BigFix Reviews

We use the latest version.

Upon our evaluation of other products we found that most solutions provide the same technological functions and features. But, BigFix has two advantages over these. The first is that its price is competitive. The second is that we found the implementation partner to be very supportive in terms of explaining and training the in-house resources and deploying the solution. 

The architecture is also lightweight.

The reporting and dashboard parts have room for improvement. When it comes to the dashboard it should include certain customized reports. The requirements may vary from one automation to another and it would be nice to see the reports in their own style. As such, there should be more reports included and a greater ability to customize them. 

I cannot say I am aware of all the functions of BigFix. I believe it has antivirus capabilities and others of which I am not knowledgeable. For the moment, we use the antivirus capabilities of Trend Micro although, going forward, I would like to evaluate those of BigFix. Should these turn out to be lightweight and more effective than those of Trend Micro then I would definitely consider replacing them so that I may have all the functions contained within a single console. 

We have been using BigFix for the past two years.

The solution is stable. 

Scalability is another factor which must be taken into account at the design stage, keeping in mind the endpoints and how one wishes for them to grow. The endpoints will govern how one provisions the infrastructure. Since the license is only subscription-based, if a person provisions his infrastructure correctly, he may scale up easily. 

The initial setup was easy. 

Yet, there are many other criteria which must be taken into account because there is a need for the distributed network. As such, it is important to understand the bandwidth that it will consume when it comes to pushing the latest updates. This means that the solution must be designed in such a way that the implementation would not choke the bandwidth or consume much of it or other activities, as the appliances it contains would also be consuming the same bandwidth. 

We are not talking about putting a separate network or network connectivity for pushing the patches. We usually use the same connectivity. We see that the designing stage is of critical importance and, if done correctly, the implementation will follow more easily. 

We utilized an implementation partner who we found to be supportive and explanatory when it came to training the in-house resources and to deploying the solution. 

The license is subscription-based. 

I would recommend the solution to others. This said, it is important to understand one's architecture and to have a knowledge of how one's endpoints are scattered and what the deployment and network architecture will look like. Once this is clarified, the solution would provide a good option. The same can be said for any product. The design of the implementation of the solution is of especial importance. 

Our primary use case of this solution is for endpoint management. 

Prior to BigFix we used Altiris, which was distributed. We had to manage multiple servers, and duplicate the tasks that we did on each server. BigFix tremendously reduced the amount of work that we had to do on each server in a centralized manner. We could minimize the work that we had to do, and we had a lot more control over the tasks and what machines they ran on.

It has helped to reduce help desk calls by 60-70%. Using the self-service portal allows our users a lot of access to fix their own problems as far as errors, as well as policies that auto-resolve issues as they come up without the user even knowing.

Finally, it has helped us to avoid compliance fines in the tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. We've used it for software audits numerous times and saved significant amounts of money with being able to clearly identify what machines have what software, then verify that we're licensed for the software that we have.

Power to query anything on the machine servers and problem resolution is where we find a lot of value in being able to turn around and find a fix, and identify machines that are having an issue, and being able to resolve that.

I believe that the peer to peer file transfers feature will speed up the time to get files to individual machines. I haven't used it myself, but I think that as far as clients go, instead of having to use one server for that, being able to get that data from their clients will be a lot faster and more efficient.

I would like to see for it to be a little easier for new users to be able to learn and create relevant statements. In my opinion, that's the hardest part for bringing on new people that haven't had BigFix experience. Being able to have easier ways to build relevance in ActionScript would be the biggest improvement I'd like to see.

It's very stable. There's minimal maintenance on the server infrastructure itself.

It's very scalable. We've had mergers that have come in and put a relay out there, and immediately get the information back for their clients. It's very scalable, we don't have to worry about putting too much burden on our other servers.

Their technical support is very good. 

We switched to BigFix mainly because of scalability and for centralizing the work that we did, rather than being distributed. From what I know of SCCM, and the little that I've used it, the granularity that relevance an ActionScript allows you over the endpoint, and the information coming back from the endpoint is fairly significant compared to the work that you would have to do to script all that out in SCCM to get that information back.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because of the training aspect of getting new users up and going on the technology. That would be the only downfall because it does take quite a bit of time to train new users. As far as the power, it's by far the best.

If you're considering BigFix look at the power that it allows you to have visibility into your system. If you don't have visibility into your systems, it takes a lot longer to get something resolved. Whereas if you can instantly get that information back from your client that's having a problem, being able to know that that issue needs to get fixed on that client's machine and being able to fix it instantly, could save you hundreds of hours.

The most valuable features for us are scalability and reliability. Hands down.

