BMC Helix Client Management vs. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

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

The thing I mentioned earlier where we're constantly dealing with federal regulations or new agents that they want us to install and deploy and just getting those out in a consistent manner in a canned installation via Playbook is ideal

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.

• Makes it easy to create and share automation in one central hub.
• Ansible content collections give me the ability to reuse code, making it rapid to carry out complex IT processes.
• Event-driven automation allows me to reduce manual tasks: it is rapid to know which action to take and respond automatically by receiving events from external apps automatically.

• 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

• Workflows should have more flexible paths than just success or failure.
• The upgrade process can be challenging with differences in security and environment.
• There is an opportunity to add CICD functionality into the tool.
• For development, it would be nice to have the option of editing a repo directly from AAP to allow quick tests/reruns. Then, allow it to push the updates back or create a new branch/PR in GitHub.
• The RBAC is good but could use improvements. One example would be an option that allows admins to assume the access of another user to validate it works as expected.

Incentivized

We are deploying Ansible at all levels of the organization

Incentivized

the yaml is easy to write and most people can be taught to write basic playbooks in a few weeks

Incentivized

Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.

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

There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.

Incentivized

I spoke on this topic today!

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

AAP doesn't truly stack up against any of the products mentioned except for Aria Automation. But, it is extensible and open and has a lower cost to entry.

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.

• Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers automation and ML tools that allow me to automate complex IT tasks.
• Through automation analytics, it is seamless to gain full visibility into automation performance allowing me to make informed decisions.
• Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform allows me to move rapidly from insights to action.
• Creating and sharing automation content in one place unify a team in one place hence enhancing real-time collaboration.