Ivanti Neurons for ITAM vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Ivanti ITAM suite is very robust and offers all the features you need in an ITAM solution. Out of the box, you get all you need, but you are able to customize and add processes that are missing very easily. It will work for any organization, regardless of complexity. We have the full suite of Ivanti products and there are nice integration options that make usage very seamless.

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

• Remote PC Inventory
• Remote PC access (PC access)
• Reporting
• Offsite PC access (through LANDesk Gateway)

Incentivized

• 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

• Licensing can be complex and is fairly expensive. I did not research other ITAM solutions as we use the entire Ivanti suite to see how pricing compares, but it does seem expensive.
• Be careful when you are building you CMDB module in the Ivanti Service Desk tool, we found the hard way that create custom CI processes requires an ITAM license.
• We have submitted a few bugs and the resolution from support seems slow. I find this is common with many vendors, but was hoping for better resolution times with Ivanti.

Incentivized

• 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

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

This is the only software suite in its category I have any real professional experience with, so I cannot speak to how it stands up to the competition

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

• We have seen tremendous ROI with custom processes set up to manage the lifecycle of our assets. This was a huge void for us previously and now we can see when assets are coming/going and when they should be retired.
• Integration with other apps via API has allowed us to automate manual tasks and streamline processes.
• Tie-ins with the CMDB function of Service Desk have allowed us to create dynamic workflows to manage the lifecycle of assets and other related assets. Very powerful use case.

Incentivized

• 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