We used AirWatch or VMware Workspace ONE to protect mobile devices on a large scale. They were known for being focused on mobile, more than desktops. They may not be as good on desktops, but the main use case is to monitor and manage mobile endpoints, e.g. wireless devices such as tablets and phones. AirWatch became well known for being really good at monitoring and managing mobile endpoints.
VMware Workspace ONE isn't that good with patching and fixing, especially when compared to BigFix. This is an area for improvement. BigFix did a really good job in terms of patching and fixing, but it had a lot to do with IBM's integration to virtually every other platform out there. That integration really helped from just a server patching and endpoint management situation.
They (IBM) are very good at doing discovery, which is basically surveying the endpoint asset and finding out what vulnerability was there. It might be you're running Windows 10.647, and there are known vulnerabilities below that, so the prioritization of that patching became easy to create rules for, and make sure that you patched all devices with that current OS expeditiously.
Training for VMware Workspace ONE could also be improved, especially when compared to HCL who did a good job, either remote or self-paced.
VMware support has always been good, even if they became a really large company. They have what I call "Amazonitus", e.g. there's a lot of level two triage or level one triage, but you definitely get a response back, though a lot of people have moved away towards self-service. The goal is never to take a phone call if they don't have to, which I understand.
Their tech support is still rock solid on both sides, but would really depend on the kind of problem you have.
The setup for VMware Workspace ONE is good, e.g. there are no complexities, and they all have good discovery now. You plug them in, make sure the nodes are aligned on the network, then you can get to them. The setup process for VMware Workspace ONE and one of its competitors IBM, is very good. They've both done a very good job of it.
I was able to evaluate HCL (BigFix), Microsoft, Blackberry, and Ivanti.
AirWatch evolved into VMware Workspace ONE, so it's the same product. AirWatch was more of a competitor of mobile device management and security, so they weren't as good in patching and fixing.
There's another type of solution now that we call unified endpoint management (UEM), and that's a whole new category. I actually have quadrants in that. I know that AirWatch, even when they were acquired by VMware, e.g. it's now VMware Workspace ONE, was still highly rated. HCL is still highly rated. Microsoft was also good. Ironically, another company that was very good for mobile device management and one of the security companies out there is BlackBerry. They're still alive.
I've worked on most of the UEM solutions, including VMware Workspace ONE. For Blackberry, we haven't touched that lately. We have touched BigFix. I do have customers that are still running BlackBerry Spark®. I know even Google is trying to get in the game. Ivanti is also another UEM solution we've been dealing with. There are a number of different ones, e.g. even IBM has moved their MaaS360® platform to try to do unified endpoint management now.
The advice I'd like to give to others looking into implementing VMware Workspace ONE, is for them not to have any qualms about implementing it. Things are quick to set up, even if our team does some very hardcore security things, e.g. identity and access management, all kinds of threat landscape stuff, attack surface monitoring and modeling, etc. VMware Workspace ONE is one of the easier technologies that can be implemented for what we do, so I'm recommending it to others.
In terms of rating VMware Workspace ONE, there are a lot of "mini-categories", so they don't do some of the things I was talking about, or they're just newer into it. If I look at unified endpoint management, e.g. mobile, desktop, and everything combined, I would probably put BigFix high up there. For mobile, I would put VMware Workspace ONE high up there along with some others. Some of the SaaS ones, e.g. Tanium, do a good job, too. BlackBerry actually does a really good job with unified endpoint management, too. They just don't have billions of their devices out there, but in terms of managing their own devices, they were really the best in the early days, with a very secure platform.
HCL for UEM could be rated the best. For mobile, VMware Workspace ONE would rate the best, because they were really focused on that from the very beginning. They led the way, even if in that space you'll see 500 competitors, with people jumping up and jumping down, and constantly moving. VMware Workspace ONE in the mobile space has been very sustained in terms of how they've been rated and how they've grown over time. They owned the market with four or five of these solutions, and they were able to maintain the lead.
