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AWS CloudFormation vs. TrueSight Automation for Servers

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    AWS CloudFormation

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/AAWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators a way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in a predictable fashion. Use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run an application. Users don’t need to figure out the order for provisioning AWS services or the subtleties of making those dependencies work.…

    $0

    TrueSight Automation for Servers

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/ABMC's TrueSight Automation for Servers (formerly under the BladeLogic Automation Suite) is a server lifecycle automation application supporting configuration, patching and maintaining physical, cloud and virtual servers.N/A
    Pricing
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
    Editions & Modules
    Free Tier - 1,000 Handler Operations per Month per Account
    $0.00
    Handler Operation
    $0.0009
    per handler operation
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsThere is no additional charge for using AWS CloudFormation with resource providers in the following namespaces: AWS::*, Alexa::*, and Custom::*. In this case you pay for AWS resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances, Elastic Load Balancing load balancers, etc.) created using AWS CloudFormation as if you created them manually. You only pay for what you use, as you use it; there are no minimum fees and no required upfront commitments. When you use resource providers with AWS CloudFormation outside the namespaces mentioned above, you incur charges per handler operation. Handler operations are create, update, delete, read, or list actions on a resource.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    No answer on this topic
    BMC Helix
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
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    HashiCorp Vagrant
    Score9 out of 10
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    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Perforce Puppet
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Terraform
    Score8.7 out of 10
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    Score6.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AWS CloudFormationTrueSight Automation for Servers
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    I still give it an 8 because it's one of those tools that just quietly does the heavy lifting for you but it can really test your patience when it breaks esp with deep nested stacks. It's perfect for projects where we need clean consistent environments every time. It's less ideal for quick experimental setups like new EC2 configs or Lambda permission tweaks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    It would be very good to backup multiple platforms.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • All resources can segregated based on stacks which provides greater visibility
    • A complete audit trail of what went wrong while deploying a particular resource
    • Automatically rollbacks if any service as part of CloudFormation results in an error
    • The UI tool is useful
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    • The backup process is simple and easy to learn and change.
    • It has the ability to manage multiple platforms.
    • It also can push configures to multiple devices at once.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • Error Description upon Failure Needs to be Improved.
    • Slow to create, delete or update.
    • Need to delete resources manually. It can ask before starting deletion whether to skip those resources or delete them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    • It would easier for users if there are more report templates.
    • The dashboard can be improved as well.
    • Otherwise, I am pretty happy with the tools.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    It's easy enough to get a shared template & apply it. You don't even have to download-then-upload or copy-and-paste, a publicly-accessible url works.
    Diving deeper, it has enough powerful capabilities to make the life of a platform / DevOps engineer bearable.
    However, you need equally deep knowledge to troubleshoot issues, when they inevitably pop up. This is the same for all IaC technologies, as they are additional abstraction layers on top of the native API provided by the cloud providers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Cloning a virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information. Management guide.For information copy of the original. The new virtual Cloning virtual machine creates a virtual machine that is a copy of the original. The new virtual machine is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information is configured with the same virtual hardware, installed software, and other properties that were configured for the original virtual machine. For information about persistent memory and PMem storage, see the vSphere Resource Management Guide. For information
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • + We can standup a VPC in minutes
    • - It took a lot of inital time to set up
    • + With logging/rollback, made testing much easier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    BMC Helix
    • Make my work more reliable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    AWS CloudFormation Screenshots

    Screenshot of CloudFormation - How it works overviewScreenshot of CloudFormation - High level how it worksScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template exampleScreenshot of CloudFormation - Template inputs overview