Skip to main content
TrustRadius
Symantec Asset Management Suite

Symantec Asset Management Suite

Overview

What is Symantec Asset Management Suite?

The Symantec Asset Management Suite aims to help organizations get an accurate picture of their assets, ensure compliance during software audits, avoid vendor penalties and fines and uncover savings by eliminating the purchase of unnecessary licenses. This IT Asset Management solution…

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Symantec Asset Management is widely used by IT departments to streamline software updates and installations. Users rely on this software …
Continue reading
Read all reviews
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

What is Symantec Asset Management Suite?

The Symantec Asset Management Suite aims to help organizations get an accurate picture of their assets, ensure compliance during software audits, avoid vendor penalties and fines and uncover savings by eliminating the purchase of unnecessary licenses. This IT Asset Management solution is…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

4 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is Lansweeper?

Lansweeper - Network Discovery and IT Asset Management Software Lansweeper is an IT asset management solution that provides network discovery of all connected users, devices, and software within the IT estate. Lansweeper's device recognition capabilities provide complete visibility across the…

What is Freshservice?

Freshservice is a cloud-based service desk and IT service management (ITSM) solution that currently serves more than 10,000 SMB, mid-market, and enterprise customers worldwide.

Return to navigation

Product Details

What is Symantec Asset Management Suite?

The Symantec Asset Management Suite aims to help organizations get an accurate picture of their assets, ensure compliance during software audits, avoid vendor penalties and fines and uncover savings by eliminating the purchase of unnecessary licenses.

This IT Asset Management solution is designed to discover, inventory, and track all hardware and software assets in an organization’s IT infrastructure through a CMDB. The CMDB manages assets’ hierarchical relationships to other configuration items, users, locations, departments, cost centers, and associated contracts. According to the vendor, this gives organizations credible information on the location and license status of every important OS, virtualization platform, or application instance. The vendor’s value proposition is that with this detailed, up-to-date information, organizations can quickly identify problems, apply solutions, and document compliance.

Symantec Asset Management Suite Features

Symantec Asset Management Suite Video

This video provides a technical overview of the software license compliance and software asset management features found in Symantec IT Management Suite 8.0 including enhancements and improvements in the following areas: • Symantec License Compliance and Management • Software...
 Show More

Symantec Asset Management Suite Competitors

Symantec Asset Management Suite Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesAmericas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia

Symantec Asset Management Suite Downloadables

Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(21)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Symantec Asset Management is widely used by IT departments to streamline software updates and installations. Users rely on this software to keep their computers up to date by pushing out software updates or remotely installing software when needed. Additionally, the product allows for remote control of computers, enabling users to assist colleagues or troubleshoot issues efficiently. Symantec Asset Management also offers robust reporting capabilities, allowing users to generate reports based on specific criteria such as comparing the number of computers with different versions of Office installed. This feature assists in tracking assets company-wide, including laptops, desktops, and printers, providing accurate information and alerting the IT department of any inactive or problematic computers.

While the agent is installed on every machine, only a select few users actively run reports and access machine information. In some cases, there may be a dedicated person responsible for managing the software and overseeing asset tracking and optimization. For businesses without an existing asset management solution, Symantec Asset Management proves instrumental in addressing various business problems. It helps track machines, run reports, and optimize hardware usage effectively. However, it's worth noting that utilizing this product requires significant overhead resources and a dedicated position to manage it efficiently.

Symantec Asset Management is relied upon by organizations to take control of IT assets effectively. It aids in conducting audits, ensuring compliance with licensing agreements, and reducing software licensing costs and vendor penalties. This comprehensive software tool is implemented company-wide for tasks like desktop imaging, application rollouts, and operating system updates. Companies often choose different Symantec products depending on the specific task at hand, with Altiris being an effective choice for managing assets, software, and patching needs. Among its many benefits, Symantec Asset Management plays a crucial role in keeping count of licenses across the organization while providing detailed reports on assets and licenses.