I could rate VMware Workspace ONE eight out of ten, but it would still depend on the use cases. BigFix is better for unified endpoint management, the ability to patch all assets, etc. VMware, on the other hand, is more focused on mobile. VMware being an infrastructure company and everybody inexpensively spinning up VMs all over the place: they've tried to pull that side a little more toward the infrastructure side, desktops, and PCs, and even on the networks, but both of them have grown tremendously.
In the last two or three years, for obvious reasons, with all the resiliency planning we do now for mobile workforces, it's really important for them to develop new capabilities, which I think they have, but this has been really good for their development. They've seen everything at this point.
We use Microsoft Intune for match management for the more than 1,000 computers we have in our organization.
Before using Microsoft Intune we were having trouble when people were not coming to the office and they were working from remote locations. We did not have any control over their devices. Since the introduction of Microsoft Intune, we have had the problem completely taken care of.
Right after we started using Microsoft Intune we were stuck with this pandemic of COVID-19, and 100% of the users were working from home. It was a good thing we started using it at that time, we were able to do the patch management even though 100% of the workforce were sitting at home.
We have a lot of on-premise server policies which we were struggling with because users get authenticated on the company network, but some elements would not take effect. However, with the implementation of Microsoft Intune, we do not have that problem anymore because the user only needs to be connected to the internet. They will get all the policies that we configure on a global scale.
These are the main areas that have changed the way we do administration tasks on the devices. Additionally, we have control over the applications, such as Mobile Application Management (MAM), we can control how the user can share the company data which we did not before. They could previously install a certain email application on their phone and then they could share it with anyone, but now we have the control; we can restrict it and we can even restrict the applications that they can use. We can stop them from sharing things on WhatsApp. We can only apply limits to the Microsoft platforms, such as Teams and Outlook.
The solution is easy to use.
The solution could improve its flexibility.
I have been using Microsoft Intune for one year.
Microsoft Intune is stable.
The solution is scalable.
We have approximately 1,200 users using the solution and for the operators or managers using the solution, we have approximately 15.
The support is satisfactory.
I have used ManageEngine Desktop Central and SCCM. When comparing SCCM to Microsoft Intune, when we used SCCM we had more control and visibility on what we deployed. There are certain cases where you do not want to deploy something. For example, there are security updates or quality updates that could have bugs or glitches that you see around the world. Another example is, every second Tuesday Microsoft patches will be released and you hear that some of them can have bugs or glitches, we can take them off the list and not proceed with that particular patch. This was possible in SCCM because you can select whatever patch you want before deployment. However, in Microsoft Intune that is not possible because Microsoft releases it across the world as one data piece. You do not have control over whether to select it or not, we have to accept it.
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very similar to SCCM, you can select what updates or patches you want. If you do not want one patch you do not have to select it.
We migrated all the services to Microsoft platform cloud architecture. We went with Intune for the patch management, but we do have ManageEngine Desktop Central, which is capable of doing patch management.
The installation of Microsoft Intune was not difficult, it was smooth. Once it was set up it was up and running, we only had to configure the policies. Integrating was easy with Active Directory.
I did the implementation of the solution myself. We have a team of four to five that do the deployment of the solution.
There is a license needed to use the solution and we are on an annual license.
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft Intune an eight out of ten.
Jamf is the best available MDM solution for Apple devices and there is no comparison in the market.
I have been using Jamf services for years and am happy to say that Jamf welcomes more and more capability to its product line.
There is also zero-day support to all new Apple OS.
I would recommend Jamf to you if you need solutions for software delivery, hardware and software inventory and its usage, cloud-based services, role-based administration and audit reports, cross-platform support, its ease of use, simplification, automation, integration and patch management.
We would also take some time to look at additional product cycles around Jamf Pro, including Jamf Connect and Jamf Protect. Jamf Connect is a cloud-based solution that streamlines Mac authentication and identity management. Jamf Protect is an endpoint protection solution built exclusively for Mac devices.
Jamf brings the best MDM solution along with the best end user experience. As a product, it is best in class. I like the product overall, including its services like policy for deployment of apps, scripts, integrations, or configuration profiles which gives you granular control allowing you to make sure the device is compliant with respect to OS hardening standards.
