. For example, a couple of years ago we went from one version of Microsoft Office in our environment to a completely different version, almost exclusively through KACE automated software deployment. This saved us thousands of PC touches.

Also within the domain of software distribution, we use file synchronization and scripting.

I work with two different entities. The first is KACE as a service, which is hosted, and the second one is hosted by my company in our Azure environment.

I feel that KACE is pretty easy to use, although that may be coming from the fact that I've been using it for so long. In the Service Desk, it's really easy to clean up a basic queue, and from there, you can get more granular and do a lot more customization if you need to.

For the inventory functionality, the agent requires no configuration except for pointing it to the server.

For software deployment, as long as you've got your installation commands, it pretty much runs on its own. This is the same with patching, where you set up a schedule and then just let it go.

We have seen a return on investment from its ease of use, firstly because the KACE appliance is managed almost entirely by me alone. This means that we don't need to have multiple people working on each individual component. With the reporting that we do, we've been able to find unused or underused software licenses, remove those from the computers, and apply them elsewhere. This meant savings because we didn't have to purchase additional licenses.

KACE was previously owned by Dell and because we have a hook into Dell's warranty database, we're able to use that information to learn about what's in our environment and see what we need to budget for replenishment. This includes replacing computers on a quarterly or yearly basis. That way, we're not just saying "I don't know, we'll throw X number of dollars at it". It's an actual and pretty accurate budget, instead of just estimating it.

It has also saved a lot of time because for example, when we did the Microsoft Office upgrade, our service desk team did not have to touch all of those computers. It just ran automatically. That would have been a very large time investment. We have had it in place for so long that it is difficult for me to estimate how much time it is saving us on a monthly or weekly basis. I have nothing to compare it against.

Scalability is my primary concern right now. The first environment that I had it in was about 1,700 devices and things worked pretty well. Now that I'm well over 10,000, even with plenty of resources allocated, I'm running into issues where things aren't working correctly. I'm having to work with support and the answer that I usually get is that we're trying to do too much with KACE. Essentially, I'm overloading it with tasks to perform and as a result, I'm having to split stuff up a lot more into multiple jobs instead of one job. There's no built-in load balancing, I can't have multiple servers, and limitations like that.

I have been running Quest KACE Systems Management in production for seven years, since late 2014.

We have KACE deployed on more than 9,000 workstations and approximately 1,300 servers. Scalability is an issue for us at the moment, and I don't know how much our company is going to grow in the future. One of the ways that we grow is through acquisitions. For example, we just acquired a little company that was about 20 people and acquired another one with about six people.

I don't know what's coming down the pipe. I am not sure if there's a company that's about a thousand people, how is that going to affect how I use KACE. I wonder if I'm going to have to scale things back, such as running a script once every other week instead of once a week, or stretching out my patching windows.

I'd rate the customer support pretty high. I use them pretty frequently and I have been satisfied with the majority of their answers. I have never been brushed off by them saying, "Oh yeah, it's just this, you've got to do that."

Quest has a Professional Services offering, which is their consulting service. You can use their professional services to have them come out and help you set up your clients, or work with you to do so. Or, if you need a report written that isn't supplied by default and you can write it by yourself, you can contract them to write it for you. We have not used professional services.

The Premium Support that we have gives us access to a technical account manager. It includes monthly touch meetings to ensure that everything is going smoothly. For example, they ask if we need anything else and whether they can help move things along, such as reviewing any open issues that we have.

The biggest value from premier support is the ability to get past the technical support. I don't mean that they're not providing good support but with Premier, I've been able to talk with our technical account manager about more advanced topics. I would consider myself a power user and I do a lot of stuff that's outside the norm. This is not the sort of stuff that you would just set it up and forget about.

I also get information about a lot of different reporting and things like that. Sometimes, I'm interested in the very minute details of how it works, in order to either do the report or ensure that I'm doing something in the correct fashion. With the help of the technical account manager, I have been able to be interactive as an intermediate, or I've actually been able to get on, or have a call with, some of the developers who may have been the ones specifically programming a certain portion of the appliance. I don't see getting those deep answers from somebody further back behind the technical support customer service.

