Microsoft Configuration Manager Reviews

This is a diverse tool so its use case varies. Most people use it for patch management and software distribution, and operating system deployment. It can also be used for policy management and for maintaining a baseline on the computer, depending on the company and its goals. We are consultants and resellers and deploy this solution on the cloud and on-prem. We use Azure for our cloud deployments. I'm a consultant and president and CEO of our company. 

The solution enables significant streamlining and reduces resources from a personnel perspective.

Patching is very effective and reporting is very good. In general, the software distribution and operating system deployment are very good. Most organizations with small support resources leverage it, along with the Azure Autopilot component or the Intune Autopilot component. The customer orders the solution, it's shipped to them, they open it, log on with their Azure credentials and it builds the machine for them as opposed to going to an imaging center, and having a dedicated staff for that particular function. 

I think the asset management component, the TSM piece, could be improved. That would allow them to compete with other products. It's currently very basic and rudimentary because there are no other connectors such as PeopleSoft that you can get.

I've been using this solution for 24 years. 

This is a very mature product so it's very stable. In the 24 years I've been using it, most of the kinks have been worked out. It's all about having a healthy network and a healthy, active directory structure. If those two things are in place, you'll have a really good experience. If not, it will definitely show its head in the SCCM product. 

The scalability is excellent. 

Technical support for SCCM is good. You have to get past the tier one person, but once you get to a dedicated MECM engineer, it's good. The support forums are also helpful. 

If the solution is being deployed by someone with experience, it can be done in about two hours. They're pretty good with hydration kits where you can configure all the prerequisites and all the components, and you're up and running in about two clicks. It's the customer and budget that dictates how complex or how involved a setup is. If they're only leveraging a couple of the core features of the product, it's pretty straightforward, but if they want to use more advanced functions and distribute that out and do low balancing and that sort of thing, it takes a little more time. Generally, clients allow us to integrate for them, we conduct a turnkey training solution, and then they take it over.

Although the solution is not as expensive as Ivanti, the cost is still quite high. Certain licensing arrangements can get you a better deal, but it's still expensive. It's based on a CAL license, so if you have a client on an endpoint, there's going to be a charge. I think it's around $US35 per license per year. It's not too bad. 

If you're new to the solution then it's worthwhile studying the documentation because it's not easy in terms of all the components that make it up such as SQL and so forth. 

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

It is used only for endpoints. We are trying to decide if it is useful for server-based evaluation as well. Like everybody else, we want to track what software is deployed. We have a one-half deployment of this product now, and I'm not sure if it's useful for what we want to do, which is server-based. It is designed to detect any PC. Thousands of people are using it this way, and it's not a new thing, but some people also seem to use the product for server-based detection, and it looks like there are modules you can download for Linux and other things to make it work beyond just the endpoint, which is what I am after.

It works well for the endpoints for the customer I'm consulting. It has a bunch of knobs, and you can tune it to do lots of things. 

It is designed to detect any PC. You can do it agent-based, or you can do it by some other method. If it is agent-based, then as long as the PC has the Endpoint Manager agent on it at the time when the batch job runs, it detects the hardware and software and puts it in the database. 

I'm looking for a single solution for all discovery needs. It fulfills about 40% of the requirements, and I'd like to see the other 60% so that I don't have to keep doing this.

I've been consulting in this space for five years. It has been used by the customer for years.

I don't have enough data on that. While I've been observing it, it has been stable.

When you buy it, you license it with a total number of devices to be managed, and that's a wall. When you hit the wall, you're going to need more licenses. So, you can scale right up to the spot where you have hit your boundary on licensing. To that boundary, it scales just fine.

I don't have any experience with their support.

This client uses seven or eight different things to perform this function of discovery. They use two different things for networks, and they use a hodgepodge of things to track VMware and Virtual Data Images (VDIs) and basically back of the envelope to track things that are on servers.

As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license.

You may need complementary products to handle the holes not envisioned by SCCM.

For what it was designed to do, I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for patch management, application deployment and operating system deployment.

It has improved our ability to remediate against critical CVE's in a timely manner across the enterprise.

The patch management is great. The ability to be able to centrally purchase servers is quite useful.

The ability to monitor only after you have rebooted devices allows you to see if they have compliance or not.

The efficiency - as opposed to patching once you have the time - of having a central repository to manage everything you need is very helpful.

The solution is quite stable. 

It's perfect for enterprises.

We have found the scalability to be quite good.

In terms of the monitoring, the timeframe it takes to actually report back on the compliance of a device after it has been patched is a bit too long. That could be better. Sometimes you could be looking at a screen and may take about five to 10 minutes before you get back the actual compliance status and that could be reduced.

