Microsoft Configuration Manager Reviews

Our primary use case for this solution is deploying endpoints, applications and updates for large companies. The solution is deployed on-premises and on cloud.

It has the ability to perform mass distribution which is valuable.

It needs to be able to load faster during deployment and the new release could include this ability. This will allow us to deploy critical collections with over 50,000 to 60,000 users simultaneously.

We have been using this solution for approximately ten years and are currently using version 2203.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The initial setup was straightforward.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. The solution is the best there is in the market today. A feature that could be included in the next release is its ability to load faster during deployment.

Microsoft has done a good job with authentication solutions, such as single sign-on, or open authentication.

The downside of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's an on-premise-based solution. With the pandemic coming on board the need to support users across the globe has increased. For a while, we would use the in-built Microsoft Teams screen sharing feature but the disadvantage of that is you cannot perform privileged access. Microsoft does not give you access to that. That's where you need cloud-based tools, such as BeyondTrust or Freshservice.

There are many aspects of this solution that can be improved, such as security.

The integration could be better with other software packages.

I have been using Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for approximately three years.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is a stable solution.

Having Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager available only on on-premise creates limitations. If you want the best scalability options then you will have to move to the cloud to a solution such as Microsoft Intune.

We have approximately 1,000 active endpoints using this solution.

Microsoft has a lot of support available for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. When we open a support ticket Microsoft solves them in the set out the time frame in the SLA.

We were using other solutions previously.

The installation is not easy. As with most on-premise solutions, they are not easy to install. Microsoft documentation is complicated and goes on and on. It's a lot to try to assimilate the information. With a cloud solution, it makes it a bit easier. However, even with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager being on-premise with Intune, it's still not straightforward. The time the implementation took for us to complete was a couple of weeks with a five-person team.

In recent times, a lot of companies have begun to move away from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. The endpoint configuration is very convoluted to implement. In most companies, you need to have a very large dedicated team to manage the solution on the back end. 

A lot of companies are looking to cost savings. With the advent of cloud solutions, companies have the opportunity to receive a lot of cost savings. There are a lot of ITSM tools that will do asset management for you, change management, converged asset management, and updates. There are other ways to configure updates and deployment. The solution is a bit convoluted and expensive.

The price of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is expensive.

I have a very good idea of what my present workplace pays for this solution because it's usually a mixture of different solutions. For example, if you have an Azure P2 license, it tends to cover Microsoft 365 E5. We have a number of licenses. 

The licensing is typically paid monthly or annually as part of the agreement by the customer.

I would recommend this solution to others if you're an Azure-centric organization. If you have your workloads on Azure and are a Microsoft-based organization. For example, you have Microsoft servers, Microsoft endpoints, Azure workloads, BD VMs, Data Factory, and SQL.

I would advise others to use online help forums instead of Microsoft documentation because they can tend to be complicated and lengthy.

I rate Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager a nine out of ten.

Microsoft is working on migrating the function of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager to the cloud. Every week and every month there is something new that's happening to move to the cloud.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is used for installing new workstations without the interaction of people, it does the deploying of workstations automatically. Autopilot is used for automatic deployment installations of workstations without IT support. We only have packages at home and we do not need a VPN to configure workstations from home.

The patching of inventory to patching of Windows and applications, such as Office, inventory of wiping security, deploying new software, reinstalling software, uninstalling software, and wiping the device. This is insecurity from Active Directory services, some functionality we are moving to a group policy.  By having less IT support you can handle more workstations.

The solution could improve the functionality for automating, license management. Additionally, more and better-looking reports are needed.

I have used Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager within the last 12 months.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is a stable solution. We do not have a lack of production in my orgaization.

The solution is highly scalable.

We have two IT engineers using the solution.

Microsoft has high-level support, I only have good words to say about them.

I have used Zabbix previously. I was using Zabbix, its free tool. It's not for somebody who does not have knowledge of Linux. Zabbix is not for a regular Microsoft user to use.

The installation requires a lot of knowledge and experience. The whole process took us three months.

The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager  They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better.  There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure. 

You receive a license for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager when you buy an EMS E3 license. 

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager a nine out of ten.

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. 

I like its ease of use. It does what you need it to do, and it's a one-stop-shop for the company and for all your deployments. If you incorporate Intune into it, you can have both. You can bring your own devices and corporate devices, and everything runs out of SCCM and Intune.

They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. 

For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. 

In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now.

It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions.

I have been dealing with SCCM for nine years.

I used to be the SCCM administrator for quite a big company that had 80,000 people. That's pretty much all I did all day, every day.

BigFix is the poor man's SCCM. It's for people that can't afford SCCM and for small and medium-sized businesses. There's nothing else out there that can do what it can do.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SCCM a nine.

We are using it for software deployment. Our network team uses this solution. It is mostly our tier-two team. 

We're on the latest version.

Software deployment and WSUS are most valuable.

There should probably be better remote support. They should also continue to improve on patch management, patching, and creating or turning products in software into deployable apps.

We have been using this solution in our organization for ten years.

The version that we have is MEMCM, and it works fine.

I've had interaction with Microsoft support, and their support is fine. It is what it is. It is always nice if it is better, but I certainly don't have any complaints.

I don't look at it from an ROI perspective. It provides what we need. It is a critical piece of infrastructure. If you want to run networking and support devices, you have no choice. You have to have it.

I would rate SCCM a nine out of ten.

We use this solution to deploy all of the packages to the workstations.

The scalability to deploy the package.

The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved.

We have used SCCM for a couple of years.

We are using the latest version.

It's a stable solution.

It's a scalable product. We have 1,000 users in our organization.

We have plans to continue using this solution.

Technical support is fine. We have no issues with support.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's easy for us.

We have a team of four to deploy and maintain this solution.

We completed the installation ourselves.

It took one week to deploy and customize it.

We have to pay for a license.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using this solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.