KACE Systems Deployment Appliance (SDA) vs. Symantec Ghost Solution Suite

It is most effective in Windows PC environments and doing mass Windows deployments across a wired LAN. It would not be suitable for small office/school environments or for environments with limited PC usage.

Incentivized

Symantec Ghost Solution Suite is well suited to standard images of company approved software and standard configurations for all users. When every user has the same computer configuration, it is easily managed with a standard image across the board. It is less effective if you need to have multiple configurations for different groups. It becomes cumbersome to manage all the various images. When you add to the complexity by having to address the different drivers for the different hardware model computers, this only adds to the overall number of images you will have to manage, create and keep updated. I find Ghost most helpful with standard hardware model computers and one or two images company wide.

Incentivized

• Windows PC deployments.
• Windows PC re-imaging.

Incentivized

• Pushing out scripts and jobs to computers
• Remote imaging and pushing out Windows OS Images
• Helping to track who pushed out what jobs

Incentivized

• USMT had issues with successfully capturing user states.
• MAC support, stopped supporting newer versions of MAC OS. No APFS support.

Incentivized

• Initial install could be easier. Had to call support to assist.
• Joining domains had a few kinks that had to be figured out.

Incentivized

The majority of the support reps I talk to on the phone are quick to respond and very helpful. They will take their time helping you with any case for the SDA and have any issues with it. They will help you build new boot environments or deployments if you get stuck or have a problem.

Incentivized

The Symantec Ghost Solutions Suite learning curve isn't that steep.

• Primarily saves us time for maintaining our computer labs.

Incentivized

• A positive impact of Ghost would be time. To deploy computers form scratch is very time consuming and labor intensive for the IT Department. Ghost clearly saves the time of the IT departments staff to quickly get a new computer out to user so they can spend their time on addressing other issues and being more productive.
• Time is money. If the IT department is spending hours preparing computers and employees are out of a computer for an extended period of time waiting for one to be loaded, this is money lost to the company in paying employees to sit around and wait for a computer to be configured.

Incentivized