Having a cloud solution is better in a lot of ways. For the deployment of the operating system, with InTune and modern end-point management, you no longer have to image machines and waste a lot of hours. You no longer have your technicians spending four, five hours imaging machine sessions for drivers and things like that. You can make use of an autopilot, which reduces resources and can cut down the timeframe drastically. There's a lot of wins with the cloud technology that's coming forward, that enterprises and organizations can make use of.

I've used the solution over the three years. It's been in our organization for the past six years.

It's a very stable product. It is definitely an enterprise-grade patch management solution.

The product is very scalable. When we have migrations and we bring on additional devices, such as during an acquisition of companies, it's great. We can bring them right into our environment. It's very scalable in terms of deploying and adding a new division to the solution. 

Currently, we have it deployed to support over 20,000 PCs.

Likely, we will increase usage. There are also new tools that are modern tools that we are starting to make use of. As much as you're doing something for patch management, where you need to enter the discussion is you need to start looking at modern endpoints, which is InTune, for example. We will start making use of InTune for the patch of end-points. We could also do scheduling of those patches as well from the cloud to the client. We are using, a hybrid approach. Generally, our goal is to expand usage.

In terms of technical support, once you have a Microsoft agreement, the level of support would be the same across all our products. We have an enterprise-grade level of support. Therefore, once I create a critical case, I get support within the hour. We are quite satisfied.

We have had a deployment in our enterprise for more than five years. It's a relatively complex deployment due to the fact that we have a large organization.

I am one of the enterprise engineers. I make deployments happen at a new location and it may just be a matter of training the onsite technician at that new division on how to make use of it. We have an enterprise-grade deployment and we have divisional deployments where divisions can make use of it to still manage their in-house shops.

A consultant would've assisted in the initial deployment.

We do pay a licensing fee on a yearly basis. 

There is a license cost and it is licensed per deployment. We do pay licensing costs for all of the deployments that we have on our end, across the enterprise.

With the way everything is moving to the cloud, you need to have all of these licenses in place.

We're partners with Microsoft.

For people looking into implementing Configuration Manager at this point, I would recommend it. They should also look at InTune, which is more of an endpoint deployment. For the servers, you can still look at what we have, however, just the way, how things are developing, I can see the industry and patch management moving away from on-prem management to more like making use of the cloud and use of our Microsoft for business in terms of managing the updates, ease of updates and things like that. What is happening now is a paradigm shift.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. It's great for enterprises.

We use Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for application deployment, patch deployment, and many other things. If you have any script that needs to be deployed to all the devices, you can do it with this solution. 

If you have this solution in your environment, it's a win-win situation. You can deliver anything that the customer requires. If the efficacy is somewhere around 80 to 90%, everything isn't well because some devices aren't coming online because of bandwidth issues or they aren't compliant. 

However, if we have 80% to 90% efficacy, we can achieve compliance. The compliance we reached was around 95%, but that 5% was probably due to a decommissioned device or one that wasn't in the environment. So, for efficacy, delivery, and reporting, this is one of the best tools.

The major features of this product are the reporting tools. The most valuable features are package deployment and application deployment. Security management is also good because any vulnerability will be identified, and you can fix it. It's the best tool because you never know what kind of client you will have. For example, you may have your offices in low bandwidth remote areas. But it's achievable because it accommodates the bandwidth that you have available.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is an excellent reporting tool for your environment. If you want to know the details about the hardware configuration, software configuration, what is causing a problem, or when a new feature update comes in for Windows, even that goes on SCCM itself. A lot of deployment stuff.

It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. 

Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new. 

I have been working with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for about seven years.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is very stable. It's very reliable, and it's a proven product.

Scalability is difficult for the inexperienced. But if you know how to use these tools, scalability is also good. When Intune matures, you can also use it together with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager to scale and co-manage the environment.

Microsoft support is good, but it does take time. There are two types of support provided by Microsoft, paid and unpaid. The paid option offers a real-time system, and they help because we have to pay in dollars. Sometimes it takes two or three days to get to the submission. I cannot comment much because we only had a few cases and had to connect with them. Usually, these issues are related to some upgrades and some tool-related issues. Although it's good, I think Microsoft support could be better because they still take too much time.

The deployment process is very simple. It's not difficult because it gives you a variety of features. You have to create a collection or a group, and you deploy it. It's very slow and dependent on the network. 

A single person can install and deploy this solution. If you have an application already created and tested, that's fine. If you do not have one, then you have to build the application and test it. If everything goes fine, you can simply deploy it to the list of people you want to target. I wouldn't say that you need many people, but it depends on your operation and how you manage your environment.

The deployment time depends on the location it's going to, the bandwidth, and more. You can configure a time for the application to replace the policy or when the machine will replace its policies in the configuration settings. Suppose I'm an administrator and deploying something on your device; your machine will not get turned on. I will go ahead and update the application evolution cycle and machine policies so that it happens automatically. Once the 30 minutes clock starts, it'll update, and once it refreshes, it will see something I sent, and it'll start downloading it. 

