BMC Helix Discovery Reviews

The primary use case of this solution is to discover all devices connected to the network. We use it for computer systems, laptops, printers, switches, IP phones, and servers.

We are using it for creating reports about discovered OS versions and installed patches.

We connected ADDM with the CMDB of BMC ITSM, and we use this data in BMC asset management.

Every week, we create different types of reports about the latest changes and track them. 

The process is very simple as it is easy to use. The IT security department uses it for troubleshooting security issues.

BMC Helix Discovery has improved our work. For example, with the solution, software and assets are now clear. It is very simple to sort assets and make reports to manage current conditions.

Weekly reports to management really make our life simple. Every change in assets of our organization can be trackable, and we can track any change and fix it.

Unfortunately, we don't use Discovery cloud services, and I couldn't rate how it works. However, it is good that BMC Discovery can discover multi-cloud environments. Likely, we will use it next year.

The security is invaluable. The security features are great.

The security policy of the appliance and system architecture is configured at the highest level. The appliance credentials used to log in are stored in the credential vault, and this security feature is very valuable for security reasons.

Another valuable feature is that the content of the vault is secured using 256-bit AES encryption in CBC mode.

The Sync feature syncs found assets with CMDB and BMC Remedy Asset Management. 

There are a lot of supported protocols and device lists.

We would like updates more often.

The virtual appliance with agentless discovery is very good and simple and doesn't need any improvement.

It will be better if the Nutanix architecture is more detailed.

I want to note the high stability and smooth operation of this system. New patches and updates are always coming and help to improve the performance of the system in a real way.

I don't know what else could be improved in this system. I am always satisfied with this product's full functionality and timely updates.

I've used the solution from 2016 - for about seven years.

I didn't use a different solution previously.

I did not evaluate other options. 

I'm using it for the customer. I've been looking for BMC Helix Discovery. It's majorly for some kind of customization or development kind of thing that we have to do.

The solution has brought a huge difference to the organisation.

The most valuable feature is Windows proxy. We now need to install an additional link proxy server in Windows. The proxy is available as an outpost in the Elastic store. That is the advanced feature is added.

There are many other features which can be used once we discover them. One time I was scanning the servers and all, going to data from additional based on the additional features, including advanced data like score upper display data successfully discover servers. There are many things good things that can be implemented using it while we haven’t installed those yet.

The improvement which we require is to delete the Internet service. Till some of the features are coming, like, internally side. If you are taking one server to model, there are a lot of usages like three structures per diagram is coming, and we have to do the man lot of manual work. Instead of that, whatever our requirement, we should be able to provide the servers and get the structure. So this is what we want to implement with such data. 

It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability a seven out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

The initial setup is easy except for some parts which requires expertise. The whole deployment have to be taken care of by us in the On-premises version. The pay on call monitor, taking notes all have to installed by us in the on-prem version. 

Operating cost is actually high compared to other products, actually. It's a little expensive only, but it's very good than other products.

I will rate BMC Helix Discovery an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for data center like server and discovery system.

The important feature is information capability.

It is very complicated to use. It should be more user-friendly. Also, it should provide more dashboards.

I have been using BMC Helix Discovery for two years.

It is not stable. We are suffering from upgrades.

20,000 users are using this solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability a six out of ten.

Support take time to respond but they solve the issue.

Neutral

The initial setup is simple.

The product pricing is high.

I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

The solution is mainly used to discover the assets in the organization. A new concept called blind spots in BMC Helix Discovery seems to give more insight into which assets were missed. It helps VM managers or data center managers get a good picture of what assets are there and which VMs were deployed but not even touched.

The solution's most valuable feature is service modeling. BMC Helix Discovery already does almost 70% to 80% of the work, and only 20% is left for you to manually create relationships to complete the service model. It is critical for the business to define what services it needs.

BMC Helix Discovery is a bit tough to use and administer. It needs a lot of manpower to manage it on a day-to-day basis.

I am satisfied with the solution's reasonable technical support.

Positive

Setup-wise, the solution has recently improved a lot compared to the previous version. If you have the servers ready, the solution can be deployed within a few hours. The problem is with the connectivity. You need to get your connectivity sorted out from your organization, which takes a long time.

It takes at least more than a month to arrange the connectivity. Once you have the connectivity, the deployment can be done in a few hours.

Because of the solution’s automation, it saves up to 80% of the time for the administrator. The solution can save costs for the customer because they can reduce spending on other tools.

I've heard that the solution was expensive earlier but is now much cheaper than its competitors.

The solution can be easily integrated with BMC Suite. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use the solution to check patches for specific machines.

There are certain limitations in the mapping feature of the solution.

The solution's stability is excellent. In case of downtime, we always received great help from its support team.

We have around 200 solution users in our organization's assets and licenses team. It is scalable. I rate its scalability a ten.

The solution is quick to set up. It is deployed as a black box appliance. Thus, it requires spinning virtual machines for configuration. Although, it is most challenging and time-consuming to configure the solution for multiple networks.

We have a perpetual license for the solution.

We have evaluated ServiceNow. It has significant capabilities and provides essential data as well.

It is a good and powerful tool. I rate it an eight. I advise others to discuss the network location for the scanners with their IT security teams.

Our primary use case was to discover IT configuration items.

The solution can be deployed on-premise and on the cloud with Azure.

