Ivanti Endpoint Manager vs. Microsoft System Center Service Manager

There is no direct replacement for the on-prem Ivanti [Unified Endpoint Manager (formerly LANDESK Management Suite)] solution. Ivanti has a companion product called Neurons, but that is in additional cost, and requires configuration with your on-prem [Unified Endpoint Manager] instance to perform basic functions. If cloud-based is a requirement for your organization, this is likely a dealbreaker. You can implement [Unified Endpoint Manager] in a cloud instance such as AWS, but the support for this appears limited. If on-prem is not an issue for you, this is a great tool for device management. It has robust features, impressive inventory, massive customization options, and excellent vendor support. If Patch Management is a problem in your company right now, this is the first product I would evaluate.

I think any organization that runs windows on their computers that is size over 50 workstations and looking for a complete package to manage their windows machines must have Microsoft System Center Service Manager, especially if they have Windows servers and VMs. The capability of managing multiple devices at ones can save a lot of time for the IT jobs.

Incentivized

• Patch(Security) is done really well. You can use roll out projects or built-in automation as well as the use of groups and scopes to design pilot and other use cases.
• It takes a solid inventory of what you have of your endpoints and can do an agentless scan as well if you need to collect data that way as well.
• Provisioning is rather simple and even allows you to use other products' software for the image or the built-in if you wish to do so.
• Software distribution works well and has a lot flexibility built into the module.

• This tool is used to track support requests among our IT staff.
• We use this tool to automate some more routine tasks.

Incentivized

• Setup - Boy it is a pain to configure everything correctly. Be aware that you'll probably be giving an AD service account some God rights to get everything working....and security just loves that....
• Cost - Boy you have to pay for everything. I suppose it lets you buy into just what you want but having repeated items go through procurement is a pain if your procurement branch is a pain.

Incentivized

• Kind of clunky.
• Takes a lot a lot a lot of configuration.
• There is a lot of jargon to learn to be able to use it to its full ability.

Incentivized

We are happy with the product but the support and development process is far superior to any other company we have worked with. Having a good support structure is very important in today's marketplace of products that do so many things and have so many robust options and capabilities. We are very satisfied with our contract, pricing, support and product execution.

Items are logically laid out and most are easy to find. The more advanced stuff can be trickier, but it is still not hard to find. There are a lot of options though, so remembering where some settings are, especially if you do not alter them often, can take a minute, but you will get to them fairly qiickly.

TRM\TAM support has been generally very good. Getting reported bug fixes, design changes, UX problems resolved has been a pain. It is often difficult to get problems escalated beyond the TRM\TAM level. Support is fantastic when you can get it, getting it can often require more work than it should, and that is probably our biggest issue.

The customer support service is excellent. They help from start/deployment through to any time later on. They responded quickly and resolved our issues professionally and in no time.

Incentivized

It's been many years since I did a full evaluation of other products but at the time we purchased it, the main competitors were Microsoft's SMS and Alteris. SMS just looked horribly ugly and complicated (which fit in very well with Microsoft's other server tools) and Alteris looked okay but had a piecemeal approach where even a basic deployment meant purchasing a half dozen or more components. LANDesk had one bundle for all the tools we were looking for and had a great interface for presenting the data.

Incentivized

We selected MCSM because it is a solid product that we could use very quickly, compared to other tools there is a lot more effort for integration into the infrastructure, costing time and money. We implemented the tool very quickly and since it integrates with other Microsoft products, it was very easy to get up and running.

Incentivized

• In a college environment, the remote control access is very helpful in resolving issues w/o running around campus.
• Very nice to push software to multiple devices at once.
• Software portal is useful in allowing users to get what they need without the need for a tech.

Incentivized

• Save a world of time when imaging
• Save a world of time with patch management
• Provides decent reports to get a snapshot quickly

Incentivized