My organization came from a product that was not nearly as reliable. It was causing failures across our infrastructure and across our enterprise. Switching to BixFix has alleviated that to a great degree.

The other part is it's now allowing our company to think ahead how we can incorporate other pieces of BigFix that other solutions don't have integrated natively. So we can get five or six product sets out of BigFix as opposed to just a single product set on a solution that didn't even work to begin with.

IBM dropped what's called BigFix Detect on us here at Interconnect this year. That blew our socks off because we had just completed signing a contract with a software that does almost the exact same thing called Carbon Black. So we came here and noticed that they're putting a Carbon Black type solution into BigFix. I will be curious about how that particular application develops over time and into the future. I'd like to see them continue to scale that out.

A major feature that I think they need to add to Detect is application whitelisting. That will be incredibly important. If they can get that I might be able to convince my company to start using that.

Stability is excellent. It doesn't crash, it can handle whatever we throw at it. It does a good job with that. Other solutions that we've had haven't panned out that way.

Scalability is excellent. There are people here who are using BigFix in much larger deployments than what we have. We're not small by any means but we're also not the largest out there. We know we can trust with confidence that we'll scale up well over time.

We haven't had to use the technical support at all.

We were using a different solution before this and we outgrew it. My company has gone through a period of hypergrowth and we went from handling just a few years ago 60 stores with maybe 500 endpoints in them, to 1600 stores now with tens of thousands of endpoints. So we knew we needed a new solution because the one we had just kept breaking, over and over.

I was not involved in the initial installation.

For myself as a manager who makes business decisions like selecting a vendor, there needs to be a level of trust and a level of partnership where I can go back to this vendor and actually get support and help if we need it, when we need it. Interconnect has been a great resource for that. So there's got to be that trust level there, absolutely.

I will never push a product I don't believe in. So I have to see that it works. I would argue the same is the case for anyone above me in our business or enterprise. We don't want to work with vendors whose products are half-baked. They have got to work.

So we ended up with IBM because we are partnered with GameStop and they were already using the product and saw that it worked. So we didn't formulate a shortlist off the bat. We said let's try GameStop's product and see how well that works for us, and then if it's not working we will go out and make a shortlist. So we didn't have to do that, fortunately.

The advice I would give is not to be turned off from the learning curve. There is a little bit of a learning curve to it. But that learning curve is there for a reason and the talent that goes into actually using BigFix properly takes a little while to tune, but that is what makes BigFix so powerful. That being said, as a result of that you're going to get reliability and scalability and a much faster response time than probably most products out there.

The solution is being used for automation. We deploy the package as customized software, and we provide ad-hoc requests via BigFix.

The solution is deployed on the cloud, but it can also be installed on-premises.

The most valuable features are patch management, software installation, and asset management.

I would like the dashboard to be improved to show the problematic machines and good machines.

I have used BigFix for five years.

It's very stable.

We can scale up or down according to our needs.

Technical support is responsible and knowledgeable. They're supportive when we have any issue in the environment and require help from them.

We can troubleshoot the tool. If there are any major issues, we go to the support team for help.

I would rate technical support as five out of five.

The setup is easy. I would rate it as five out of five.

It requires maintenance every month. Only two or three people are needed for maintenance.

We used a third-party consultant.

BigFix is very easy to use. I have also used SCCM, but there were issues with the machine not restarting. There were many problems produced in the environment and in the agent. In BigFix, I haven't seen any issues with the agent. It works smoothly.

I would rate this solution as 10 out of 10.

We are an MSP, and we use this solution for our customers as well as for our company. 

I use BigFix for everything. I use it for patch management, software distribution, OS deployment, server automation, and inventory and asset management.

BigFix is a great product. The flexibility of putting together your own relevance and retrieving custom data from any one of your agents is a valuable feature. It is one of my favorite features because if a boss asks me, "How many of these devices do we have?", I can put together a report in two seconds.

The only thing that I don't like about BigFix is that it does not support other devices such as printer firmware, router firmware, and things like that. I will be happy if I can control everything and get everything else in there, even if it is just a line item.

They can do some enhancements to the Web UI. I am trying to get customers to be able to manage their environment by using Web UI, and it would be good if we can delete endpoints by using Web UI. We should also be able to generate Excel content or data tables from the Web UI without having to go to the console. It is small stuff, and it drives me crazy that I have to go to another console to do these things.

I have been using this solution for years.

It is a pretty stable product. There are problems only if you mess up during the installation. If you do it right, then everything is fine.

It is scalable. It is able to handle up to 250,000 devices. So, you should be fine with anything under that. 

