+1 for sure on LANDesk. We have also been using it for over a year and it has made our lives much easier (or I should probably say, has kept it from getting harder). SW deployment is one of the key features and it is powerful, fast, and flexible. MSI, exe, batch, etc etc. It can distribute all of them. Security scans happen when you schedule them to happen, it doesn't have to be every 12 hrs. It really does live up to it's advertising. There are many functions in the suite and we are still exploring them. Right now we use inventory, sw deployment, patch management (all patches, not just MS), OS deployment (they have their own imaging software, or you can use your own like Ghost) the most. We have been deploying MS Office Communicator throughout the enterprise with this and it has cut down tremendously on the amount of work required and the number of PCs that need a personal visit. I'm not sure about Devin's situation - we deployed Landesk on a single server and it's just fine. We *do* leverage other file servers to help the packages and OS images be closer to the users and not have to consume WAN bandwidth, but that was our choice, it wasn't required. Depends on the size of your environment. It's quite flexible. Pricing kind of depends on the reseller who sells it, number of seats, what kind of support contract you purchase, etc. As much as I enjoy LDMS and will keep using it (Altiris was my other choice, but with the Symantec acquisition I dropped considering it), for the few needs you have, have you looked at something like ScriptLogic Desktop Administrator? It seems to be smaller, lighter, and if what you expressed initially is all you ever want/need, it may be a better fit. I don't have any personal experience with it. Don't know about pricing, never asked.
Wayne ________________________________ From: Devin Meade [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 11:54 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Desktop Management Sorry to take so long to reply. My Mom had some major surgery - and doing absolutely great. I have not noticed any great load on our systems. When a security scan is run on a newer box, it takes about 60 sec and the CPU is at about 50%, not a big deal - they run every 12 hours. Or a scan can be foreced - I do this during the patch cycle. The older boxes (Dell Prec 370's) can take about 2-3 min to complete a sec scan, but the system is usable during the scan. I think LD resolved the issue of the agent bogging down the clients prior to v8.8. LD can do software deployment, we played a little with the sw deployment portal, but abandoned it. You don't have to use the portal, a package can be pushed / scheduled / made into a LD policy. The current implementation requires a second file share server and I just never had the friggin time to set it up. I'm sorry we just have not used it because the current implementation is pretty much going away very soon, from the banter on their newsgroups. We are using LD remote control and had some issues with it grabbing the wrong machine due to either the lookup order (s/b DNS first, then WINS) or I put the wrong password on our 2003 DHCP servers which register DNS for the leases (whoops). That is fixed now! I do like the feature that reports how many R/C sessions and their duration. LD had some MS Patch dectection issues (said something was needed when it wasnt and vice / versa). They heard about it on the newsgroups pretty quick and it was resolved quickly IMHO. Also, LD is a few hours behind MS when it comes to releasing patches which can be a pain. They do move faster on a patch with a patch with a current "public incident". But it can be 6PM to 10PM on patch Tues before they are available from LD. hth, Devin On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Tom Miller <[email protected]> wrote: I remember Landesk from several jobs ago. One problem we had back then was CPU/memory utilization. Can you tell me if this is no longer an issue? So what are the issues you have with it? I need something to push an application/patch immediately, if I need to do so. Does Landesk to this, in your experience? Thanks for the feedback. Tom Miller Engineer, Information Technology Hampton-Newport News Community Services Board 757-788-0528 >>> Devin Meade <[email protected]> 11/3/2009 6:28 PM >>> We purchased Landesk management suite with patch management just over a year ago. It has really decreased the time spent on patching. All the friggin adobe deployment problems you hear about... no problem. We *just* purchased the appl virt add-on, have not had time to look at it. This uses Vmware ThinApp (they acquired it). Our two-person help desk staff (me and the guy over the cubicle) use the remote-control all the time - it works well. We don't have the management gateway, but with that piece, you can extend remote control (and the rest of the suite) to road warriors. As far as the LD software deployment piece, it is about to be totally ve-vamped in the next month or two. From their newsgroups and user-groups, the beta testers **really** like it. We decided to wait on the new released for app deployment. The current version (v 8.8) requires a second server (not a deal killer) but is a little long in the tooth, so we wait ~6 weeks. I have had a few issues and had very good (non India) support. They have an active discussion group. Landesk sponsors a quarterly user-group meeting (providing lunch) and that has been superb to catch some ideas on how to use the product. It's a big initial purchase (about than $100 a seat IIRC), but the annual renewals are about 20% of that. We test drove Altiris and could not stand it. The one thing I really like with LanDesk patch manager is the scheduling options - just about any deploy schedule you can muster up it can do. It also reports in real time during patch deployment. We ran WSUS3 before, which worked well for us. We/I have been very pleased with this product, it's not without issues (what is?). Oh yeah, when we demoed this, I could not really test the product in the free trial time period (30 or 60 days??), they extended the 100 user free trial for us - twice. FYI - We purchased our servers and workstation through Dell, and they gave us a deal on this, or so they said :-) hope this helps, Devin On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 3:21 PM, Tom Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm really looking at my options, and it's nice to hear I'm not the only one > struggling with this product. It has a huge following, and seems to work > well for those entities that can dedicate full-time staff to desktop > management - not possible here, and it was not necessary with Zen. > > Kace, Landesk, Altiris (sort of not really since it's now owned by > Symantec), Quest... > > Install client....wait...create app deployment...wait....create patch > deployment...wait.... Lots of waiting with this product. > >>>> "Ray" <[email protected]> 11/3/2009 4:15 PM >>> > > We're using SCCM, sort of, having migrated from Zen also. > > We call it SCUM. Tons and tons of functionality, although we could care > less about most of it. For Imaging it appears to be mediocre. For remote > control it's also mediocre, if we can even get it to work. No > CTRL-ALT-DELETE seems silly. > > I will also point out that I'm not too involved with its rollout. > > From: Tom Miller [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 1:58 PM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Re: Desktop Management > > > > Have it now - don't like it. > >>>> Jon Harris <[email protected]> 11/3/2009 3:40 PM >>> > > Depending on the size try looking at the various System Center products. > > Jon > > On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Tom Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi All, > > I'm looking for desktop management products primarily for 1) application > installation/distribution, 2) patching (MS or otherwise) and 3) > inventorying. Other items are bonus. > > I used Novell Zenworks in the past and that was good but now is too > expensive. I started over the last six months using Microsoft Configuration > Manager. While I like it, I'm spending much more time on it that I did with > Zen. There's been discussion of Kace and that looks like a possible > alternative. Anyone have any others to recommend? > > Thanks > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
