Microsoft Configuration Manager Reviews

We use System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to manage workstations and servers in our Windows environment. We are primarily a Windows-only environment, which is what SCCM is designed to manage. It uses WMI underlying technology to ensure that it is compatible with all versions of Windows, from Windows XP to Windows 10. We use it to manage our Windows workstations and Servers. We use SCCM to do many things, like deploy operating systems, deploy applications, configure settings, gather compliance data, enforce software patching and run reports for software installations information.

We do not use it to do Mobile Device Management, though it does have that capability.

It does not manage products outside of Microsoft operating systems, so this product would be for Microsoft-heavy businesses.

Using SCCM allows our team to reimage a computer within an hour and have it ready to deploy to a user in less than a day. If we get a new workstation model, we can easily add drivers to the server and it will be compatible with our image. We can count on images and workstations having a specific configuration and having it enforced. It allows us to spend less time doing manual work and more time helping users. It also gives us good business intelligence through its reporting features.

• Deployment of a standardized operating system
• Application deployment to all domain machines
• Configurations enforcement
  
• Compliance data gathering

Ensuring configuration integrity across the domain is essential for maintaining an environment, so SCCM helps our company enforce a uniform configuration. SCCM’s ability to deploy applications to maintain updates and up-to-date software is also essential. Many vendors will not support end users if we are not on the latest software release, so this allows the IT department to control application versions and deployments. SCCM is also essential in maintaining WSUS updates, as those are a challenge to enforce as well.

SCCM is a pretty great product already. It has benefited greatly from having been around since its original incarnation as Small Business Server 2003. It would be cool if the SCCM client had some PowerShell cmdlets built into it, as managing clients remotely can be a pain without knowing the WMI calls to run remotely. Also, continued development PowerShell integration with the console (which they have already started developing).

Improperly set security settings can lead to console performance issues. SCCM client issues are also inevitable. We recently had to diagnose and fix downloading issues caused by older BranchCache issues with the old client. Otherwise, the client and server are very stable.

No. SCCM has the ability to be as big or as small as needed by the business. It can be used by businesses ranging from single office companies to massive international corporations.

N/A. SCCM is one of the most popular products on the market, so there are LOTS of online help articles for almost any problem you will have. I have never contacted their support because it's expensive, and I am stubborn and like to figure out problems myself.

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The initial setup takes planning and careful consideration. It will also take input from your networking team, as it will take some router configuration to get PXE booting working. The overall design of the SCCM servers needs to be considered as well, as you can't change the big picture structure later. You have to decide if you want only a primary site or if you want a central administration hub with primary sites reporting to it, so it will take planning to setup.

Configuring the groups, collections, boundaries, and server roles takes time as well. It will also take an understanding of the business's needs and will require IT helpdesk input to be most effective.

Configuring applications and settings takes a bit less time once you have the underlying infrastructure setup, but SCCM doesn't really help you discover install commands outside of MSI or APPX packages. To be fair, there's not much they can do, but a technician will need to be aware of that.

I implemented it, so in-house. 

Microsoft has affordable pricing for Small to Medium Businesses, and it comes with many SMB packages already. It is worth investing in these, because the returns in automation and environmental integrity pay back the cost.

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SCCM is a fantastic solution whose use is only limited by your creativity. Since it allows you to use PowerShell or VBScript to configure settings or execute procedures, a technician can make the any system do what they would like, provided they know how to do it programmatically. It can be a bit of a challenge to setup, configure, and maintain, but once you do, it will benefit you greatly. It is a complicated, complex product, so there is a learning curve, but that complexity is intrinsically linked to its ability to be a powerful tool. If setup improperly, SCCM can wipe out entire environments (don’t make an OS a required task sequence to all computers, for instance), but that is difficult to do.

We are using Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager to manage our client's Microsoft estate. 

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is the availability of being able to manage the Microsoft estate. It handles many areas, such as asset management and tracking.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager could improve the integration.

I have been using Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for approximately 10 years.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is highly stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is good.

The support for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is good.

We did not face any challenges with the initial setup of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. The time it takes to do the deployment depends upon the size of the environment. Smaller deployments don't take more than a week and very large deployments can take up to three to six months.

The support staff needed for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager depends upon the size of the deployment. However, we do not require a large number of people to support it. 

Microsoft comes with an end-to-end package that can include Office 365 and many other applications put together, it makes it a very integrated system for people to use.

We have a support license from Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager and the overall price of the solution is reasonable.

I rate Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for client management, especially for day-to-day operational activities, like access management or software deployment.

The main key feature that we find the most valuable is the patching. The remote desktop is a very useful feature as well. The software deployment aspect is helpful too. These are the three core features from which we see the customers really benefit if they have a System Center Config Manager. This is especially true for enterprise organizations here.

