[27242] in resnet
Re: Anyone using Dell KACE?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ward, Sean)
Mon Feb 6 09:57:27 2012
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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 14:56:17 +0000
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From: "Ward, Sean" <sward@bellarmine.edu>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
In-Reply-To: <CAHVqF_jg1NWSEJWpYZMnDRn2egT_8hr+z65oPqRx4wSGSmdz7w@mail.gmail.com>
A follow-up for anyone commenting: did you consider KACE and then go with something else? If so, why?
Thanks in advance!
Sean
-----Original Message-----
From: Resnet Forum [mailto:RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Chuck Steel
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 8:57
To: RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: Anyone using Dell KACE?
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 8:18 AM, Ward, Sean <sward@bellarmine.edu> wrote:
> Our Dean/acting IT Director asked if we should look at the Dell KACE
> appliance (not sure which of the two, K1000 or K2000... or both) and I
> wanted to see if anyone used these and if they had any comments that
> they'd like to share (on or off list) regarding it.
>
We moved to Dell KACE over the summer and have been very happy with it. We have a K1000 appliance and use it for Service Desk and Inventory and just turned on patching for our campus. I actually heard about the appliance at the ResNet Symposium at WWU. We were considering migrating from Altiris to the K2000 for imaging, but the
K2000 doesn't support multicast at this point (that might be coming in future versions).
The system is very flexible and includes some interesting features that can make it very powerful. Within the Service Desk there is a custom rules functionality that gives you the ability to modify tickets through SQL commands, which means you can create queues that will automate some common tasks. You can also use the rules to change other tables in the database, meaning you can have a helpdesk ticket act on assets, etc. The inventory also includes the ability to create custom inventory fields that can be populated in a variety of ways.
For instance, we have a custom inventory rule that is populated with the members of the local administrators group so we can now run a report to see what computers have a certain user or group setup as an administrator (oh, and I could have a custom ticket rule automatically act on that information if I want to get fancy).
The KACE user forums on appdeploy.com are also active, which provides a great resource for problem solving. I haven't had any issues with getting good responses from technical support, but it's also nice to have an active user community that you can turn to for questions. We previously used Numara Track-IT and there wasn't a similar resource available and I find it makes a world of difference if you have someone other than technical support to reach out to.
--
Chuck Steel
Dickinson College
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