The last version we used was version 11.

It improved efficiencies and saved money by replacing manual methods.

The most valuable feature is the automated service mapping.

There isn't much that could be improved. The solution is pretty thorough, very easy to implement, and very easy to operate.

I used this solution for about six weeks.

It's stable. It's been on the market for a long time.

It's very scalable.

I would give their technical support a 10 out of 10. 

They were very knowledgeable of their own product and also helped us when we were integrating it with a competitor's service desk. They're quick and very responsive.

Positive

Setup for BMC was very easy. We did it in a trial, and it took approximately 48 hours to implement and get results as far as in a trial capacity.

There will be an implementation plan for either the BMC or the ServiceNow product.

We used two people for deployment – one on their side and one on our side.

At the time, it was administered by one person.

We used a vendor for deployment.

When we had it implemented, we did see ROI.

The price was fair compared to competitors. BMC is very affordable. There are optional consulting services to assist with implementation.

We compared BMC Helix Discovery with ServiceNow ITOM Visibility. ServiceNow is expensive.

I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.

My advice is to ask the vendor to demonstrate the product, and then you will be convinced. It can integrate with BMC's own service desk and other service desks.

BMC Helix Discovery is used extensively for security, software assets, and typical CMDB usage.

The most valuable feature of BMC Helix Discovery is it operates well. It is well known and has gained recognition for its software.

I have been using BMC Helix Discovery for approximately 10 years.

BMC Helix Discovery is a stable solution.

A couple of years ago, we started scanning the public cloud parts from the solution. It's a good setup. BMC Helix Discovery is scalable.

Everyone that has access to the CMDB can run reports for their systems, we have approximately 2500 users. We try to keep the users of the system as low as possible because it contains all our data on our infrastructure. We don't want everyone using it, but then we have reports that we can run with the authorization, and that way we can access data for the systems that we own or running. 

The support from BMC Helix Discovery can improve, it takes a long time before we receive any feedback. It can take days to months sometimes.

The initial setup of BMC Helix Discovery is straightforward. The full implementation process took approximately three to four months.

We had consultants that helped us implement BMC Helix Discovery and then once they completed it they handed it over to us to operate.

We have two people that do the maintenance and support of the solution.

We have seen a return on our investment many times over. We run the software audits in 15 minutes when it previously took months because we needed to contact every responsible person and ask if they are running the software. Now we can click a report and receive all the software deployed in the company. It is huge savings

We are on a three-year agreement with BMC Helix Discovery to use the solution. There are not any additional fees other than the standard license.

I rate the price of BMC Helix Discovery a three out of five.

My advice to others is if they have a business use care for this solution then I would recommend it.

I rate BMC Helix Discovery a nine out of ten.

The solution can be used on event management flows to automate items. It has mapping capabilities to help the organization to see what they have in terms of infrastructure. You're able to see if there's an outage or certain KPIs, and so on. It can do many useful things.

The data models are the most useful aspect of the solution.

The product has been quite stable. 

There are plenty of item capabilities that make the solution excellent.

The technical support is excellent and extremely helpful, even though they know we are not continuing with their product.

The scalability is pretty good.

The deployment is very fast.

The monitoring tools could be more stable. Their TrueSight offering isn't as good as it could be.

I've worked with BMC Remedy products since 2008 and Helix Discovery since it was deployed in 2019. It's been approximately one and a half years. 

The solution is a giant when it comes to enterprise service management. With ServiceNow Discovery, you have to have it in every region or in every data center, with a mid-server available in order to be able to scan the devices. Right now, we have only 2 servers. Once we move to Service Now, we'll have 27 mid servers in all of the locations to be able to scan what we can scan today using Discovery.

The scalability is much better in BMC Discovery rather than Service Now as you can integrate with basically everything - including APIs and tools. While in ServiceNow, you have to build patterns to be able to do the same tasks. It's not as out-of-the-box.

We have approximately 185,000 users. Ours is a massive worldwide company.

We will not increase usage. Unfortunately, our plan is to de-install it in January.

Technical support has been great. 

We use premier support, which BMC offers, and I have never met more professional people than those who work in India. They are great. Even now, when they know that we are going to de-install their product, they are helpful. They reach out to us and offer help, even inside information, like how should we do certain tasks. They offer so much help. I'm impressed with them.

While we are still working with BMC products, we are going to switch now to ServiceNow.

For BMC Discovery, it took approximately two to three hours to be able to open all the ports and firewalls and stuff like that and to install the application. The application itself took five minutes, and therefore it was not so hard. 

If you compare it to ServiceNow, it's approximately the same. Mostly, it was internal processes that slowed us down. The installations themselves are very, very fast.

I have a team that backs me up. I'm working as a service asset and configuration management lead. I've got a managed services team sitting in Bangalore that helps me with the operational side.

I handled the implementation myself. I did not need the assistance of any consultants or integrators or any outside help at all.

We do need to pay a licensing fee, although I'm not sure what the exact cost is. You have a floating license, which does not cost anything. However, when it comes to fixed licenses, such as licensing for administrators and stuff like that, you have to pay.

I can say that they are far less expensive than ServiceNow, which is quite costly.

We're just customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with BMC.

We're using the latest versions of the solution within our organization.

We use both on-premises and cloud deployment models at this time.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten overall.