Downloading is always completely dependent on how fast your internet is. Once the package is downloaded, you can simply go ahead and install it. Small packages will take about an hour at most to deploy. For bigger packages, it's completely dependent on the internet because this tool does only one job. It's like a postman as it takes one thing from you and gives it to the other person.

There are periodic updates, and the maintenance is also done. The patch update service is critical and has a significant impact.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is suitable for small businesses. If you have fewer offices and fewer users, then the efficacy of this product is very high. If the company doesn't have a system for a long time or doesn't have many employees or environmental issues, they can open Intune and have a cloud-based solution and get all the features together there.

You can stage your content, and you can share where you have no connectivity. You can go ahead and do the whole deployment and a lot of things. Intune is still improving, but SCCM has a feature of all this deployment and all other things.

So I would say that SCCM has a stronghold and is still relevant. It's an excellent product, but Intune will take it over in a few years. But not entirely because they will coexist. They are working in an environment simultaneously, hand in hand, but I think the market will move more toward Intune (if it's not moving already).

I would advise potential users to take a structural approach. They should know the customer's requirements, the number of users, and the locations. They need to have the setup, create a cache, and then binary and secondary options for these deployments. But if you're using a cloud-based solution, you don't have too much worry about it because everything will come from the internet. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, formerly known as SCCM, is used for patching machine servers and application deployments. It also stores an inventory of machine hardware. We are customers and I'm a consultant. 

Patching is an important feature in the solution. Because it's console-based we can create one application or patch in the console. It will download and from the console base we can deploy to all machines. If your company has around 1,000-2,000 machines we're able to patch and deploy to all concurrently. We're also able to check, report and troubleshoot if there are any issues or errors that occur during deployment. We currently have 500 plus servers which are managed automatically on cloud.

Cloud-based improvements need to be better managed than is currently the case. 

I've been using this solution for nine years.

The solution is quite stable because it's a Microsoft product. Even though it's cloud-based it's quite stable. We have two engineers that deal with maintenance. 

The solution is quite scalable, although there is a lot of competition from products such as AWS and IBM BigFix.

We've had good experience with Microsoft technical support. 

The initial setup was straightforward. It's a matter of downloading from Microsoft, updating on the console and deploying. The amount of staff required for deployment depends on the level of infrastructure. Before the deployment, you need to test the machines to check whether a particular patch is installed and updated properly on that machine and whether there are any bugs. Installation is a step-by-step process. We can do about 20,000 per week, so within five weeks the job can be done. If there are only 10,000 machines, deployment can be completed within a week. 

Licensing is better than with other solutions because it's Microsoft-based. Microsoft offers multiple options which works for us. 

The solution is good for us because most of our users are using Microsoft-based products and the solution is compatible for anyone using Linux-based or AWS.

I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

We use the solution to monitor our servers and clouds. We also use it for software and hardware inventories.

Hardware and software inventories help us discover the resources and assets in our organization. The dashboards have information about our assets. We use the reports for decision-making. The tool gives good information about our resources in the organization.

The solution is crowded with information. It is complicated to search for things.

I have been using the solution for almost six months.

The stability is excellent. I have had no problems. I rate the product’s stability an eight out of ten.

We have around ten users in the organization. The product serves only the environment where we install the agent for each client. We have almost 2000 clients. I rate the product’s scalability a nine out of ten.

The implementation is easy. It took three to four hours.

Since we are a government organization, money is not an issue. There's an agreement between the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Microsoft.

I will recommend the tool to others. It is helpful for organizations. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

I am using Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for software distribution and patch management.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the software deployment. Additionally, Microsoft integrates most of the other solutions well with one another.

The support could improve.

I have used Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for approximately five years.

We are utilizing the solution on a regular basis.

I rate the scalability of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager 

The availability of technical support could improve.

I rate the support from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager as seven out of ten. 

Neutral

I rate the initial setup of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten.

I rate the price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten.

I rate Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is the application and device management for any windows desktop and mobile device clients.

The most valuable feature is the restriction of data transfer between unmanaged applications and managed applications, specifically on mobile devices. For example, if a user wants to transfer data from email to WhatsApp, that can be restricted.

The solution can be improved by speeding up the synchronizing of the policies on the devices. Technical support can benefit from shortened response times and making sure all of the support team are at par with their knowledge regarding the solution.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The solution is stable. We currently have seven to nine thousand users.

The solution is scalable to match our needs.

The technical support team's response time can be slow at times and some people are more knowledgeable than others depending on who you have assigned to the ticket.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward. I give it an eight out of ten for ease.

The price is competitive and reasonable. I would give the solution an eight out of ten on price.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

The solution doesn't require any maintenance from our end because it is a cloud-based solution and Microsoft takes care of everything. 

The solution is easy to integrate with the durations and application, and administration is also very simple. When you go with the combination of licenses, the cost is also good, and reasonable.