Symantec ITMS fills several essential gaps within organizations when it comes to patch and vulnerability management, software licensing, and audit control. Users greatly rely on the advanced reporting capabilities of ITMS to generate real-time, actionable data for software management, reporting, provisioning, and asset control. Whether it's tracking inventories or ensuring compliance with licensing agreements, Symantec Asset Management proves accurate and useful in large environments. However, due to its comprehensive nature, it requires a dedicated team member to manage it effectively and maximize its potential for optimizing hardware usage and minimizing costs.

Easy-to-use interface: Users have consistently found the web-based GUI interface of Symantec Asset Management Suite to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. Many reviewers appreciated the comprehensive inventory provided, which includes detailed information about the software and hardware of each asset.

Effective compliance management: Several users praised Symantec Asset Management Suite for its ability to ensure compliance of IT assets. They mentioned that managing licenses, renewals, permits, and other legal aspects of software and assets can be a complex task, but the software proved reliable in achieving control over these assets.

Centralized resource management: The Altiris Asset Management Suite was praised for providing a single pane of glass to manage and view all resources within an organization. Reviewers particularly highlighted the Resource Association Diagram feature, which allows visualization of relationships between assets, users, locations, departments, and cost centers.

User Permissions: Some users have experienced problems with user permissions after updating the software, resulting in the need to redo permissions for users each time. This has caused frustration and extra work for these users.

Job Deployment Issues: There have been reports of difficulties pushing jobs out to computers, sometimes requiring manual installation of updates. This slows down the process and adds complexity for users.

Console Functionality: Users have mentioned difficulty determining if a job is running or not, as the console may freeze or incorrectly report that the job is running when it's not. This lack of clarity creates confusion and can lead to inefficiencies in workflow management.

