June 22, 2019

KACE management could do 1 thing amazing, but instead does many things mediocre

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Banking Company, 201-500 employees

Score 5 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

KACE is currently utilized to track all end-user computers in real time, and monitor the software installed on those computers. KACE can deploy pre-configured software packages or software updates to monitored computers. KACE is configured with a ticketing system, to manage incoming user requests for assistance with IT related problems.

Pros and Cons

Monitors remote computers and tracks software installed on those computers.
Smart labels allow for automation of software installs/upgrades using analytics.
Contract monitoring system with alerts when a third party contract is nearing expiration.
Comes with a ticketing system, that can have multiple ticket queues, to manage incoming requests for support.
Using processes, you can automate opening multiple tickets for work needed on a task. (ie. open multiple predefined tickets for a new employee hire).
Kace has had substantial improvements since Quest assumed ownership from Dell.
You can configure notifications for almost anything, since you can utilize their wizard or manually write your own SQL queries.

Configuring automated software installs is difficult, and logs do not present useful information for troubleshooting.
Customer support will just refer you to search itninja.com when you call in for support issues.
KACE community site (itninja.com), has outdated documentation, and answers to questions are usually vague at best.
KACE Amp agent constantly breaks, and has to be re-installed on end user computers.
A parent-child relationship in the ticketing system requires you to create a process.
Remote provisioning fails consistently and does not provide any useful information as to why it failed.
K1000 is overpriced for the jobs it actually performs and the work that is required to maintain it.

Likelihood to Recommend

The KACE Management Appliance does many different things, but does not do them as well as other products. It is an all-in-one system for Asset tracking, software management, ticketing system, Contact management, and reporting. If you require basic functionality for these, then this product will meet your needs. But when you begin needing advanced/granular functions from the appliance, it will fall short.

KACE Asset Management Appliance Feature Ratings

IT Asset Management (5)

22%

2.2

Software and hardware inventory tracking: 70%
7.0
License management: 10%
1.0
Asset lifecycle monitoring: 10%
1.0
Contract management: 10%
1.0
Asset relationship management: 10%
1.0

Return on Investment

Asset Tracking works exceptionally well, until the AMP agent breaks an endpoint machine. Quick re-install of the AMP agent usually resolves the issue.
The remote provisioning tool fails 90% of the time. If this worked properly or informed us why the remote provisioning failed, this tool could become an invaluable asset.
We canceled the support contact because the renewal price was expensive and cost just as much as the initial purchase price.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and JIRA Software

We were not able to get SCCM to stabilize and work, it would continually fail to add computers to groups and fail to install programs/updates to computers in a defined group. Continually, user community forums kept recommending to replace it with another solution. JIRA is a much more efficient ticketing system, and we migrated the ticketing system from KACE to JIRA.

Other Software Used

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, JIRA Software, SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor

Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

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