Microsoft Intune (formerly Microsoft Endpoint Manager), combining the capabilities of the former Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, SCCM or ConfigMgr, is presented as a unified endpoint management option. Microsoft Intune is an endpoint management solution for mobile devices, an MDM solution that allows the user to securely manage iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices with a single endpoint management solution. The component Endpoint Configuration Manager (the…
$5
per user/per month
Sumo Logic
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Sumo Logic is a log management offering from the San Francisco based company of the same name.
Microsoft Intune is well suited for the larger end of the small business segment to the enterprise. The ability to configure and remotely deploy computer configurations, control mobile devices, and fine tune security controls of each device or device group is a major win for this product. Smaller and mid-sized businesses may balk at having to increase their license level to unlock the better updating features.
SumoLogic is a fantastic log aggregator and analysis tool, a fine alternative to Splunk. Searching is powerful and mostly intuitive and results come fast. If you have application logs in clusters or Kubernetes pods that lose their logs every time they're restarted, Sumo is the solution for you
[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.
Sumo Logic allowed for our InfoSec team to ingest logs from our CDN directly, in real-time, instead of massive compressed archives that were sent every two-hours (the only alternative at the time). Sumo Logic had an app for these logs, that allowed us to easily get an immediate payoff from the data, with canned dashboard and saved searches.
Sumo Logic has a fairly extensive REST API when it comes to log sources, source configurations, dashboard data, searches, etc. Their wiki for the API is usually kept up to date.
Sumo Logic, during the period of time I had used their product, had added the ability to configure agents via configuration files. This allowed customers to configure their endpoints, and modify the endpoints, with configuration management tools like Chef / Puppet / Salt. Beforehand, the only option was to always make changes either via the web portal or REST API.
The solutions engineers were extremely helpful, and easily reachable when issues would occur.
Users at our company found it easy to get started, working on new dashboards, scheduled searches, and alerting. The alerting worked well with our third-party paging tool.
Deploying more apps besides Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Office 365 app
Microsoft needs to make it easier to deploy exe, pkg, and msi apps without having to go through the manual process of re-packaging these apps using tools from github like intuneapputil
Add a feature to push out software updates for 3rd party apps
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
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.
Sumo Logic is very powerful but definitely requires some configuration work to get the most out of it. You can get a certification related to this, but it is definitely not something you can just throw together.
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.
We have not needed to seek support for this product in the time that we have used it thus far. It's been working really well, and have not had any major issues. Being that it's a Microsoft product, it goes without saying that there will be many support options available if needed. This includes phone, web, forums, KB articles, etc. There is even comprehensive documentation that is available on the web through Microsoft's website for use of the product.
I would give this rating because I attended a free Sumo Logic training at a WeWork in Chicago. I found the training very useful, and I learned a lot of features that I was not aware of before I went to the training. I like the idea that SumoLogic provides free training seminars. I am certified in level1, and I plan on certifying to level2.
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
I was satisfied with the implementation, as at the time, it was the best way to implement the product with the available feature sets in Sumo Logic. User creation and management became more of an issue during continued use, instead of it being an issue related to deploying the product in our environment.
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.
Sumo Logic works very well out of the gate. For a small business it has given us what we need. I worked at a larger company previously, and we produced so many logs we had to create a custom logging service to handle them all. Cost and availability are big issues when deciding between the different services, whether self maintained and hosted, or provided by another company.
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.