Reviews

(1-5 of 5)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
August 24, 2017

Symantec Products

Biswajit Tripathy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are managing our assets with help of this tool. It helps us take control of our IT assets completely, do audits, and ensure compliance. It has also helped with reduction of IT software licensing costs and vendor penalties by optimizing the use of hardware. It helps me track inventories whenever and wherever I want.
  • Helps me control the software license fee by paying only for hardware that is being used. This helps reduce a lot of cost to the company.
  • Helps manage inventory, audits etc.
  • It helps control and manage all inventories using CMDB which gives a hierarchy of all information.
It helps me track my inventories; it helps me manage assets, and it helps me in hardware and software audit. It helps in software licensing cost too. It gives a complete picture of entire IT asset of the organization including location & status. Helps me ensure compliance. Helps me find license gaps, under utilization etc.
Accounts Payable
N/A
N/A
Software Asset Management
N/A
N/A
  • Saved cost by tracking license fees of software.
  • Helped manage hardware thereby allotment of hardware in time.
  • Best part was the Audit. Manages audit very well.
We compared a lot of products Pulseway, Asset Panda, GoCodes, Service Now, BMC TrackIT, Sysaid, Landesk. After checking all these, found Symantec is the only one which fulfills all my organization's requirements. Glad to find a great choice by doing a proper survey. I would suggest others to go for this too.
Roberta Jones | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The IT Department at Missouri Botanical Garden uses Symantec Asset Management to accomplish a variety of tasks. We keep computers up to date by utilizing the patch management system to push out software updates to our users or install software remotely when necessary. We also use it to remote control computers when users need assistance or are experiencing problems and we are unable to physically visit their work area. Symantec Asset Management also allows us to generate reports based on whatever criteria we select. For instance if we need to know how many computers have Office 2010 installed versus Office 2016 then we can generate a report through the Asset Management Suite.
  • One of the features that we use Symantec Asset Management Suite for the most is to push out patches and software updates. We have about 750 computer users throughout Missouri Botanical Garden so when IE or Windows requires a patch fix or update, it would take a long to physically visit each computer here and install those updates. Instead we can set up a job through Symantec Asset Management Suite that will automatically push out the patches or software updates to the computers in our organization at a certain time. The job runs automatically and will generate a report when it's finished if any computers failed to update.
  • Missouri Botanical Garden is considered a "Greeen" organization, therefore we take sustainability seriously and are always looking for ways to save energy. One of the tasks that we have set up as a job in Symantec Asset Management is every evening at 8 pm, it will search for computers that were left on by users and will power them down. This helps us save on energy and allows us to continue our goal of being a sustainable organization. This function also helps when a user is out of the office and needs software installed. The user doesn't have to keep their computer on and waste energy, but instead we can use Symantec's Asset Management Suite to wake the computer up when we are ready to work on it.
  • Another feature that I really like in the Symantec Asset Management Suite is the ability to create a job that will automate software installations. For instance, I have a job set up that will automatically install Office Suite 2016 to a user's computer. I just have to select the job with the Symantec Console, then drag and drop it on the computer number that I need to install it on. Once I drag and drop the job onto the computer number in the console, the command box on the computer where the software is being installed briefly opens showing the computer has received the job and it is running in the background. I refresh the console every so often to see if the job is finished, but the console takes care of everything automatically in regards to the software being installed.
  • Symantec Asset Management Suite is a really great product for any organization to use for managing their computers. One of the main issues that we run into when using Asset Management Suite are problems with user permissions after updating the software. Whenever we update the software, we have to redo the permissions for users because when they try to log in they get an error stating that they are not authorized to use the software.
  • Other issues that I've seen with Symantec Asset Management Suite are problems with pushing jobs out to computers. For the most part, this function usually runs smoothly, but sometimes, the jobs will not push out to the computers and we have to install the updates ourselves manually. At times it's hard to tell if the job is actually running or not because the console will say that it's pushing the job to the computer, but then it freezes up and the job never actually starts. When you refresh the console, sometimes it will report that the job is running, but it's actually not running at all.
  • Another issue that I've had with Symantec Asset Management Suite is getting the console to run in my internet browser. Whenever I clicked the shortcut link to open the console, IE would give me an error that it needed to be updated and that the console could not run without the update. I updated my Internet Explorer to the latest version, but still could not get the console to run. So I had to uninstall the console, reinstall it, and redo the permissions to get it to work.
If your organization has more than 50 computers and you have a dedicated IT Staff to manage the software then Symantec Asset Management Suite would be a great fit for your organization. The IT Staff can customize and configure the software and console to fit your organization's direct needs. It will speed up software installations and help to keep your computers running smoothly by applying patches and other necessary software updates in a timely manner. It will also help you manage your asset inventory so you know exactly where each computer is located, its IP address, and the users logging into the machine. If your organization is small and only has around 20 computer users then I would not recommend investing in the Symantec Asset Management Suite. Managing 20 computers is a task that is pretty easy to manage even if you do not have a dedicated IT Staff within your organization.
Accounts Payable
N/A
N/A
Software Asset Management
N/A
N/A
  • Our ROI has been positive. We have Symantec Management Suite set up to notify us when desktops reach 5 years of age so that we can perform refreshes in a more timely manner. Before we used this feature, we had computers that were over 10 years old that were actually assigned to users. Users were unable to perform their job functions which caused our organization to lose money because we were not meeting deadlines.
  • Another feature that our organization was able to benefit from was the software management tools. After re-imaging computers, we would run into issues where users would state that they had a certain software installed and that we didn't put it back on after the re-image. We had no way of knowing if the user had the software or not so we would have to go and buy an additional software license for the user. Now with the software management tools in Altiris we can generate a report that will tell us what software is installed on each computer.
  • We can also use the backup and restore features to track what was installed on a computer before it was reimaged. This also cuts down on the amount of time that we spent in the past trying to complete manual backups of our computers and restoring them back to how they originally were. Now we only have to spend time updating Symantec Management Suite whenever an update is available.
TeamViewer does not have the ability to perform all the functions that Symantec Asset Management Suite can perform. TeamViewer is a good product, but I would only suggest that smaller organizations utilize it until they expand on their features a little more. The only negative thing I can say in regards to getting the Symantec Asset Management Suite over TeamViewer is that it's way more expensive than TeamViewer, but you'll get way more product for your money. So if a large organization chooses to invest in the Symantec Asset Manage Suite they'll spend more money, but the value they will receive in return from using the software will definitely boost productivity. When productivity goes up, an organization's ROI also goes up and that's the type of results you want to see when you invest in products for your organization.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
With a previous company, we used Symantec Asset Management to keep count of licenses, and ensure that we were compliant. We also used the reporting tools to provided detailed reports on both assets and licenses and issues that may be present on a weekly basis.
  • Reporting. The reporting tool can allow down to a granular level. This is important for pinpointing the issues that arise in the infrastructure.
  • Updating. It was easy to update the software. I never had any issues with patches that arose.
  • Ability to tie into and be supported by RHEL, CentOS, and any other Unix based OS. I know that they could tie into some different systems, but weren't truly supported.
  • Altiris was how we deployed to multiple computers all at once, Altiris Agent sometimes stops, and can be an issue to have it update in the Console.
SAM is appropriate at enterprise level. Deploying to 100+ machines at once is a huge bonus when working in IT. Automation of this process saved hundreds of man-hours.
Accounts Payable
N/A
N/A
Software Asset Management
N/A
N/A
  • Positive - saved our help desk hours due to having a common image pushed across the environment.
  • Positive - kept track of all licenses so that we didn't over purchase items.
  • Positive - saved money on labor due to less people needed to image machines, and decreased hours of imaging.
Used FOG for deployment, and SAM is much more robust.
Brandan Kusser | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Symantec Asset Management Suit was being used to keep track of assets company wide, including laptops, desktops, printers, etc. The company I used it at was well over 2,000 employees worldwide, and kept impressively accurate information. If a computer was inactive or had a specific issue, the program would alert my department and we could take care of it.