Prior to KACE, we had a piece of software, which is no longer around, called eSMART. It was developed by a company called ASAP, which was acquired by Dell. Dell purchased ASAP, decommissioned their eSMART product, and then wrapped up the functionality of the eSMART product into KACE. This is what led us there.

It wasn't really difficult to set up. When we set ours up initially, there was an option to have somebody from the technical support or training department go over it with you. Once you started setting it up, they would ensure that you understand how to work it.

I can't recall exactly how long it took for the overall deployment, although I don't believe it was a lengthy process. The two biggest parts of the setup were configuring the initial queue for IT, and getting the agents pushed out.

We completed the deployment on our own and I am responsible for performing the updates.

Licensing is done on a per device basis, so it's dependent on how many agents you've got installed. When we looked at it, KACE was competitively priced versus other agent-based asset and inventory management solutions.

Where we really get a lot of value is that the product licensing is only based on that. It means that if we implement another IT service, we can use it with no problem and it doesn't cost anything more to put that in there. We can just keep adding to it, so we're basically getting more use for no extra costs. An example is that we have other departments and other kinds of entities within our business, and they are utilizing the service desk functionality for things outside of plain IT support.

Early on in the pilot, we evaluated other options. It was around the time that we implemented KACE that we also played with a solution called Spiceworks for system support.

They have a ticketing system, and we tried to make it work, but being about the time that we started looking at KACE, and since KACE had the functionality of a service desk, we didn't really pursue that any further.

I know that Quest has other products, whether they're KACE branded or other brands, but, by and large, those offerings are for systems or services that we already have in place with other vendors.

My advice for anybody who is implementing KACE is not to be afraid to use their technical support. There is also some semi-official support available in external groups. They run a website called ITNinja, and there's a lot of discussion on there from KACE users, about questions that they have, or issues that they have, or wants or reports.

People help out each other. The site is run by Quest, but it is community moderated rather than Quest doing the moderation of the content. Essentially, it's a virtual user group and it has been a big help.

In summary, this is a very good product but there is always room to improve. For what we've used it for, it's been very good, and I hope that it continues to serve us well.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The KACE K1000 is primarily used for patching or pushing out software that needs to be pushed out. The KACE K2000, the deployment server, is primarily used to image new and older computers.

I should be updating the image at least once a month. The reason why I am taking so long right now is because we didn't have access to it through our VPN, and I am mostly working from home. They just opened it up so I could work with it from home, which is great.

We keep on updating Quest KACE because we really use it. The patching is maintained by a different person, and he is constantly updating the software all the time. I should be doing the same thing too, and that's on me. However, I get busy with the email server, people calling in, etc. From now on, I am going to take time slots and mark myself up busy, just so I can do it. It's a lot easier working on it from home than when I'm at work, because people walk up on you and ask you to do stuff, then lose what you were just doing.

We always do the asset management first, then we image the computer. After it is imaged, it gets all the updates that it needs through the other KACE (the patch management). It makes life a lot easier. 

The most valuable is being able to use one image for several different instances. Because we only put one to three images on those instances, it saves a lot of space.

It pretty much provides a single pane of glass with everything we need for endpoint management of all devices. We have several different ways that we do stuff, e.g., for remoting in, we use Bomgar, and for asset management, we use ServiceNow.

They could make the booting solution easier for different things, e.g., easier to insert drivers. They could make it easier to create a new image and put it onto the server. Those would be some nice solutions. They could make it so that somebody who has no knowledge at all can do it. That would be really nice. Because every time, until I get it memorized, I still need to go back to the training, the manual, or Google it to figure it out again. If they would make it a lot easier, to where a nine-year-old could do it, that would be really cool. If they made it easier, I could have more people managing the images on the server, instead of just one or two people.

On the patching, the Systems Management appliance, I noticed whenever there is something new that the vendor has to do, he always has to call KACE for help with it. That could be made easier.

