BigFix Reviews

Server management patch management and software deployment, where we have multiple platforms, such as Windows Servers, Linux, Unix, etc.

• Patch compliance reached 100%.
• Patch management, because it significantly improved the patch compliance.

Patch management, because it very much improved the patch compliance and has the capability to manage Windows and non-Windows clients.

• OSD and other features listed in SCCM, like desired configuration management
• Internet-based client management
• Offline patching of virtual machines
• Network Access Protection (NAP) technologies to prevent computers with vulnerabilities from gaining access to networks.

We rely on BigFix to provide patch remediations in conjunction with instant response engagements that we have. Once CyFIR finds a problem, we tend to leverage BigFix to automate the solution across the entire environment.

We rely on BigFix as part of our consulting engagements. It's more efficient from a visibility and discovery standpoint on the initial phase, the consulting engagement. It also increases our efficiencies on the remediation phase of our engagements. 

We use it to compare the current state of patch and diff that with where it should be and to also push CVE patches and things out that are specific to a problem we have found. 

The combination of CyFIR and BigFix has allowed one of our major customers, one of the top Fortune 50 financial firms in the world, to reduce their forensic investigator count by about 4 FTE with the combination of CyFIR and BigFix.

Compared to SCCM it's much more robust, much more capable, and you can be much more targeted with SCCM. The challenge with SCCM is it doesn't have much of a discovery module so if we're going in blind to a network, we really want to know what's there, not what they think is there. BigFix provides us that picture.

With BigFix, the ability to do device discovery and the installation of our CyFIR agent across the environment is a very autonomous, automatic-type function that is a very significant feature for us. We combine CyFIR and BigFix to provide a total cybersecurity solution, including computer forensics disk imaging, memory analysis imaging. As part of that, we tend to leverage BigFix from the remediation side and from the installation side. 

The peer to peer file transfers as a solution are fine. 

I'd like to see better API integration with BigFix. We have some tremendous API capability inside of CyFIR and the ability to take textual search results, for example, and bring that back into the BigFix dashboard. This would be of extreme interest to us and our customers. 

It's very stable. 

Scalability is very good. 

Their technical support is very responsive. 

We're always looking for innovation and the most efficient and effective way to serve our client base. BigFix came up on our radar as part of that continual enhancement search.

From our perspective, it's pretty easy engagement. It's not just for our network, we use this for our engagements with our clients so the complexity is typically not introduced by BigFix but by the customer client networks and their specific requirements.

We implemented it ourselves. 

The fewer consulting hours that we spend is ROI for us. BigFix enables us to produce maximum results.

I would rate it a 9.5 out of ten. It's pretty close to being perfect. It's stellar.

For me, BigFix is my virtual operator, and the capabilities BigFix actually brings to our servers to do everything. I don't need a personal operator. I can reach out to our partners for the solution.

BigFix enables us to handle data from many vendors with the scale for our servers, improving our performance.

We are looking for better images for third-party operations like article databases, for example, other article application servers, and the SAP applications. We appreciate that BigFix can produce a better image for everything on a single product.

Also, the web console could be improved as we need to use it more than the desktop console.

I believe the solution is very stable and we have never had an outage of the solution. Communication with our agents is always well-synchronized. Stability is very nice.

It is scalable. We have, for example, 7000 servers communicating with only three or four structured servers on the BigFix environment and it responds very quickly for everything we do.

We usually use the technical support for some troubleshooting when we have a specific problem with agents because in an environment with 7000 servers, we have a certain rate of problems which are specific problems, not general problems. Every time, the support attends to us quickly and the success factor is high.

See if the solution has good capabilities for them and if the solution can communicate well. Integration with many vendors is necessary.

We are using BigFix for Windows patching, querying the configuration management, and reports.

The most valuable feature of BigFix is the reporting tool and patching Windows.

BigFix should improve its compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux.

I have been using BigFix for approximately two years.

I have experienced good stability while using BigFix in Windows. However, it is not good with Linux.

BigFix has been scalable.

We have approximately 30 users who use the solution.

If the support is available for Linux, we would like to increase our usage.

Sometimes we need to have support, and there is a toll-free number we can use to connect to their help team. We rarely face any issues.

The installation is straightforward.

Our internal software team does the implementation and support of the solution.

We have a subscription-based contract with BigFix.

I would recommend this solution to others. It is a very good tool for Windows and for reporting.

I rate BigFix an eight out of ten.

Our primary use of this solution is for patching all of our systems and maintaining their security compliance.

