BigFix Reviews

I like the overall usage of it. It's easy to use, gives you great visibility into your envionment, customization of your reports, and the community of users that you can pull experience and knowledge from. So that's one of the main advantages for using BigFix.

It has definitely improved our patch process, being able to create compliance reports and hand those to management, executives and so on, and making the overall procedure of managing assets, managing end points, patching endpoints, etc. It has just made everything pretty easy.

It's not perfect, but it's close. There are some things here or there, for instance if you get down to the small details, such as if you could deploy and action it a different way, or you selected multiple endpoints and then from there, selected a right-click and deployed something from it, instead of the normal way etc.

If you could select one particular endpoint, look in the applicable fixlets, and then deploy an action from there, it would be helpful.

Of course there are many ways to achieve these aims, and you can't satisfy every possible little change here or there for everybody, these are just things that we've talked about or thrown out there in our environment.

I have been using the solution for almost two years already.

We haven't encountered any issues with stability.

We haven't encountered any issues with scalability.

I've used technical support quite often at times, when either having a small issue, or just trying to set something up new and different, and I've always had great experiences with support. They always either call me back, or email me back, or set up a WebEx to work through an issue. So I've had great experiences with support.

I haven't used a previous solution as such. I worked at a previous company, moved to the current company I am employed at now, and saw the process and how different it was.

Coming from a company that utilized BigFix, I knew that there was a better way here, and I pushed hard to get BigFix implemented. They went on my recommendation, spent the money, and we have it in place. It's been in place for almost two years now.

Regarding installation, I needed help from either support or our actual business partner or vendor. As I was just an operator previously, I never had to set it up from scratch. Actually it was pretty easy. Of course I had help, I had support, but it was nothing that was too difficult to do. Everything went seamlessly, went smoothly, and like I say we have been thoroughly enjoying it for the time we've had it.

Just do it.

We use this solution to successfully manage and control approximately thirty-five hundred machines in multiple, complex environments.

1. I can manage all of my assets from one place, no matter where they are in the world.
2. Manage deployments and authorized software assets.
3. Manage IMAGES for the entire organization from one place, and do it fast!
   
4. Patch management is no longer a problem.

The most valuable feature is patch management, a must have, even for Linux and iOS.

We have a strict standard for compliance, and this solution has simplified this. 

I would like to see the Self Service section made more user-friendly.

With respect to OSD, I would like to control the task sequence competently from the BigFix console.

We use this solution for patch management and software distribution.

Initially, for the customers that we consult for,  their IT Security and IT Operations units were working in silos, especially with regards to patch management and vulnerability and compliance reporting. BigFix effectively bridged the gap between both teams while providing a single robust reporting interface for both teams.

Compliance is the most valuable feature. It allows you to build custom policy checklist while leveraging recommended industry security compliance checklists e.g DISA-STIG, CIS, PCI-DSS

Upgrading from an Evaluation license to a production license is not error free. Managed endpoints still gets stuck with the evaluation masthead and as such would not let you execute actions outside the BigFix management client maintenance actions. This needs to be improved

It's very scalable. The highest I did was between 9000 to 11,000 networks and I didn't lose any performance with that.

I initially onboarded with Microsoft SCCM. The user interface leaves a lot to be desired, performance impact as you go above 10,000 endpoints and also maintenance tasks like setting up of distribution points are not available at the click of a button.

The initial setup is straight forward. I deployed it in around three weeks. I started with installing the servers and the primary relay, then I installed 2 relays per subnet,  made the relays deployment points and then installed the BigFix clients locally from the deployment points.

Compliance, and lifestyle are a bit pricey especially to customers that get SCCM included as part of their ELA. It's makes convincing harder.

I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and we will have a solution right away. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. To make it a ten they should improve on the issues stated above

I find the lifecycle and compliance models to be the most valuable features.

BigFix should consider giving organizations in Turkey a lower price.

I have been using BigFix for nearly a year. 

BigFix is a stable solution. We have not had any issues with it. 

BigFix is scalable and reliable. It has been good for our organization. 

We have not had much use for technical support. The few times that we did get in touch with them, they solved our problems. However, we have not had much need for technical support. BigFix is easy to use.

The initial setup was not complex.

BigFix is actually a little bit on the expensive side in Turkey because of the dollar's exchange rate in our currency. 

Everyone should give in Turkey a try. Our services are easy to manage with BigFix. It is a quick and easy-to-use tool. 

It eases automation. We have been using it to automate Windows. We are currently using it on our AIX boxes to deploy patches; basically, to automate patch installation and OS upgrades.

It saves time and reduces human error. We are still experimenting with more of its features, such as how we can roll back some of the patches that we have already installed and so on. It definitely looks good.

We use it on the AIX. I think it worked fine. I work on the AIX and we are still in the testing period, so it would be interesting to see, if there's an issue with it. But, the team that does most of the automation thinks that it should work fine. Because they didn't see any issues with Linux, they don't see any issues with the AIX either.

Maybe, if they could provide a better GUI, it would be a nice thing to have.

Stability is good.

We're using it on Windows and have used it on Linux. It worked well on Linux and now, we are actively moving to test it on the AIX.

