BMC Helix Client Management vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

This tool will work the best in homogeneous environment where systems are running on Windows OS. In heterogeneous environment like ours where we have Windows, Linux and OS X operating systems, roll out and integration will be a challenge since not all the systems will have accessibility from a common credential

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

• Easy to use
• Easy to upgrade
• Highly flexible without customization
• Great community/support
• Patch management provides the flexibility to deploy patches using a test to production methodology. It also allows us to customize restart actions which helps with compliance but eases disruption to the business.
• Computer imaging and software deployment work together to improve speed to delivery.
• Financial asset management is very useful providing all of the information we need to support our PC replacement process.

• 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 would be nice if it were possible to export search results
• Schedule my reports to automatically, run at intervals of my choosing with the results either emailed or dumped to disk as a CSV
• Easy report writing

• 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

The process followed by the support team for incidents as well as support requests will become bottleneck for dynamically growing organisations as nothing works fast from a support point of view. A few of the requirements that we asked for took more time to execute and most of them came with a cost.

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

As we decided to go for BMC Remedy for ITSM, BMC Helix Client Management was the better solution than other tools for ITAM solution as integrating ITAM and ITSM was easier than other tools and also from support point of view, it will be one throat to choke. The reporting module was elaborate and customisable.

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

• BMC Client Management has improved our speed to delivery, quality of service and security by providing the necessary automation tools to improve our processes.

• 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