It enables us to patch our systems quickly and within expectations and to increase our volume as needed. It has also helped us compress our patch sites. We used to do it monthly but now we do it weekly.

Compared to SCCM, I always feel like I'm fighting the tool. I do not feel that way with BigFix.

The ability to build custom content and scale to additional endpoints without increasing staff time is the most valuable feature. 

I'd definitely like to see additional feature parody in the web UI versus the console. There are certain things that you can only do in the console and they're very cumbersome to do, like secure parameters, for example. That's definitely something that has a wide degree of utility but it needs to be easier to surface. At this particular juncture between the transition, between the Legacy console and the web UI, it's hard to justify dealing with the cumbersome aspects of the Legacy console when theoretically everything's been through the web UI.

Stability is very good. We have no issues with it.

Technical support has always been useful and they have always ultimately provided a solution.

The initial set up was very simple, single server. We've since grown to a server plus an array of relays and we even use relays to get into some difficult to reach network areas. It's been pretty useful.

We implemented in-house. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten and I'd advise someone considering this solution to start with one relay. Remember that it is a root shell robot. If you can do it on the shell you can do it with BigFix.

• Patch Management
• Software Distribution
• Security Compliance
• Software Compliance

Patch compliance has improved. Using software distribution, the software distributed in the environment has been standardized. With the same software versions across the environment, compatibility issues have come down with a reduction in helpdesk tickets arising out of different software versions. There is also a check on software assets by means of implementing the software inventory module and a great deal of software compliance has been achieved.

Patch Management for a variety of operating systems makes it valuable as we can rely on a single tool for obtaining patch compliance of the entire compute infrastructure. This also ensures that we do not need to have different skills for different OS patch requirements.

• Relay selection and availability needs improvement as an incorrect relay selected can cause network chokes.
• Client reporting to the console is a minor issue but definitely needs improvement.
• Reporting needs to be enhanced with maybe a simple GUI based report generator with drag and drop features to create a custom report. The current mechanism is a bit clunky by use of filters.  

It is very stable.

No scalability issues. We have customers ranging from 250 endpoints to over 100,000 endpoints.

Customer support is excellent, but involving customer support and crossing the initial hurdles of getting past the first level of support personnel sometimes takes a while. But once it lands with the right support people the support is excellent. Level 1 support from IBM definitely needs improvement. 

No other tools were used.

The setup is pretty straightforward provided you have planned well for the deployment. Know the environment well prior to deployment: The architecture needs to be drawn up prior to deployment. Plan the deployment of main server, database server, BigFix application(s), relays, console, and finally the deployment of clients.

We are a BigFix vendor. We rate ourselves as excellent subject matter experts. Given the exposure and experience of handling fairly large deployments on Bigfix, we have gathered vast knowledge in the Patch, Security & Software compliance space.

ROI is pretty quick if you consider Security & Software Compliance as your primary use cases as Patch Management and Software Inventory Management. It has worked out to be under six months in many of our deployments. You may not be able to directly attach a ROI for security, but given the fact that Bigfix has been able to address many vulnerabilities that arise out of non patching makes Bigfix a compelling investment

Plan well to ensure you have a stable and scaleable deployment. If you have a need for many use cases: Patch Management, Software Distribution, Remote Control, OS Deployment, Software Asset Management, Vulnerability Management, Security Compliance, and Server Automation, make sure you prioritize your requirements before deployment. You should go about meeting the requirements in phases, not try and burn the entire ocean.  

No other products evaluated.

Get started with BigFix.

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.

Our primary use case of this solution is for automated server patching. It integrates with our change management tool. It replaced SCCM for Windows. 

Servers are patched more consistently than they have been previously.

Some of the most valuable features are the development of the patches, the fixlets, and not having to bundle things ourselves. 

I would like to see integration of user security between the different products to be improved. There's separate security for compliance, separate security for web reports, and the console, and you have to manage those things separately. 

It's very stable.

It's very scalable. It handles it effortlessly for our needs. 

The first level two support was a little spotty a year ago. It's improved. I get a B, B plus from them. The knowledge of the first line of support seemed to be limited. 

Once you've done the setup once, it's not that complex. Initially, it can be a little bit complex to get your head around, but now that I've done it a couple of times, I don't deem it to be overly complex.

We used IBM Professional Services and it was a good experience. 

I would rate BigFix an eight out of ten. It's powerful, has low administrative overhead, it's reliable, and not too expensive. Not a ten because there's always room for improvement.