We were using HPE Server Automation, which we were formerly using to automate most of the Linux patching. We were using HPE SA for our automation. It automates but it doesn't have the feature as to where we can back out the patches that were pushed and BigFix offers that to us.

In my opinion, trust and reputation are the most important criteria when selecting a vendor. IBM is known for that.

Definitely, without any hesitation, I would recommend that you should implement and use it. Try it out!

The most valuable feature of this solution is real-time recording.

We use it for planning a lot of distributions and we get results immediately, so as to see when it's being deployed.

We would like to see enhancement of the web UI.

The stability is great.

It scales well, this is a great product.

We have used technical support, we went through all of that. They're wonderful and have been really helpful. We're good now because of them.

We did a proof of concept, looked at the other competitors and after scaling all of them on a matrix, IBM ended up being the best option for us.

The most important criteria while selecting a vendor are the product's stability, relationship with the support team, salesperson and technicians.

The setup was very complex. It was very bumpy and we had network issues. But, they worked with us and we are happy now.

Talk to us, see what are your challenges and go for it!

Near world PCI compliance and patch. We share the modules that we own for BigFix. So, those are the most important.

Our compliance levels - i.e. our compliance percentage has improved.

Simulators could be introduced.

None that I can think of. It does what we purchased it for. So, there isn't really anything that I can think of to add to it.

It is very stable. Streaming, of course, will do it.

I manage and control the relays and everything, so it's easy to put new relays up and configure them.

The technical support is usually pretty good. However, I had a ticket that stayed open for a couple of weeks which I didn't get a response to. Then when we got the response it wasn't really good. So they could have told me sooner than two weeks.

We did an audit. A PCI audit. We were looking for reliability. Also cost and support were considerations.

I did the initial setup, it's fairly straightforward.

I wasn't part of the evaluation of other products.

Definitely look at BigFix to consider it as a solution.

It gives us one tool that allows us to patch our systems, so we don't have multiple tools to patch our systems. We have one tool that allows us to patch multiple platforms, as well as inventory and provide insights on all of those different platforms. Also, we're currently using it for automation, so it's helping us innovate in all of those platforms, for us to look for new things and also address problems in real time. We're using it more as a platform more than we are as a tool.

I think the most valuable feature is its flexibility and the fact that there's one agent that allows you to do a lot of different things. We use it for compliance, primarily patching. Also, it becomes our master source collector for most of our information. We take that information and feed dashboards. It also helps us make decisions, so some of that has to do with compliance, as what our targets are; what we need to address, such as vulnerability leaks and that type of thing.

We also use it for inventory, like our source data. It feeds a lot of our dashboards. We actually take data from all over our company from other source systems and combine that with our BigFix data. It gives us insights on different areas that we need to target and challenges that we have that we wouldn't normally see just with one tool. We basically use it as our master source and then, from that, it helps us provide a source of truth.

I would like to see more multithreading, which I understand comes, clustering and we may end up doing some container-related work with Bluemix and lead some of that effort to allow us to scale on demand. Because there are times when you have a zero day and with our size and scale – we have a very large relay environment – it'd be nice to be able to scale on demand but as an enterprise, see it as one relay instead of several hundred. We'd like to be able to see everything be more integrated in the universe of BigFix with other tools. It seems like that's the direction it's going, in their original vision of having a single-agent type of approach, but we'd also like to remove some of the complexity by having more clustering and DR capabilities built in to the tool.

We have had scalability issues because we bend the laws of the physics for the tool. For some of our reporting needs, we've had to go and take our databases and put it in big data, only because we have so many different environments that we don't have one single pane of glass way of taking all of our environments and comparing it all together. We have to take the data outside and then still leverage the tool inside to give us all of the feeds, so that we can have one enterprise view across all of our different instances. That's just because of the number of machines that we have. It doesn't allow us to just take advantage of one environment.

I have used technical support. In fact, I at one point managed the technical side for the same customer. I was part of the strategic outsourcing, so I was with the customer, then I supported the customer on the IBM side and then I came back to the customer's side to help them innovate using that same tool and the same support team I used to manage. So, it was full circle.

I am happy with the support team. Actually, there are some challenges from time to time, only because our needs are a little bit more complex because of how complex an organization and how large we are. Our needs are a little bit more than the average company. We've been able to work through those challenges and become more on the innovative leader side of the tool, which also helps us to get better support because now we're going from the bleeding edge of trying to get our organization to address problems to leading the industry charge, hopefully. Maybe next year with what we're trying to do with BigFix, we might be able to present some of our findings.

I was not actually involved in the initial setup because we've had it for over ten years, but I've helped transform it from being a tool into a platform. The technical part of that transformation was not very complex. It was more of the internal challenges, getting support, and more the political side was a little more difficult than the technical side.

Understand where your focus is going to be. Then, based on your focus, start moving in that direction and then, don't get so myopic with your focus that you don't see the capabilities it can provide, where it can become a universal tool to help you solve a lot of problems and potential endpoint security risks. You don't want to compete in your organization with other tools that provide the same capabilities. Consolidate your efforts into BigFix and get rid of those competing tools. Put the money into the support, the services and the innovation it provides.

Openness and honesty are the most important criteria I look for in a vendor. What are the shortcomings of the tool? What are some of the challenges that others have had with the tool and how have you been able to overcome those challenges?