Item: Automox
Rating: 10
Author: Anjani Nandan

Overall Satisfaction with Automox

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for software distribution and software updates on the end user client devices and servers - windows and linux. We picked Automox for its simplicity and ease of use, over some other tools that we could use like BigFix and Microsoft SCCM. Scope is all laptops, desktops and x86 servers in our environment

Pros and Cons

Pros

easy to use UI and dashboard
easy to create groups to separate my server and client compute teams
Always ready with new patches, including new vulnerability or zero day patches, which can be quickly deployed

Cons

initial deployment of agents to all end points was a challenge, would have been great if there was a way for Automox to discover and install.
Sometimes upgrading the Automox client which becomes old due to an end point not connecting for a long time becomes challenging as it becomes incompatible and has to be upgraded manually
It would good to have a functionality where an end point device can be turned into a brick if desired in cases where the device is not returned back after an employee is terminated. This should also have the option of turning it back into an active device if we choose to

Return on Investment

Reduced operational costs or time savings
Increased efficiency through visibility and ability to act on endpoints
reduction of on-premise infrastructure

Patching

We were able to achieve a good security posture from a place where we were struggling before we got Automox in our environment. We are now on a schedule to patch all servers and end user clients on a periodic basis, it is very easy to set up and deploy. We also have a powerful tool in out hand to do a quick ad hoc patching to act upon a one-off vulnerability patch or respond to zero day. And deploying new software's across the organization has never been easier.

Usability

I could not agree more on how easy it has been to gain visibility and take action on their endpoints through a single console. When we got Automox we were only thinking end user clients, but my server team loves it like crazy as it has made their scheduled patching go so fast and smooth once they have harvested and queued the patches to install. The overall UI and dashboarding that Automox provides is very useful and easy to use and report out of.

Alternatives Considered

HCL BigFix and Microsoft System Center

Automox was at the top of the group - it was a light client, a SAAS offering and did not have some of the bells and whistles that the tools have but was not something that we would use. Also, the learning curve for the support staff was easy enough and we did not need SMEs that we would need for the other tools, something we were not ready add more staff to augment.

Key Insights

Do you think Automox delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Automox's feature set?

Yes

Did Automox live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Automox go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Automox again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Automox has worked very well for all our use cases - scheduled patching of servers and end use systems, deployment of new software's remotely on these systems, reporting on software installed on these systems in situations where we need an inventory of a particular software that we might be looking for etc. The Asset Management piece can probably me made more matured, or it might be possible there is already something out there that we are not aware of.

Comments

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Automox lived up to the promise and filled the gap that we wanted it to fill in our environment!