We have been using Quest KACE for quite a few years, since 2014 or 2015.

I have never had to reboot it, except for when I have had to update the server. If it is having problems, and I have to troubleshoot, then I will need to reboot, but that is usually the image and has nothing to do with the server. The server is very stable. I have not once had to reboot because the server crashed.

We have four people who have been trained on both servers: 

• Two people are mostly working on the patching, KACE Systems Management. 
• Two people, including me, are mostly working on the Systems Deployment Appliance.

There are 10 people in my group using the server to image. In another department, there are another two users who know how to manage the server, but they don't mess with the server networking. They only manage their image that they have on there. When I put in a fresh, new image, I inform them, saying, "Hey, I have this new image tested. You are more than welcome to start using it so I can start deleting older images."

If they would make it easier and more intuitive, then it would be easier to show other people how to do it. Right now, I have to send them to training, which costs us a lot of money.

They have very good customer support and technical solutions. When I have a little issue, I call them and they fix it right away. I don't have to wait three or four weeks unless it is something out of their scope, then it takes longer. However, if it is in their scope, it gets fixed right away, for whatever I need. It is the same with the K1000. Whenever they need somebody, they have to call back that same day or the next day, depending on the urgency that we have placed on KACE.

Because I have so many different other jobs, I am still learning how to upload images, etc. I have to go over the classes, then listen how to do this and that. Instead of trying to call Quest every single time to do something, I try to just relearn it myself.

We used to use straight SCCM and found KACE way better because SCCM is all Microsoft. A lot of times Microsoft is not intuitive at all on third-party software, so you can only really update the Microsoft software. When we went from a SCCM to KACE, it was way easier because it's easier to update a software or even install a brand new software.

KACE has made our life much easier since we got off the Microsoft solution. The Microsoft solution was a lot harder to image over different ports and stuff. They would only have this one place where we could do all the imaging. Now, we have a whole building where we can image from. This means that we can image from our storage area, where we have a place to do our imaging. We can also image right at our desks, which is a lot easier. Once I get up to speed on updating the image and adding new software, then it will be so much easier for everybody else because the Microsoft solution always did the image in a weird way. They didn't have all the drivers for all the things that we have. With KACE, you can actually insert the drivers and make it work.

The SCCM solution for imaging was a nightmare. It wasn't a very good solution at all. With some of Microsoft items, we would need to just make a whole image of that model, which would take up more space on the server. With KACE, you just use one or two images. We have one department who uses this one model in all their trucks. They like it to be a certain exact way, where the icons and in the exact place with all the same this and that. For that one, we just make an image of that whole thing. Because we have the terabyte solution, it doesn't put a dent on the storage at all. With the terabyte solution, because we have that on the patching too, we don't have to think about whether we are using up too much space. I can go there once a month and clean up everything instead of having to be on top of it. It is just way better.

We still use SCCM for certain things that we have to do which need to be blanketed out and are easy enough solutions for them.

The initial setup was very complex. It took hours of training. We found out at the beginning that we did it backwards. We were supposed to do the KACE Systems Management first, then do the Systems Deployment Appliance. We did it backwards because we didn't know about KACE Systems Management. That made it a little harder.

I would like it if they could make it easier, not a million steps to do one thing. Because once you have the image on there, it is tested, and it works, then it's great. All you have to do is update the rest of the software, but just getting the image onto the machine and making sure it works, that is the hardest part.

The initial deployment took about a week or so. We deployed it, then we had to learn it.

I was the project manager on the deployment of the solution. I was involved in learning about it, getting a demo server going, purchasing it, and then deploying it once we purchased it. So, I have been involved from day one.

On a weekly basis, KACE saves us hours. On a monthly basis, it probably saves us a day or two. Because it is easier to use, patch, and manage than our previous solution, where I didn't even have the opportunity to be one of the people to manage it. Then, with KACE, we were able to switch it over to our service desk, divide KACE K1000 and KACE K2000, and cross-train, so we could have more people managing the servers.

