KACE Asset Management Appliance vs. KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

The KACE Management Appliance does many different things, but does not do them as well as other products. It is an all-in-one system for Asset tracking, software management, ticketing system, Contact management, and reporting. If you require basic functionality for these, then this product will meet your needs. But when you begin needing advanced/granular functions from the appliance, it will fall short.

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

• Gives you real time data to systems on my network.
• I can get information on all applications running on devices on my network.
• I can get information on what systems are not currently patched and up to date with MS and Virus definitions!

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

• The UI is clunky and could use a redesign
• Support is good but sometimes it's hard to get someone right away or a response in a timely manner
• expand some support beyond dell and others to include something like Microsoft Surfaces, etc.
• KB articles need a refresh, there are a lot of older things out there that don't apply anymore.

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

The appliance and software does its job, as it's intended to. There aren't many other bells and whistles. integrates well with MFA (okta), integrates well with KACES SDA. The modules it has will suit most needs. If you have the money in the budge, i'd suggest going with professional services to help with the setup/integration. There are some parts that are cumbersome and may require support. Save yourself the headache

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

We were not able to get SCCM to stabilize and work, it would continually fail to add computers to groups and fail to install programs/updates to computers in a defined group. Continually, user community forums kept recommending to replace it with another solution. JIRA is a much more efficient ticketing system, and we migrated the ticketing system from KACE to JIRA.

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

• Original investment was very substantial but I believe will be well worth it in the long run!
• DAM gives us a great view of what happening and whats on out network as far as PC, Laptops and Servers.
• The reporting function will help with budget proposals to BOS for County Budgets and giving exact numbers of systems and software and devices on the County Domain

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