Microsoft is being very competitive right now, and they are really investing in a lot of new features to be more competitive in the marketplace. 

We are okay with all the available features.

In the future, we're looking for tighter integration with cloud solutions like Windows Intune. It is already there, however, it's still in need of some improvements. It's not straightforward in terms of the administration on offer. 

We'd like the solution to make it easier to manage remote users.

It offers a very difficult cloud gateway when it comes to cloud management.

The solution does need a lot of configuration and fine-tuning, so a company will need a dedicated person who's knowledgeable in the product to manage it.

A few people complained that SCCM is very complex without CPS, depending on the SQL database, and when using SQL as a backend service. Sometimes updating the dashboard and getting the reports, can be slow. They're not getting an instant update on the database. That is where most of the customers tend to complain. 

I've been using the solution since version 2.0 or something close to that. It may be at least 15 years.

We don't have very many issues in SCCM. It's not a plug and play software, however. From time to time it does require fine-tuning. You need the right management and administrative people in place to manage the product. This is essential in order to keep it running correctly.  

We have clients in both the private and public sectors. 

The solution requires fine-tuning and configuration tweaks. In order to scale it, you will need a knowledgeable person to manage the process.

Technical support from Microsoft has been good. We've been satisfied with their level of service.

We don't find the initial setup to be complex. We've done many implementations a this point, and we find it to be straightforward. Our team is very much experts at this point. They know all the processes and they go through everything step by step. 

In terms of how long it takes to deploy the solution, this question is very tricky. It's all dependant on the customers, and their environment as well as the customer's readiness to proceed. If it's a POC, where I don't have any dependencies on the customer side, that everything will be within the private network, isolated environment, I can handle a deployment within two days. We can install, configure, and make everything ready in that short amount of time simply because we don't have customer dependencies.

You do need to have the correct people in place to manage it once it's up and running. They need to be experienced and dedicated to the product.

We're an integrator and service provider here in Bahrain, so we have done more than a couple of installations, so where our team is very confident in our ability to implement the solution on behalf of our clients.

We're actually looking at ServiceNow as a potential product to use in the future.

We are a Microsoft gold partner.

We're noticing many users in our country moving away from Microsoft and towards AWS.

We tend to use the latest solution, or something close to that. We always are trying to keep it up to date in all the customer database and systems. Whenever there is the latest update available, we update everything immediately for our customers. The latest version may be 19.06.

While all the customers we have are currently on-prem, we are looking for cloud-based solutions going forward, due to the fact that our customers tend to gravitate towards the cloud. They are like looking for something they can easily manage. That's all clients, irrespective of whether they are in the office or are our mobile users. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I really like the product, however, there's always room for improvement.

The tool's most valuable features are easy patch management and software deployment. We use it because it is a Microsoft product, which makes it more secure and easier to use.

Microsoft Configuration Manager makes it easier to control remote desktops. It supplements other products. 

The tool's deployment can be cumbersome. 

Microsoft Configuration Manager's stability is very good. I rate it an eight out of ten. 

We don't contact Microsoft directly for support. We get support through a third-party vendor. 

I rate the product's ease of deployment a four out of ten. 

A contractor helped us with the product's deployment. 

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

We use the solution to monitor our servers and clouds. We also use it for software and hardware inventories.

Hardware and software inventories help us discover the resources and assets in our organization. The dashboards have information about our assets. We use the reports for decision-making. The tool gives good information about our resources in the organization.

The solution is crowded with information. It is complicated to search for things.

I have been using the solution for almost six months.

The stability is excellent. I have had no problems. I rate the product’s stability an eight out of ten.

We have around ten users in the organization. The product serves only the environment where we install the agent for each client. We have almost 2000 clients. I rate the product’s scalability a nine out of ten.

The implementation is easy. It took three to four hours.

Since we are a government organization, money is not an issue. There's an agreement between the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Microsoft.

I will recommend the tool to others. It is helpful for organizations. Overall, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

We use this solution to apply new group policies.

The solution was particularly helpful for patching the OS, and for the VM in our environment. With 10 branches, we have a huge number of VMs. Using ECM, we can download the new patches one by one, apply and then restore them. It saves us a lot of time. 

The valuable feature is the ability to gain all the data you need. We can collect data and get insight into the functionalities of their scope. As system administrators, we get a summarized report for each site with the installed version of the OS for all PCs in our environment. We know which meet the requirements and which don't. For those that don't, we can mitigate any potential vulnerabilities or threats.

I think managing Linux devices could be improved. It would help our colleagues and other departments like the dev opps, who only use Linux machines to quickly patch their VMs.

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The technical support could be improved. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. We have six users. 

It's important to keep the database going at all times to avoid any interruption of the service. The implementation must be very well designed because you have to know the scope of your workload and that should be addressed in the action plan before proceeding with the deployment. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We use Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for application deployment, patch deployment, and many other things. If you have any script that needs to be deployed to all the devices, you can do it with this solution. 

