Microsoft System Center Suite is a family of IT management software for network monitoring, updating and patching, endpoint protection with anti-malware, data protection and backup, ITIL- structured IT service management, remote administration and more.
It is available in two editions: standard and datacenter. Datacenter provides unlimited virtualization for high density private clouds, while standard is for lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads.
$1,323
per month
NetApp Cloud Insights
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
NetApp Cloud Insights is an infrastructure monitoring tool that gives
users visibility into their complete infrastructure. With Cloud Insights, users can monitor, troubleshoot and optimize all resources including
public clouds and private data centers.
We used a product before that was designed to prevent users making changes and saving files to the desktop computer. This required a renewal of the license. By using SCCM in our environment we were able to discontinue using that product because SCCM allows us to completely restore a machine back to the original configuration. We have taught our users to save their individual work on either a network drive or a cloud drive. By doing this, if we do a re-image of their machine they have lost no data, and it makes for a faster resolution. In some instances having a computer in our SCCM environment it can become cumbersome when creating new users for very specific purposes. It can be done by creating new organizational units and applying new policies but when in a pinch it can be frustrating. For the most part we have tried to make "new" purpose images and groups to at least accommodate a quick install.
For example, we had an application slowdown. It looked like the slowdown was storage. However, it was a malformed SQL query that no one realized was pulling data from the storage location that also housed the application. Cloud Insights saved us hours of downtime and frustration. Cloud Insights pinpointed which system was hogging resources. What makes Cloud Insights special is the way it looks at the data collected from the data sources. The insights it provides into the flow of data; sheds new light on how things work in your environment.
Provides our users the ability to deploy and manage our own datacenter based on defined software with understandable solutions for storage, compute, networking and security.
We are able to update at once all the computers from all departments without having to install the OS on every computer.
It allows us to have everything in one place for database management and datacenter inspection as well.
Needs web based storefront for requesting new software
Needs ability to manage the packaging work flow better
Sometimes is slow to download and there is no indication the entire catalog is being loaded, resulting in confused users not being able to find common software in the available list.
It is not user-friendly for the most part. With IT infrastructure, sometimes it cannot handle excess requests. Every few months, you will need an upgrade in terms of server resources to keep up with incoming alerts and requests. This does not happen all of the time, but it does happen when there are too many requests.
I have been extremely happy with its usability. You can take thins as they are out of the box and it is useful. You can carry it as far as you want to go and every step you take improves your ROI.
If I had to dislike something about the system it would be how much it changes once you upgrade. This could be more of a problem of mine since I get used to one way and don't like it when it changes so much. I am enjoying the newest update, but it is a mess when you are actually going through the upgrades.
We previously used a mix of FOG and Clonezilla to image machines. The biggest issues with these products is that changing one piece of the image required you to rebuild the entire image itself. These pieces of software also did not allow you to manage applications and Windows Updates, causing IT to have to constantly touch machines after they were imaged and update or manage them with a much more hands on approach.
For a while, we were using Zabbix to monitor our Kubernetes applications and microservices on our infrastructure in more than one public cloud platform. Cloud Insights has much better visualized dashboards. In addition, despite such a large number of quality features, it's still priced competitively.
Once you install the acquisition unit and start collecting data, you can immediately begin using it. It is very self-explanatory and helpful. I could have used Cloud Insights without working with the NetApp Cloud Insights support team. I am glad I engaged them though. They helped me carry Cloud Insights to a new level and it fast-tracked the process that would have taken me time to complete.
We have been able to automate our patch management, firmware and other security concerns.
We have a standardized "image" ensuring our setup is consistent across the enterprise. This alone has saved us in time to support and time to understand how to use our desktops.
