Cisco offers Meraki Systems Manager (SM), an enterprise mobility management platform supporting the monitoring, provisioning and securing of mobile devices across an enterprise network.
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Tanium
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Tanium, headquartered in Emeryville, provides two solution packages: Unified Endpoint Management and Unified Endpoint Security. The vendor states this approach reduces complexity, improves efficiency and closes the gaps between operations and security. Tanium can also be delivered as a service from the vendor.
It is very helpful if you need to restrict the apps a student or employee can have on their device. I had teachers using Netflix on the iPads before I brought them under management. Restricting them will make you unpopular with some of your employees, however, I advise them the device is being provided for business use and, therefore we have the right and responsibility to manage it.
Tanium is well suited for organizations where enterprise infrastructure has great significance and needs to be properly managed as well as protected. Most organizations depend upon their infrastructure to sustain so Tanium can be a boon for them to sustain in this competitive market. However, Tanium is less appropriate for the traditional offices that don't have or have a less online presence.
Limited ability for "command line" functions. For example, we had a laptop that was stolen and showed to be online, but we could not wipe it. We were able to access a command prompt, but it would not accept DISKPART or FORMAT commands to try and make the PC unusable.
The GPS location is not terribly accurate and frequently it "guesses" location based off of an IP address rather than actually activating the GPS on the device. This makes tracking lost/stolen devices very difficult.
Difficulty getting devices to correctly show their status in the dashboard. For example, I can have a PC that is online and connected to the Internet, but shows to be offline in the dashboard. Only after refreshing many times would it indicate that the PC was actually online, thus allowing me to administer it.
One issue is its ring topology, as the data is stored in central hubs and pushed through its peer nodes. If the central hub fails, then the associated node will also result in failure.
Another problem is that all Tanium management is on premises requiring the customer to maintain it. If we want ask any help from Tanium support we always get a response like "you are maintaining it yourselves and it's your responsibility.
The Tanium User Interface could be improved a bit as, although the tool is rich in performance, a more impressive UI might really attract new customers.
It has is easy to use overall and is very powerful. The learning curve for the system is very small and I have found it easy to train members of our team to use it. It can fit any size organization and the support is excellent. The ROI is well worth it. If you have a multiplatform ecosystem, this tool is near perfect.
We have found that Cisco Meraki has always had very good customer support. In the rare case, when we have needed assistance they have always been quick to respond and solve the issue.
The only product I have used that is similar is Apple Configurator. While a powerful solution, it requires physical access to the devices which is not always possible, especially on a large site. Meraki is able to achieve many of the same functions as the Apple configurator but without ever needing to physically access the device, other than initial setup and registration.
Tanium is always my first choice, so much excellent feedback online from genuine users, easy to use in any system environment, and value for money, so many good things about Tanium stacks up against all the other competitors in the market. Tanium is one of the most reliable and trusted risk and compliance management software.
It’s scalable up to a point and will scale well from small to a medium business, however, as a business grows and policies get more mature or detailed, you might have to later upgrade to a more appropriate enterprise solution such as MaaS360 or AirWatch. This solution however, will last quite a long tome for a growing business.
Our immediate take away has been a savings of thousands a year in MDM fees. We were paying around $3.00 a device with our previous MDM and our average with Meraki is about $1.88 per device. That while providing far more functionality than our previous provider.