If you have this solution in your environment, it's a win-win situation. You can deliver anything that the customer requires. If the efficacy is somewhere around 80 to 90%, everything isn't well because some devices aren't coming online because of bandwidth issues or they aren't compliant. 

However, if we have 80% to 90% efficacy, we can achieve compliance. The compliance we reached was around 95%, but that 5% was probably due to a decommissioned device or one that wasn't in the environment. So, for efficacy, delivery, and reporting, this is one of the best tools.

The major features of this product are the reporting tools. The most valuable features are package deployment and application deployment. Security management is also good because any vulnerability will be identified, and you can fix it. It's the best tool because you never know what kind of client you will have. For example, you may have your offices in low bandwidth remote areas. But it's achievable because it accommodates the bandwidth that you have available.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is an excellent reporting tool for your environment. If you want to know the details about the hardware configuration, software configuration, what is causing a problem, or when a new feature update comes in for Windows, even that goes on SCCM itself. A lot of deployment stuff.

It would be better if reporting were more user-friendly. I would like to see an upgrade in the reporting structure in the next release. At the moment, you have to use an SQL query or configure it to pull reports through the graphical user interface. 

Their updates could be more regular. I think Mircosoft updates it every six months. They are also moving many things to Intune, and Microsoft decided to move the deployment solution there. I think SCCM is getting old, and Intune is new. 

I have been working with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager for about seven years.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is very stable. It's very reliable, and it's a proven product.

Scalability is difficult for the inexperienced. But if you know how to use these tools, scalability is also good. When Intune matures, you can also use it together with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager to scale and co-manage the environment.

Microsoft support is good, but it does take time. There are two types of support provided by Microsoft, paid and unpaid. The paid option offers a real-time system, and they help because we have to pay in dollars. Sometimes it takes two or three days to get to the submission. I cannot comment much because we only had a few cases and had to connect with them. Usually, these issues are related to some upgrades and some tool-related issues. Although it's good, I think Microsoft support could be better because they still take too much time.

The deployment process is very simple. It's not difficult because it gives you a variety of features. You have to create a collection or a group, and you deploy it. It's very slow and dependent on the network. 

A single person can install and deploy this solution. If you have an application already created and tested, that's fine. If you do not have one, then you have to build the application and test it. If everything goes fine, you can simply deploy it to the list of people you want to target. I wouldn't say that you need many people, but it depends on your operation and how you manage your environment.

The deployment time depends on the location it's going to, the bandwidth, and more. You can configure a time for the application to replace the policy or when the machine will replace its policies in the configuration settings. Suppose I'm an administrator and deploying something on your device; your machine will not get turned on. I will go ahead and update the application evolution cycle and machine policies so that it happens automatically. Once the 30 minutes clock starts, it'll update, and once it refreshes, it will see something I sent, and it'll start downloading it. 

Downloading is always completely dependent on how fast your internet is. Once the package is downloaded, you can simply go ahead and install it. Small packages will take about an hour at most to deploy. For bigger packages, it's completely dependent on the internet because this tool does only one job. It's like a postman as it takes one thing from you and gives it to the other person.

There are periodic updates, and the maintenance is also done. The patch update service is critical and has a significant impact.

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is suitable for small businesses. If you have fewer offices and fewer users, then the efficacy of this product is very high. If the company doesn't have a system for a long time or doesn't have many employees or environmental issues, they can open Intune and have a cloud-based solution and get all the features together there.

You can stage your content, and you can share where you have no connectivity. You can go ahead and do the whole deployment and a lot of things. Intune is still improving, but SCCM has a feature of all this deployment and all other things.

So I would say that SCCM has a stronghold and is still relevant. It's an excellent product, but Intune will take it over in a few years. But not entirely because they will coexist. They are working in an environment simultaneously, hand in hand, but I think the market will move more toward Intune (if it's not moving already).

I would advise potential users to take a structural approach. They should know the customer's requirements, the number of users, and the locations. They need to have the setup, create a cache, and then binary and secondary options for these deployments. But if you're using a cloud-based solution, you don't have too much worry about it because everything will come from the internet. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager an eight.

The primary use case of the solution is to deploy patches, and applications, and upgrade our client operating systems.

Without the solution, we would have to manually install all patches and software and upgrade our operating system with the help of our support team, which would take a long time. With SCCM, this process is automated, making it a highly valuable feature.

The most valuable feature of this solution is its ability to deploy patches to nearly all applications.

SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data.

Microsoft could supply an installation guide to make setup easier.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

The solution is stable and we have not had any issues.

The solution is scalable.

We have 100,000 people using the solution.

The technical support is good. We can call the hotline or use the website to generate the tickets.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Maintenance for the solution is easy.

I recommend the solution to others.