AWS Config vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

It's really good if your infrastructure services is all in AWS, that means everything could be audited and monitored using AWS config. You also can create alarms to notify you or your team about any changes on your AWS resources which is very useful to prevent abuse if you have a fairly large team. It's also very useful whenever some third party wants to audit your AWS resources, if you have a fairly comprehensive AWS config configured, the auditing process will be easy since they only need to look at your AWS config setup.

Incentivized

I think it has added value for any organization. It reduced our Tech Support cost by: -Supporting users anywhere -Reducing users downtime as well keep them informed with the status of their tickets -Managing software and hardware actively -Processing automation -deploy mass software installs, patching or updates - Provide approved software's to users to install without IT help

Incentivized

• The ability to track changes in AWS is paramount, AWS config allows you to do this
• Allows the auditing of an AWS account
• Can view history of an account that has AWS config enabled

Incentivized

• Inventory: KACE provides a ton of hardware and software inventory information that is easy to search, filter, and export. This is critical when we need to find the answers to questions about how many of such and such we have in our fleet.
• Patch Management: We were using WSUS before and it was altogether too cumbersome. KACE has given us the power, flexibility, and verification we need to feel comfortable our patches are up-to-date.
• Service Queue: We made KACE our help desk system and it does everything we need it to do. Great improvement over our old system.

Incentivized

• It's only AWS, no third party.
• Not the most intuitive interface, but with a little getting used to it is OK.

Incentivized

• The KACE SMA needs a better way to handle different roles in the software so certain users can access or administrate certain parts of the software, but not the entire software installation.
• The KACE SMA could improve the ticketing process of projects. The aspects of the title and some information do not always flow down from the parent ticket to its child tickets.
• The KACE SMA could improve the UI of the software with the addition of different CSS color schemes.

Incentivized

Overall, the software is simple to understand and use. That said, most vendors have been slowly updating their user interfaces to HTML5 so that they have a clean updated look and feel. This is where KACE falls short in that the UI is great for a packaged software 10 years ago. This isn't a major limitation as the software is really meant primarily for technology users.

Incentivized

Would rate lower for other workloads but for AWS workloads its simple to set up, cost effective and customisable. Primary use case is compliance from a governance perspective.

Incentivized

KACE does exactly what you need it to do, it maintains your computer environment. You can set patch schedules, inventory computers, setup software catalogs; basically everything you need to ensure the computers on your network are being actively managed. This is all with little need for constant configuration or updating the setup.

Incentivized

I do not know or have used any other product in AWS cloud space that matches what AWS Config provides. We have some custom built monitoring and governance, however that is there because AWS Config does not provide it currently.

Incentivized

We have selected this software because it rolls several different systems into one. We have a helpdesk system with this and an asset and inventory management system as well. We pay one price for the whole system instead of paying multiple companies different amounts that would have totaled more than we pay for the single system.

Incentivized

• Enforcing audit requirements
• Easy to set up alerting when there are rule breaches
• Auto remediation reduces the manual policing of such breaches

Incentivized

• KACE has saved us from having to spend several days of employee hours in crafting DVDs and duplicating them (100+ DVDs)
• KACE has saved us on the postage required to send out those DVDs for every update (monthly) to all of our customers electronically

Incentivized