Likelihood to Recommend Windows Autopilot makes provisioning user Windows PC laptops a breeze. A user only needs to turn on the laptop, join it to their local WiFi, login with their O365 account then sit back and let Windows Autopilot handle the app installations required for work, configure the laptop settings to meet my organization requirements. I have seen this all completed in less than 30 minutes depending on how fast the internet connection is. Where Microsoft Intune needs to improve I think is the part where it can push out software updates to 3rd party apps. Right now I have to use Automox to fill in this gap.
Read full review It has helped save us so much time, as it was designed to automate mundane and repetitive tasks that we were using other tools to perform and that required so much manual intervention. It does not work very well within Windows environments, understandably, but I would love to see more integration. I want it to be sexy and attractive to more than just geeky sysadmins.
Read full review Pros [Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Microsoft Intune + SCCM)] helps to speed up the deployment of patches/software throughout our environment. I can easily build a package and then deploy across all endpoints. The ability to supercede software is also quite handy. This automates the removal of old versions and replacing them with newer versions. The Intune Autopilot option is very useful if you want to deploy software to devices straight out of the box. You can configure them to download software when a user opens a new PC and turns it on for the first time. Read full review Debugging is easy, as it tells you exactly within your job where the job failed, even when jumping around several playbooks. Ansible seems to integrate with everything, and the community is big enough that if you are unsure how to approach converting a process into a playbook, you can usually find something similar to what you are trying to do. Security in AAP seems to be pretty straightforward. Easy to organize and identify who has what permissions or can only see the content based on the organization they belong to. Read full review Cons The program itself can be challenging to use, especially if there hasn't been any formal training on the use of the product. Either training/reviewing documentation is recommended prior to using SCCM. At times, it can be difficult to try and find out why a certain machine that's listed in SCCM says that the endpoint has the SCCM client and shows as Active, but in fact, it's not. It's also difficult at times to try and figure out why the client can't be pushed down to the endpoint. Even though the remote assistance features in SCCM are really good, it can be challenging at times when the remote options don't work for a particular endpoint, even though the machine is active, online, etc. Read full review YAML is hard for many to adopt. Moving to a system that is not as white space sensitive would likely increase uptake. AAP and EDA should be more closely aligned. There are differences that can trip users of the integration up. An example would be the way that variables are used. Event-driven Ansible output is not as informative as AAP. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Mascom Wireless is a Microsoft shop and SCCM has proved to be helpful in keeping our Microsoft products up to date every month without fail. We also have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement which we renewed for three years ending 2022. The remote access utility works wonders for the organisation and have saved travel bills including subsistance allowance. We have been able to fulfill security audits both internal and external. We have been able to keep a robust inventory of our computer assets and nothing falls of the cracks
Read full review We are deploying Ansible at all levels of the organization
Read full review Usability The console is not intuitive and does not work well often. Due to the complexity of the product, documentation can be confusing. When properly configured, routine tasks like OS deployment, remote control, and software deployment are easy to do. Troubleshooting of System Center Configuration Manager issues is hard, as there are various logs, and their content can be hard to understand.
Read full review the yaml is easy to write and most people can be taught to write basic playbooks in a few weeks
Read full review Performance It's a 'heavy' system, which demands a lot of resources form the datacenter perspective. So, make sure you followed the requirements to avoid frustration in the future. From the 'client' perspective, it's fine. I've never had any issue with that.
Read full review Great in almost every way compared to any other configuration management software. The only thing I wish for is python3 support. Other than that, YAML is much improved compared to the Ruby of Chef. The agentless nature is incredibly convenient for managing systems quickly, and if a member of your term has no terminal experience whatsoever they can still use the UI.
Read full review Support Rating Being a Microsoft product, support was good. Out interaction was limited to our in-house IT team which was installing the Intune app in our mobile device. The installation was smooth and we haven't faced any difficulties with the app while using it. Provides a smooth and secure access to all Office 365 apps in mobile while separating the personal and professional data.
Read full review There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.
Read full review Implementation Rating Work with a "test group" of users who you have a good relationship with so that when things don't work properly they understand! Work with your partner nicely without forcing things especially timelines as you are bound to make mistakes and create oversights in the project Management can also interfere with the implementation (which can cause delays) if you make too many mistakes which takes me back to having a "test group" where you have good relations
Read full review I spoke on this topic today!
Read full review Alternatives Considered We did not evaluate or use other products like Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Microsoft Intune + SCCM). The main reason we did not evaluate or use other products is because Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Microsoft Intune + SCCM) integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 and Windows PCs. Expenses would have increased as well if we had purchased another similar product.
Read full review I haven't thought of any right now other than just doing our own home-brewed shell scripts. Command line scripts. And how does this compare? It's light years ahead, especially with the ability to share credentials without giving the person the actual credentials. You can delegate that within, I guess what used to be called Ansible Tower, which is now the Ansible Automation platform. It lets you share, I can give you the keys without you being able to see the keys. It's great
Read full review Return on Investment In our current environment, this System Center Configuration Manager had replaced several standalone solutions for patching, imaging, remote assistance, reporting, etc. That saved a lot of time and resulted in money to manage the IT infrastructure. Once SCCM is deployed and fully configured, all agents are deployed and it is easy to automate a lot of processes and just control them from time to time to make sure that everything is working as supposed to be. SCCM + Windows 10: great built-in endpoint protection solution. As a result, there is no need to buy additional software for that purpose. The imaging process is better compared to WDS because you can modify deployment packages and apply patches to a newly imaged machine. This saves tons of time for new employees deployment. Read full review Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers automation and ML tools that allow me to automate complex IT tasks. Through automation analytics, it is seamless to gain full visibility into automation performance allowing me to make informed decisions. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform allows me to move rapidly from insights to action. Creating and sharing automation content in one place unify a team in one place hence enhancing real-time collaboration. Read full review ScreenShots