Overall, the solution has increased our IT productivity as well as the other department's. Since they are using the solution, we bought them a license, which has increased their productivity immensely because they were doing everything from scratch with no imaging solution. They were just taking a brand new machine and setting it up, which just takes hours. Instead of the 45 minutes that it took to image a machine and run the patching and stuff (which may be another hour), which may take up to eight hours total to do a machine. Now, when you have all the software updated, it takes less time (45 minutes) because there is less patching to be done.

We need it, so we have to pay the price. It is what it is. If you need a gallon of milk, then you have to pay the price for it. You don't want to buy the cheap stuff. You want to buy the stuff that is organic and good for your body, which doesn't have all this other junk in it. You want it clean for your body. Quest has done that for our deployment and management systems.

We did other vendors, but we didn't like them. The other solutions were too complicated and some didn't have good enough security for our system, since our security is super tight.

We first heard of a KACE when Dell EMC owned it. Then, we got more information on it. When the person who was going to do the project management couldn't do it anymore, I asked if I could be the project manager on it. I pushed it right through.

KACE promised us stuff and have kept their promise. Microsoft promises us stuff, but they don't keep their promises.

It is a great service.

It is semi-easy to use once you have it in, but I always have to go over what I have already learned. Because after so long, if you're not doing it every day, you forget it. You have to keep relearning it.

My advice is to check it out. They are always willing to do a demo server, then you can check it out and work on it in a sandbox. 

For whoever gets trained, make sure they train somebody else along with them. They need to keep on top of it. Don't just let it sit there because it will break after a long time. The images get so old that they don't work anymore. You have to reimage it, etc. Just keep on top of it at least once a month and update everything. When a new software comes in, update that right away. You need the Management System, but install that first, then do the Systems Deployment Appliance. If somebody else is doing the Management System, keep in touch with them.

We have a system where every time there is a patch, then I get an email so I can know what patches to do, so I can update them on the deployment. Then, it doesn't have to wait for patches. That is the whole solution of doing it. You don't want to have to image something, then wait. If there is extra third-party software that you can't put on the server, then you could at least get that all installed and have it out the same day. With KACE, I have been able to image something and have it out to the customer the same day or next day, which is impressive when you are trying to serve out computers. People really are impressed when you just open a ticket and get it done.

I would give it a nine (out of 10) because it needs to be a little easier. It saves us so much time and the imaging part of it is really easy to use.

We use KACE for patching. 

I am impressed by the service desk ticketing and asset management.

I've had some issues with patch catalogue, which seems to have expired. Quite a few people have reported that they are struggling with it.

I have been using Quest KACE Systems Management for three months now.

The program is very stable.

We only have three people using this program in our company, but I believe it is scalable. I don't think we will increase our usage soon, though.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup was quite complex and I really struggled. It took me around 15 minutes to complete the setup, because it was a trail-based version.

I rate this program an eight out of ten. I will recommend it to others because it is simple and understandable.

My primary use case of this solution is to help us obtain accreditation in the UK of Cyber Essentials Plus. It is a program that is sponsored by the UK government which encourages UK companies to obtain a certain level of cyber-security within their cyber environment. The Quest KACE product helps us get an overview of all IoT(Internet of Things) devices that are accessing our environment.

The most valuable feature is the ability to have an overview of all devices that are accessing our environment.

I think it should have the ability to have the applications automatically update. It would be really helpful if this would override what the user might choose to do.

The initial setup was straightforward. There were some excellent step-by-step instructions sent to us. The instructions were also accompanied by videos, which were very informative.

It was a very attractive price. This is a huge feature of this product. If you would "credit score" this product versus others out there on the market, this one has a very attractive price.

We also looked out VMware Airwatch and MobileIron. But, we chose KACE. It just made more sense for us.

Our primary use case for using this product is as a ticketing solution. 

This product made the job easy to do without having to go put hands on the machines.

I love the integration with Bomgar. It really helped a lot.