Jamf Service empowers the users with the self-help capability to install, uninstall, or reinstall an application on their own - along with Quick Link Bookmarks or ebooks and its seamless integration with Mac App Store apps. I see Jamf as a robust product with a high amount of customisation, integration, and automation. It has a very big and ever increasing community which is always there to help you.
Listed below are a few improvements Jamf Pro brings to our organization:
Below are a few of the most valuable features which are also key factors as to why we choose Jamf Pro:
IN addition to Jamf Pro, I like Jamf Connect and Jamf Protect. Jamf Connect is a cloud-based solution that streamlines Mac authentication and identity management whereas Jamf Protect is an endpoint protection solution built exclusively for Mac devices.
Every Product line or service has some issue. What is important for me is how soon they can provide a fix as this will reduce the overall impact in my environment. At times we see Product Issues (PI) in Jamf Pro - namely bugs - however, Jamf support is good at fixing the issue, and if they do not have any immediate fix then at least they provide a workaround until we have a fix available from Jamf.
The patch management needs improvement in Jamf Pro. That said, I can see it in the roadmap.
I have been using Jamf for six-plus years now.
We didn't have any previous MDM solution as robust as Jamf Pro.
Jamf Pro brings in cost-based solutions which are scalable for any small, mid, or large-scale organization.
Yes, We did evaluate Microsoft products, however, Jamf Pro just nailed it.
Below are a few product's capabilities:
We primarily use the solution in order to see devices connected to the network here.
The solution has improved our organization by allowing us to shed some light on how things work in our network.
The analysis of traffic and configuration capabilities are the most valuable aspects for us.
The solution is straightforward to set up.
The solution seems to be scalable.
It's very stable and reliable.
So far, it's been very clean and easy to use. We can find proper settings and information easily even though we are rather new to the product.
We have used it for too short of a time to have thoughts about what might be missing; we still need to get more familiar with it.
The solution can be expensive.
I've been using the solution for half a year.
The solution is stable and reliable. I can confirm we haven't had issues. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's good so far.
As the solution is only partially deployed, it's hard to gauge how many people are on it or will be on it.
However, as a cloud solution, it seems to be very scalable.
I haven't directly dealt with technical support.
We are currently testing systems from both Cisco and Microsoft. This is the first implementation. We did not have anything previously.
This was a cloud implementation, however, I don't really have any details about the process. My understanding was that it was straightforward. Setting up the initial infrastructure took about one month.
There were only two or three people handling the deployment and maintenance.
There was a Cisco engineer helping us with configuration.
We have not seen an ROI as we are in the proof of concept phase and still would need to do a full implementation.
From what I read, it's rather expensive, however, I have no access to such details in terms of what our contract costs.
The solution was ultimately chosen by the organization. I'm unsure as to if there were other options looked at.
We are just end-users of the product.
I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using.
Overall, so far, I'd rate it an eight out of ten. It's still new and I still need time to get used to it.
We use Configuration Manager for our production servers. We only have two users, and they're both admins.
Configuration Manager has allowed us to reduce the number of admins needed from three to one.
Configuration Manager simplifies management. Cloning via live migration is a useful feature.
Configuration Manager's reporting could be better. I need to use a third-party reporting solution to get the details. They could add reporting features similar to RVTools.
We've used vCenter Configuration Manager for one year.
Configuration Manger is highly dependable.
We haven't faced any limitations so far. We have a large footprint, with around 35 servers, so it's used extensively. Right now, we're in the process of consolidation, so the usage will likely go down a little bit. Right now, we're using it for around 10 hours a week.
I rate the technical support eight out of 10.
Positive
I previously used Microsoft Hyper-V. We switched to this because it has more features for managing enterprise-level infrastructure.
Setting up Configuration Manager was pretty straightforward. It took a couple of months to get everything squared away. It required two people to set up.
I used a consultant, but he decided not to make it. He doesn't want to be included in it.
We pay a monthly subscription, but I don't have the numbers. The only cost besides the license is the expense of maintaining the servers.
I rate vCenter Configuration Manager nine out of 10. I recommend it to others. Don't waste time with other solutions. Just use this.
