KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) vs. Snow License Manager

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

I have said at a number of events that I have attended, where other suppliers have shown their latest and greatest new thing, it is the fundamentals that need to work, and need to work well, and this is what Snow License Manager does. It does not take a team of 100 staff to get the tool working or to keep the tool functioning, it works and is stable out of the box. We have learnt that putting the right processes in at the start means that Snow License Manager can do what it has been designed to do and what we have paid for it to do. Audits from vendors now days are relatively simple actions, with the Snow License Manager doing it's job we can quickly run a report and know exactly what our position is and then act accordingly, quick, simple and accurate data at your finger tips, as long as you put the work in to enter the license details etc. If Snow License Manager could invent a robot to go around the business and find all these bits of paper for us then that would be perfect.

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

• SLM finds installations of software reliably.
• SLM determines the usage of applications, web apps, and the users who employ them.
• SLM Reports help management determine current and future application usage.
• SLM notifies when forbidden programs are installed.
• SLM provides complete license management.

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

• Recognition of licensed plugins running in another application's executable is missing
• There is inconsistent use of Wildcards like "%" across search fields in the SLM and SMACC
• The search "filter" called "Also include not installed/used" is necessary to see not installed/used applications.

Incentivized

Snow License Manager is an integrated part of our Licensing Compliance software solution. It does help us manage current license needs and actual license usage, as well as inventory shadow IT usage. The nice side effect of being able to see hardware specifications and keeping track of hardware usage by users is a bonus!

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

We currently have the on-premise solution, which is very good indeed. If we were starting working with Snow now, we'd probably select the Atlas (SaaS) managed platform. This would reduce/remove work required to keep the Snow servers up-to-date with Windows and software updates.

Incentivized

Never had issues in this area. Always up and running

Incentivized

It took some growing pains and SNOW fixed performance issues for their product, but never had any issue with it

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

Is is easy to find information on their support site or to enter a support ticket. The response times are usually under a day and they don't hesitate to get into direct contact with you to solve the current issue.

Incentivized

Love it, and I got to go to Sweden

Incentivized

It went well, we took out time and verified each step as we went

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

The deciding factor for the decision makers was the combination of license management and utilization statistics. Our desktop people wanted the utilization and reporting to be very granular and close to real time. Snow was purchased because they promoted their real time utilization in addition to the license management, alerting and reporting. To my knowledge, only Snow was given a proof of concept before the decision was made.

Incentivized

Not quite sure I understand the deployment question. We deployed company wide

Incentivized

Worked great and accomplished the goals

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

• Allowed for reducing licenses/cost at renewal or true-up time
• Shows us new software in our environment so we can get it removed or purchase appropriate licensing to avoid compliance issues
• Shows up blacklisted software when it appears in our environment allowing us to get it removed to avoid security issues

Incentivized