SCCM 2012 or other??

[Calum]

Hi there just interested if anyone has used Manage Engine Desktop as opposed to SCCM???? I find SCCM clunky and time consuming at the best of times and found that Manage Engine has a lot to offer. Also I'm using a product to edit .exe to msi....http://emcosoftware.com/ msi package builder and have found this to be useful as we have a lot of software. I'd be happy to hear what others are using for deploying software and desktop OS images as I find SCCM a little too heavy at times. Don't get me wrong I do like some of the SCCM stuff but have you seen the manuals!!!! Not only that it takes half the time to deploy software using Manage Engine and twice as long with SCCM. Thinking of upgrading to SCCM 2012 but not sure MS has this nailed yet!! Edited July 3, 2013 by calumrace

[mrbios]

I think the problem for many is that FOG, WDS, SCCM are all free (assuming you have the relevant volume licensing to cover SCCM) so anything extra is wasted money when you have a product available to you that can do the same thing for free.

 

It's definitely a case of value vs worth, but in my currently limited experience of SCCM i think it's fantastic. It certainly has its drawbacks, it is a little heavy at times and fault finding can be a right pain but when it works properly (which I've found to be mostly down to the admin setting it up correctly and knowing what client side events cause problems) it is brilliant.

 

EDIT: one bit of software i never got round to testing that did look quite good though was this: http://www.sempersoftware.com/home/semper-continuity-suite It's really poorly marketed, and I've never heard it talked about anywhere, but from a small evaluation i did of it about 2 years ago it seemed pretty good, no idea how its features compare to other deployment solutions these days though.

Edited July 3, 2013 by mrbios

[Calum]

I think the problem for many is that FOG, WDS, SCCM are all free (assuming you have the relevant volume licensing to cover SCCM) so anything extra is wasted money when you have a product available to you that can do the same thing for free.

 

It's definitely a case of value vs worth, but in my currently limited experience of SCCM i think it's fantastic. It certainly has its drawbacks, it is a little heavy at times and fault finding can be a right pain but when it works properly (which I've found to be mostly down to the admin setting it up correctly and knowing what client side events cause problems) it is brilliant.

 

EDIT: one bit of software i never got round to testing that did look quite good though was this: http://www.sempersoftware.com/homeosemper-continuity-suite It's really poorly marketed, and I've never heard it talked about anywhere, but from a small evaluation i did of it about 2 years ago it seemed pretty good, no idea how its features compare to other deployment solutions these days though.

 

I agree that sccm is a good tool as I said other solutions make it easier to do deployments and you don't need loads of training on sccm to make it work. We are a very busy department and sccm is not always being used daily so returning to it can be a bit frustrating. Not only that support is not as as easy as having dedicated support for other products.

[synaesthesia]

MS certainly has it nailed, but it's built for a slightly different market and it's pretty much by fluke that it's useful for schools. For instance, plenty of schools used SCCM 2007 but I don't recall any ever using SMS back in the day.

 

As mrbios says, as it includes a lot of tools you otherwise would have to look at separately ( a big cost for many is managed anti virus, covered with SCCM ) including AV and WSUS so it keeps it all under one roof. It's not the only option as you know - if you're a smaller school I'd say you'd certainly "get away" with using MDT for deployment, it's a bit simpler. You'll also already be covered for that with the relevant licensing. Have a play with it on a testbed and see how you get along.

 

We use a combo of SCCM and Impero - anything we need on justa few machines usually gets pushed out as an msi via Impero for that "instant gratification" feel so SCCM is left for anything big. Then we can concentrate on packages for those later on in time.

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Enterprise Software forum.

[free780]

Well SCCM 2012 is a beast and complex and it needs to scale from a small org to a massive one. Having spent almost a year testing sccm I think its pretty good. What lets it down in education, is the rubbish packaging of some (not all) software. I have been using PDQ Inventory and PDQ Deploy as temporary stop gaps. Very useful to get msps out. Though if you go with SCCM your not going 3rd Party which is good and bad. Arguably with enough time you could make MDT do a lot of what SCCM does.

[sonofsanta]

I wouldn't judge SCCM 2012 based on SCCM 2007 - there's a world of difference between them. 2012 is much improved.