Burconix - BCX Management Tools

[enjay]

Currently considering a move from CC3 to vanilla, but with third-party management tool on top, e.g. CSE or Burconix. CSE looks great, but is quite pricey; my concern with Burconix is that it is using a server-side process and client agent, and given the problems which this model generates RM, I have my concerns. Can someone with BCX comment on the stability or otherwise of the product?

[powdarrmonkey]

We have no problems at all with BCX (it's many, many times better than CSE IME). We use Prism Pack with it, and deploy applications, shortcuts, printers and wallpapers. You're welcome to visit and see it in action.

[enjay]

it's many, many times better than CSE IME

 

What makes you say that?

[irsprint84]

CSE is awful!

[enjay]

Okay, can we quantify these remarks a bit please?!

[dwhyte85]

Don't you mean qualify?

[irsprint84]

Errors everywhere, use some ugly CSE desktop manager (if you use it), random crashes was such a relief going vanilla, I find it much quicker going vanilla than any other way there are tools for everything and free

[powdarrmonkey]

What makes you say that?

 

I used them both for considerable time each. CSE is a variety of hacked-together outfits that they have bought out; the management section crashed for no reason at times, and memory usage is silly - although to be fair to it, it stood us in good stead. BCX is like a breath of fresh air though: it does have occasional bugs, but as we were a beta school we ironed most of them out with the developers, and as a result it's more reliable, slimmer and does what we want without the trimmings.

 

The one part of CSE we've kept is Recovery Manager; that's saved many a girl from disaster.

Edited March 28, 2011 by powdarrmonkey

[powdarrmonkey]

Incidentally, CSE has the same server-client multicast model, so it's six of one...

[synaesthesia]

Can anyone compare using Burconix with going entirely vanilla, using the supplied Windows Server tools (WDS, WSUS, AIK) and then with something like SCCM on top? This is something we're looking at currently, and last night having taken a brief look around SCCM I really can't understand why anyone would pay £sillymoney for the above tools on top?

 

(Incidentally, we're having a nose around another member's BCX school today - just like as many thoughts/opinions as possible )

[enjay]

Can anyone compare using Burconix with going entirely vanilla

 

Certainly - start a new thread for that rather than changing the topic of this one, and I'm sure people will be happy to share their thoughts...

[enjay]

Don't you mean qualify?

 

Quite possibly, yes. Although saying "it crashed 4 times a day" would be quantifying it!

[enjay]

@powdarrmonkey - how recent is your experience with CSE?

[synaesthesia]

Reason I posted here is as a possible BCX user - trying to find out what makes it so much better than vanilla. Nothing against BCX - need to find the pros and cons of each.

[enjay]

Understood, my apologies for jumping on you like that. My reasoning behind a management system is that I don't feel I have the time - or, if we're being honest, expertise with Server 2008 - to effectively manage the network purely using native MS tools. Management tools often make tasks quicker than native, and that time-saving would allow me to concentrate on the rest of my job.

 

We're currently RM, so are a bit limited there, however once "normal" 2008/Win7 are in, I intend to use my chosen product whilst doing a decent evaluation of whether it is better done with or without a management tool, although I may well stick with it even once I know more about 2008.

[Steven_Cleaver]

I have used CSE at two schools for some years and to be honest it was reasonable it could be a bit sluggish on older PC's the back end Database getting corrupt at times, I had some major issues when I converted to the .Net version but I was one of the very early schools and in the end reverted back to the older version and as someone has mentioned the Recovery Manager tool was very good although we now use Shadow Copy. I have now moved to the BCX tools at my previous school and my present one as I have found these tools much better and never looked back, no performance issues much stabler and any minor issues resolved extremely quickly (Excellent Support) I have also looked at BCX's version two of the tools and even these have improved adding extra functionality so will be moving to version 2 over Easter.

 

To be totally honest I have used RM, CSE and Burconix BCX as well as Vanilla and prefer BCX as they give me a set of tools that are easy to use reliable and that don't effect performance. By using a set of tools instead of Vanilla it just gives me more time to develop other things within the school as rolling out applications, shortcuts, printers and rebuilding machines is done with ease using these tools, built on top of the Microsoft technologies and working with these seamlessly which I don't feel is the case with CSE or RM's tools.

[enjay]

One thing I didn't quite understand in my demo of BCX (and it was only after they'd left that I realised how little I understood it!) was the "tasks" which you create to allocate applications and shortcuts. Let's imagine I want to allocate an application to the IT Suite, Library, Science classrooms with shortcuts which only appear for GCSE students and Science teachers - what would be involved in doing that? My recollection is that this would be quite a mission with BCX...

[Steven_Cleaver]

If say the computers and users are in groups (OU's) then you simply select the Application or shortcut click in the right hand side and add these groups of stations so say IT Suite, Science Classrooms etc, then select the group of users the same. If not in groups you can multi select the users and computers. To be honest takes a few second if using groups and a minute or two if that if you have to multi select.

[enjay]

Thanks Steven. I would then repeat that process for each of my other 100+ applications, right? Okay, that's slightly more straightforward than I thought.

[enjay]

With the groups of users, could I do it to "Year 10 Students" and have that setting automatically apply to next year's Year 10, or would it apply to the students by name once I'd selected the OU group which contains them?