I work with all kinds of customers. I have small customers with 30 endpoints, and I also have a couple of big customers with 30,000 or 40,000 endpoints.

It has been great since it became HCL.

I know how to use them all. I have used Asterisk and other solutions, but I got used to BigFix. BigFix is pretty straightforward.

Its initial setup is straightforward.

I would advise taking some of the training so that you can use the product to the fullest potential. It is a huge and flexible product, and you can take advantage of a lot of stuff if you know how to do it. If you don't know, you're never going to take advantage of it.

I would rate BigFix a ten out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for patch management, software distribution, inventory, and power management.

BigFix has helped us to compress our patch cycles. We typically do one release a month. Where we really benefited from this solution is that we now have one to two people whereas previously we would need thirty to forty people taking care of it. That's where we benefited from BigFix the most. We've never had central patching before, so BigFix has improved things quite a bit.

It has helped to reduce software spend. We do have the inventory component, but it's not fully implemented yet. We know that the software does take out certain data and so now we have better data.

We are able to go from patching thousands of machines by twenty to thirty people to one person. 

I would like better support on the backend.

It's stable. We occasionally run into hic-ups here and there. We've been working with BigFix for eight-plus years and occasionally things happen. 

We're in the tens of thousands and we're under twenty thousand endpoints. It's been pretty easy to maintain.

Their technical support can be helpful. We send a PMR and they are pretty helpful. I would give them, on a scale from one to five, with five being the best, around a four.

The initial setup was straightforward on the BigFix side. We had some internal stuff that caused some issues but otherwise it's pretty straightforward. 

We implemented in-house. 

We were looking for something that could run Mac and Windows. At the time SCCM didn't do anything with the backend side. We tried to set SCCM up but it seems to be more complicated than it needs to be. BigFix has one central database and is easier. 

I would rate it an 8.5 out of ten. BigFix has a great community, there's a lot of people that believe in it, it's whatever they advertise, and they listen to customers' feedback. We are heavily on-prem and with BigFix we have that option of staying on-prem. 

Patch management: We've gone from hideous to amazing.

The most valuable feature is the extensibility of the tool. We're able to implement solutions through available APIs and custom solutions. We're able to provide services quickly. We're able to provide services completely.

A lot of my suggestions have already been submitted through RFEs; some of them involve inspector enhancements in the end point. We've got enhancement requests on the BigFix Inventory side. I know that it's not quite as mature a product as BigFix is.

I think the current tool is fairly robust. We have ways of breaking it, though.

We're pushing the limits of the tool. We've got over 250,000 devices in our environment; probably one of the larger customers. There are a few that are larger. But we're also doing a lot with the tool that I think other customers aren't. We're doing software distribution as well as patch management. We're also doing inventory and software usage analysis. I don't know of too many other customers that are doing that.

Technical support depends on who you get. I deal with some amazing support folks, and then I've dealt with some less-than-amazing support folks.

Our previous tool was the predecessor to BigFix, Tivoli Configuration Manager. We were entitled to migrate from TCM to BigFix, so it was kind of a no-brainer.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was very straightforward. The implementation was pretty easy.

BigFix was on our short list before they were IBM. We decided against them because they were a small company, even though their solution was better than some of their competitors. Management knew it was too much of a risk to go with BigFix. When they finally became IBM, again, it was a no-brainer because they were on the top of our list of vendors satisfying the feature requirements and now they had the backing of IBM, so it made sense.

We looked at Alteryx. We looked at Microsoft SCCM. SCCM was a big competitor.

I don’t have that many criteria when selecting a vendor.

The advice that I would give depends on the problem that you are trying to solve. I spoke with a number of people at an IBM conference (users looking for a high-end endpoint security software who were potentially going to install BigFix), and they had nothing but good things to say about the tool and the people supporting it.

It's a well-developed tool, supported by people who are passionate about it.

Our primary use case is for endpoint configuration management.

Our patch cycles are much faster. They usually all happen within a few days or less.

The most valuable feature is the patching. 

It's much more flexible than SCCM. There are more things we can do and especially the cross-platform support is better. 

It actually increased network traffic. Microsoft and Apple have incredibly large downloads, so when you're downloading to thousands of machines it's huge.

I would like to see more emphasis on using the web console, to have the same power as the full fat client console that they do they now. It's a lighter way to log in and it would be faster for our operators to do their work. The console tends to take a long time for a large number of clients.

It's stable. I've been running it for more than ten years and it's generally pretty good. 

Scalability is very good. It's scaled to our current needs.

Their technical support is decent. 

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We implement in-house. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I would advise a colleague considering this solution to definitely understand what your needs are and see if the product meets those needs. Don't try to shoehorn your needs into a tool.