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A management console every IT team should have
March 14, 2017

A management console every IT team should have

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Symantec Client Management Suite

Symantec Client Management Suite (CMS) is currently used for 90% of our operation on our business computers. We use it to image the computers with a pre-defined image of Windows with custom settings for the computer. We customized it by looking up the computer model so it automatically fetches the right drivers. After this it is used to remotely install most of our softwares and keep and inventory of those. The computers are all filtered by department. We also use the data from CMS to keep inventory and trend of our computer inventory for the future (what we will be our needs in 6 months and 12 months). And finally, we use the automation policy to push specific fixes, software or updates to all the computers or specific department.
  • Keeping track of your all your managed computers.
  • Keeping track of your licences and number of installation for a specified software.
  • Imaging a computer with an adaptive driver installation.
  • Unattended remote installation (when available and compatible).
  • Flexibility: Some newer software that are cloud based or updates that are now cloud-based aren't really compatible.
  • The link between your computer inventory and your active directory could be easier to set up.
  • No way to resume a job from a specific step if it failed (you have to restart it completely).
  • Positive: We take less time to get report from distant computer.
  • Positive: It's easier to install new software or updates to multiple computers at once.
  • Negative: We had to contact the Symantec Engineers multiple times to help us to set everything.
Currently, I can't take a position [on how Symantec compares] because when I took position at my job, Symantec Client Management Suite (CMS) was already implanted. We're currently looking to try Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager to see if it'd be a contender for CMS. The reason is that we have special support contract directly with Microsoft. So instead of managing multiple contracts, we would only have one. But for now, we're all set up with Symantec so it'd take something great from SCCM to make us switch from one to another.
Whenever you have computers that aren't easily accessible or you have a big site to cover (or multi location), Symantec Client Management Suite (CMS) is really great to manage all your computers, if it's for installation, software, licenses or even status. Setting up all you need from CMS can take some time, especially when you're in a multi-location site. We had to ask the Symantec engineers to help us a couple of times and set things up because even if we followed the documentation, it wasn't an easy task. But at least, the Symantec engineers are people that know what they do and they're really efficient at it.