[powdarrmonkey]

@powdarrmonkey - how recent is your experience with CSE?

 

About 18 months, IIRC.

 

One thing I didn't quite understand in my demo of BCX (and it was only after they'd left that I realised how little I understood it!) was the "tasks" which you create to allocate applications and shortcuts. Let's imagine I want to allocate an application to the IT Suite, Library, Science classrooms with shortcuts which only appear for GCSE students and Science teachers - what would be involved in doing that? My recollection is that this would be quite a mission with BCX...

 

You:

- create or import the shortcuts

- import the associated packages, and associate them

- choose to deploy to specified users on specified machines (by OU, group, individual object or a combination of these)

- make coffee

 

Thanks Steven. I would then repeat that process for each of my other 100+ applications, right? Okay, that's slightly more straightforward than I thought.

 

Yes.

 

With the groups of users, could I do it to "Year 10 Students" and have that setting automatically apply to next year's Year 10, or would it apply to the students by name once I'd selected the OU group which contains them?

 

OU/group memberships are calculated at logon. If you change the members of an OU in Active Directory, the resulting shortcut/printer/wallpaper settings are applied at next logon.

[FragglePete]

We use CSE, was in place well before I got here. It has its issues, but generally has been good for us.

 

We migrated over to Windows 7 last year, and we sat down and seriously looked at going Vanilla because of a few issues we were having. However, we worked with CSE to resolve some issues, and looked at what it does for us and what it would cost to do those same things with other products. In the end we've stuck with CSE. We did however ditch the Workspace Explorer bit as you can use the Network Toolkit to build your own start menus so the users get a proper Windows Desktop Experience that we can centrally manage.

 

For us, the pros are this:

 

1. As mentioned above, we can build start menus based on type of user logged on and machine group (or individual). For example, a SIMS Icon is accessible to Staff whereas it isn't for Students.

2. You can control licencing of apps as well, so it can track how many copies of a particular app is running and make sure you don't go over your licence count.

3. Printer deployment, again can be based on user type and location.

4. Application Deployment; as mentioned it uses the Prism Suite which works I would say 9 times out of 10. We've had a few issues with it, but generally we prepare our packages on freshly imaged machines (with no AV, etc) and test, test and test them again. I'm finding on Windows 7 we do have to edit the package manually to ensure nothing goes down that will upset other models. Ones that don't work we look at alternatives way to deploy. If we re-image a machine, we just leave it a lone for a couple of hours and all the necessary software will just get redeployed automatically.

5. Recovery Manager - I can't really say valuable this is! Uses a form of Shadow Copying; tracks changes that students make to files and dumps them to another server (we've located ours away from the main server as a form of disk backup of home drives) and students can use the CSE Recovery Manager to preview and restore previous versions of a particular file.

 

You also get a fully FITS compliant help desk as part of the package now (I believe). We've been looking at it but haven't implemented yet due to time contraints, but it does look good and they now use it themselves for support calls.

 

The user manager tool is also a useful additional for creating multiple users, which can all be based on templates.

 

Certain elements we don't use because we've had issues with, these being their Room & Asset Booking as we prefer the Devizes Booking System - however a big update is apparently forthcoming with this so we will keep an eye on it. Presentation Manager we find a bit flaky, so don't really use it anyway (prefer Xibo). Start and Shutdown tools are useful (can be scheduled), but again we don't really use them as we tend to use Impero for that sort of thing.

 

I have to be fair, its not perfect; there are a few bugs, but it does a good job overall for us. Issues we've had are dealt with, but I do find the development and bug fixes a little slow forthcoming. I do however have a good relationship with their Engineers and our Account Manager which I do use to my advantage; It is handy having the backup of a company that has a team of highly knowledgable and qualified engineers. I know if I've got an issue with my servers as a whole they will offer guidance and help.

 

Just want to address the balance of this thread a little. I know there are other tools out there that could do the same job, but its like have different models of cars; they all get you from A to B.

 

Pete

[Steven_Cleaver]

You would need to repeat the process for the 100 Apps to be honest we had 480 (Apps, Shortcuts. etc) at my last place but just had Burconix on a couple of machines moved the Apps before we fully moved over we moved a few over as we went along if that makes sense, but to be honest Burconix might have a better way of doing it, obviously a bit of work but once this is done it is easy to add in new Apps shortcuts etc.But I don't know your current setup, I have tackled this two ways to completely move last place I had the summer and knew my setup really well and(moved from CSE) been their a few years so re-imaged all my machines re-deployed all the Apps with Burconix's help the reason I did this is so the machines were clean and was worried as regards issues with left over CSE components on machines.Current job didn't have as much time or have as much knowledge of their infrastructure applications etc. and it was Vanilla so created images of various machine types with Burconix help but just deployed their software and am only re-imaging machines where required, which is only occasionally.

[Steven_Cleaver]

With the groups of users, could I do it to "Year 10 Students" and have that setting automatically apply to next year's Year 10, or would it apply to the students by name once I'd selected the OU group which contains them?

 

As Powdarmonkey has said would depend on OU Memberships.

[enjay]

Thanks guys, really helpful.