Though the agent was installed on every machine across the company, only 6 of used it to run reports, look up machines, etc, while one of us managed it. Managing this for use in such a large company was very time consuming and actually required it's own position.

The product addresses many business problems, especially for one who does not already have an asset management solution. Keeping track of machines, running reports, and many other things can be accomplished.

Overall, I liked using this product and was very accurate in an extremely large environment. There is a lot of overhead, mostly because of needing an entire salaried position to properly manage it, but if it is something your company can afford to do, Symantec Asset management is a useful tool.




  • Asset tracking - Very important in a business
  • Reports - Keep track of what programs are installed, who has which computer, etc.
  • Overhead - Time Consuming to manage
  • User Interface - Not a problem per se, but the UI could be updated to look more modern.
  • Speed - Occasionally, Symantec was a little slow, but that could have been due to our huge enviroment. It was nothing crippling.
Much better suited in a large environment. It might be overkill for smaller companies.
Accounts Payable
N/A
N/A
Software Asset Management
N/A
N/A
  • Much faster time finding out what equipment belongs to who, especially if this info is needed and the person is unavailable.
  • Better "Customer Service" (Tech to end user)
I use Samanage at my new company, and it is much more modern, has more functionality, and is faster/easier to use. However, I am not sure if it would stack up as well in a company the size of my last one. I went from a company of 2,000+ to a company of 350. The need for Symantec isnt there at my new place, but I have liked using Samanage better, regardless. The UI and speed are the breaking factors.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Symantec ITMS has filled several gaps for me. Everything from patch and vulnerability management to software licensing and audit control. I'm currently using ITMS for software management, reporting, provisioning and asset control. Through the advanced reporting capabilities, I'm able to generate real time, actionable data whenever I want.
  • I have not found a better patch management solution to date.
  • The ability to manage out-of-band clients via Cloud Enabled Management is huge.
  • Technical support has always been top notch.
  • Technical documentation may be lacking at times but support will usually make up for it.
  • Training and certification is very limited.
  • Sometimes a tough sell after a rocky reputation in the past.
I've seen Symantec shine in both small environments and large global infrastructures. This solution is very involved and good, ITMS engineers will come at a cost but the ROI will be worth it.
  • Increased productivity by PC Support
  • Faster compliance in a zero day situation
  • Reporting and visibility that lead to tangible action
  • Implementation can be cumbersome and technical support may be required.
Of the above mentioned solutions, I would say that nothing can hold a candle to the Asset Management suite within Altiris. After extensive research into products like Kaseya and SCCM, they have all fallen short as a full solution.
Return to navigation