The way we were set up, we had multiple campuses across multiple counties. And even with just our downtown campus, you're looking at fifteen different buildings, a hundred different classrooms, and offices everywhere. So for us, the ability to push an image to a machine, wake that image up, and just blast a new image to a computer without even having to touch it, and then push the software to that machine. This just made things so much more convenient for us and so much more efficient than having to go find that machine, pull that machine out, take it back to the shop, and repair it from there.

Just having those tools made the job so much easier and so much more efficient. But they really just don't need the people that they used to have ten years ago.

The biggest problem we had with Quest KACE, with the K2000, imaging becomes a problem when you start to try to go beyond doing more than thirty or forty machines at a time. We initially tried to do that virtually and it just, it wouldn't work.

But that one physical appliance was enough to get us through and once we got the one K2000 physical appliance that was plenty to handle imaging whatever we needed. As far as the K1000, our original purchase was underpowered. We really didn't have the box we should have had for over three thousand nodes, but when it came time to upgrade that box, we got a box that was much more in tune to having over three thousand nodes on that system and it's been doing fantastic for almost three years now. We haven't had any problems.

Overall, the stability has been pretty good. We we were using the Quest KACE on the front end, and then we had a Samba share on the back end that we were using for storage for all of our imaging and for all of our software. There were some issues with how we were doing things on the Samba side versus how they were connecting that to the K box, so there was some issues, but it wasn't anything that was Quest KACE's problem and Quest KACE has done everything that could possibly do to help us work the bugs out. But ultimately it was mismanagement on our end of people not knowing what they were doing and how they were supposed to be administrating the box.

It was really just as simple as buying the licenses as we needed it. As far as man power goes when I first started there, there was four technicians doing roughly 3,300 machines.

They were always fantastic. We dealt mainly with one tech support representative, and he was always spot on. We had some issues early on that I guess they didn't anticipate, and we worked closely with Dell, when Dell owned it, to work out some bugs that were huge for Dell. And because we were early adapters, we were kind of like Beta testers for some things that they eventually got a chance to role out to everybody else.  At first, USB imaging didn't work and then we worked with tech support for a while to get that ironed out and once we got that taken care of, it all got rolled into a new update and then it worked. The tech support staff was just phenomenal.

When I first started at my office, everything was done through Novell. At that time, we didn't have the ease of pushing software and remoting into the devices as we did with Quest KACE.

We also used another solution that wasn't exactly secure - it was touted as a secure solution but there had been some issues. It had been hacked before. And we were starting to get into an area where we were having outside vendors ask us for access into our network, so that started to become a concern for us.

It was easy. The team of the company came in, and helped us set it up.

The initial implementation was through Dell. They were excellent.

If the professionals make a recommendation, consider it. Really, seriously, consider it, because there were some things we didn't do with Quest KACE that we should have, and it  really hurt us in the long run. Even going back as far as active directory, there was some things that we didn't do with active directory that we were told by Microsoft engineers that this is what you need to do with active directory. Six, seven years later, we're looking at a network of two hundred almost VLANs. So, implementation of KACE was fairly smooth for us. If we would have done things exactly the way they would have told us to, which would have included flattening the network, like the Microsoft engineer told us to do when we went to active directory, things would have been even more smooth. We wouldn't have problems with wake-on-LAN, we wouldn't have problems with our scripting, we wouldn't have had problems with our SAMBA share. It would have been so much easier down the road to listen to the professionals and do exactly what they suggested we do, but because we had people who thought they were smarter than the professionals, we had some pains with implementation.

Nothing against Microsoft, but everybody I talk to, who has ever dealt with Microsoft SCCM, has ever dealt with Quest KACE. And, in comparison, it's just more user friendly, easier to integrate and it's just such a more elegant solution. It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for, you know?

We also looked at Spiceworks. A lot of people on our team liked it because it is a free product. They were still working on their whole footing, trying to get everything worked out with that. But with Quest KACE, t had so many other things to offer. You know, with the ability to include the K2000 and K3000, which interested us.

The only hiccups we had were some power issues, where the box was a little under-powered early on. But, as far as having instances of bugs, or anything like that, the box ran great, as long as we left everything alone.