Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Provides a clear map of how a system is configured Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours. Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes. Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running. Read full review ScreenShots