BMC Helix ITSM vs. Symantec IT Management Suite

It would be 8 for me on recommending BMC Helix ITSM. It provides strong capabilities, significant improvement in the IT operations. There is need to improve user interface simplicity and integration flexibility. It still gives a lot good capabilities comparing to its competitor. For those looking for holistic IT Service Management solutions, this is a great selection.

Incentivized

The Symantec IT Management Suite is used throughout the company (global). It is efficient and reports via email any type of problem found, from threats to attacks. The update on the clients is carried out without being noticed. When the system is doing some sort of scan, older computers are slow. Other than that, I believe it is an ideal software for monitoring the entire infrastructure.

Incentivized

• The Service Asset and Configuration Management capabilities of Helix ITSM are awesome. It can be used as a central repository for all SACM information and seamlessly integrated with Helix Discovery.
• It has the most certified ITIL process modules of any ITSM system. These modules work seamlessly with each other and give you the power to manage any situation effectively.
• As an Administrator of Helix ITSM you have many tools at your disposal to create customizations, workflows. BMC makes it easy to manage the system, leaving time to develop customizations and workflows.

Incentivized

• End to end workstation imaging with a 45 minute average for OS, drivers and base software with only 1 technician touch to name the workstation.
• Application usage reporting on what software is being used and how much - broken down by site, department and user.
• 5% of managed workstations were patched.
• IT lifecycle reports were automated with live inventory feeds to enable purchase reports.

Incentivized

• Customization can be lengthy due to the numerous features included in the software.
• New staff members require some sort of hands-on training to get to know all the use capabilities.
• The analytics can be improved to include forecasts and trend analysis.
• Expensive compared to competitors.

Incentivized

• Increased memory consumption
• Older machines can not support the program

Incentivized

We rate it an 8 because BMC Helix ITSM provides valuable features that greatly enhance our IT Service Management. While it meets our needs effectively, there's potential for further improvement in areas like user interface simplicity and customization options. We're satisfied with the platform and look forward to its continued development.

Incentivized

At least Remedy is all contained in a single platform, so the interface is consistent. Also, the most heavily performed functions are generally usable. However, to use some of the more advanced modules can be a bit more cumbersome (such as Change Management and CMDB (Not Including ADDM)). So, overall BMC Remedy ITSM is better than some applications like CA SDM or HP SM, but not quite on par with ServiceNow.

I am bit biased after using Symantec ITSM for 10 plus years. However, I found its ability to wrap everything into one console for at a view enterprise health a powerful tool for my department and others. The ability to provide self healing of software packages to workstations was especially powerful. The ability to customize data connections to other tools and automate those inputs and outputs let us provide the business data to support enterprise decisions on Hardware and software usage.

Incentivized

Their tech support is top notch. They respond and get back to us, even on lower level incidents and issues, very quickly. It is rare that we deal with a support technician who does not know what they are doing.

With the Blue Coat acquisition the question remains on how much support Symantec is going to give the ITSM suite. Its just not that sexy anymore to have to support a product that touches all the hardware anymore. A few of the really good support reps have gone the way of private which is very concerning.

Incentivized

Satisfied because I didn't have to do it!

Incentivized

Moving to Helix from on premises Remedy provides all the same benefits of ServiceNow with most of the existing customisations we have developed over the last eight years. There was no feature we needed that ServiceNow provided that Helix could not provide. The biggest factor was Helix's ability to use concurrent licences vs ServiceNow's named licences. We have large numbers of partners who use the system infrequently, but they do need to use it to raise changes or manage incidents/problems. ServiceNow would have been much more costly for effectively the same functionality.

We evaluated Norton and Kaspersky, we chose Symantec to provide more options and more guarantees. In addition, we have used the tool for more than 10 years in the company (the time I am working). It has an interface with all monitoring data and statistics. A specific display of each piece of connected equipment in the network, making monitoring easy and, in case of a threat, it notifies us.

Incentivized

Again, always room for improvement, but a very stable product none-the-less.

Incentivized

• Positive: an introduction to ITIL and viewing Asset, User Management from the perspective of ITIL, and how BMC has implemented those processes
• Negative: The development team needs to communicate better with the sales and support side, and they need offer an open API
• Negative: Currently the Asset Management side has little security and validation of Asset input: anyone can make API (mostly), at any item, which is a problem that I am apart of solving.
• The UX needs updating, badly. Its quality is poor: it functions, but it is cumbersome, click-heavy and requires several hours to understand how to function with it. Also, it needs to ditch IE11 support, altogether.

Incentivized

• Reduction of virus infections
• Greater clarity in the reports
• Monitoring the network and infra

Incentivized