KACE Asset Management Appliance vs. OpenLM for Engineering Licensing

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

OpenLM can simplify the reporting of complex licenses with multiple toolboxes or products on one server. It covers most of our license server types, but not all. The academic version is reasonably priced (e.g. for educational institutions) giving 90% of the features, however setting it up on-premise was more complex than our original pilot would suggest. We couldn't do without it now.

• 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

• Peak concurrent license use for any period of time, often less than expected, saves unnecessary over purchase.
• Denials of license, can quickly see where a license is not working, say, after an upgrade.
• Comparison of license utilisation (% when near the limit).
• Quick check of expiring licenses.

• Configuring automated software installs is difficult, and logs do not present useful information for troubleshooting.
• Customer support will just refer you to search itninja.com when you call in for support issues.
• KACE community site (itninja.com), has outdated documentation, and answers to questions are usually vague at best.
• KACE Amp agent constantly breaks, and has to be re-installed on end user computers.
• A parent-child relationship in the ticketing system requires you to create a process.
• Remote provisioning fails consistently and does not provide any useful information as to why it failed.
• K1000 is overpriced for the jobs it actually performs and the work that is required to maintain it.

Incentivized

• You can share a link to a dynamic report (e.g. the last 365 days). The URL is very long but it can be used with a 3rd party short URL utility and shared with users.
• Upgrading to the latest version took a long time to troubleshoot, which left a short gap in the saved data.

DAM blows away what Free wear we were previous trying to tweak and change for use to benefit the County. But as we looked into DAM we saw much more available with this product compared to what we had been trying to use over the last 10 years. It took a lot of convincing to get County Administration on board with County IT but after we had Dell come in and demo software and appliand to BOS and County Administrator they saw the added benefits of going with DAM! It has been a great addition to our County IT tools!

Incentivized

X-Formation, OpenIT, JTB, Sassafras either more expensive for the particular task of managing and monitoring concurrent licenses, or they had a different set of features (such as Sassafras K2/Keyserver also for remote access)

• Asset Tracking works exceptionally well, until the AMP agent breaks an endpoint machine. Quick re-install of the AMP agent usually resolves the issue.
• The remote provisioning tool fails 90% of the time. If this worked properly or informed us why the remote provisioning failed, this tool could become an invaluable asset.
• We canceled the support contact because the renewal price was expensive and cost just as much as the initial purchase price.

Incentivized

• The academic version has paid for itself handsomely, including our setup costs. The ongoing strategic information saves costs.