Microsoft Configuration Manager Reviews

We use this solution to deploy all of the packages to the workstations.

The scalability to deploy the package.

The App to upgrades to the server needs to be improved.

We have used SCCM for a couple of years.

We are using the latest version.

It's a stable solution.

It's a scalable product. We have 1,000 users in our organization.

We have plans to continue using this solution.

Technical support is fine. We have no issues with support.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's easy for us.

We have a team of four to deploy and maintain this solution.

We completed the installation ourselves.

It took one week to deploy and customize it.

We have to pay for a license.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using this solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for client and server deployments, and software deployments, as well as software metering.

The entire solution, from end to end is excellent. It's doing essential work for us at our company.

The initial setup is straightforward and not too complicated.

I can't think of any features that are lacking in the solution. It's quite complete, and a rather standard setup.

If you want the best support, you need to pay for it. Otherwise, you may get less technical help.

We've been using the solution since its inception. It's been maybe ten years or more at this point.

The solution is very stable. It's reliable. You don't have to work about bugs or glitches. There aren't any crashes. It doesn't freeze.

The solution is very scalable. If an organization needs to scale up, the can do so easily using this product.

Right now, we have about 4,000 users on the solution.

We have Microsoft Premier Support.

With Microsoft Premier Support, you get what you pay for. There's Third Tier Support that you pay for. If you pay for that, you get excellent support, and if you don't pay for that, then you get the less experienced staff. There are products where we do have Third Tier Support, and there are products that are not so mission-critical, where we don't pay that much.

At Microsoft, if we wanted to, we can get the level of that kind of super support, super fast. It's not that they leave a void open that we would like more. If we want more, faster, we can pay for it.

If the company did use a different solution, that would have been about 15 years ago and before my time. I couldn't say what it might have been. Right now we're System Center 2012, before that it was 2007. Then before that was 2003, and then 2004. Before, the product was called SMS, so it's been around for a while. The previous product might have been a solution called Altaris. Again, that's about at least 15 years ago.

The initial setup, for the most part, is not complex. It depends on the company's individual setup, however, it's quite straightforward if you know what you are doing.

Deployment typically takes about three months.

You only need about four staff members for deployment and maintenance. They are all systems specialists and engineers.

We used to use sellers or consultants. However, we are moving away from that and attempting to implement the solution ourselves internally. We want to have the knowledge completely in-house.

We have a basic enterprise agreement with Microsoft which isn't cheap, per se.

I can't get into the exact cost structure.

The question of pricing is a bit relative. The enterprise-level that we use is always a negotiation. I don't want to use the word monopoly, however, there's no alternative enterprise vendor that covers all bases, from server storage and backup and everything else in between. Pricing is just a matter of negotiation every time the contract renewal period comes up.

Right now we are starting a POC for Azure and Office 365. The idea is that it depends on the government and if data privacy and compliance rules allow any change. If we can use Azure's public cloud, and Office 365, then the usage utility of the on-prem requirements would go down. 

Microsoft Cloud has integration with Intune, which is the cloud version of SCCM in the center. As far as I can see, there is good integration.

We're a Microsoft customer.

It's a very good product. The basic question is the size of the company itself that may want to implement the solution. the point is if you're big enough to afford an enterprise agreement, with Microsoft, then I would highly recommend it. It's a suite of products. If you're a small to medium business, which does not have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, I would recommend that you look around for third party products. Simply from a cost perspective, you might be better off, but if you have the money and the size and the revenue, then definitely, Microsoft is the way to go, because it includes everything.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

This solution is used for vulnerability management. Our primary use case is for software updates, including ad-hoc and monthly updates, as well as security patches.

The whole purpose of vulnerability management is to help with mitigating any security threats that could be within the network. So this solution has helped because it is very valuable to have an overview of which devices and networks are not up to date, or have failed to update with a specific software update deployment.

A specific example is related to malware by the name of Coinminer. It is used by intruders to remotely mine cryptocurrency, using your computer resources. It consumes your computer's CPU and memory. By putting this solution in place and ensuring that the latest security patches are installed, you are no longer vulnerable to this virus. Your computer operates at an optimal speed.

In summary, you maintain security and the best performance of your systems.

The most valuable feature is the graphical-based status reports of software updates; showing successful and failed deployments. This gives you a quick overview of vulnerable computers that expose your network to risks of a security breach.

I would like to see an agentless version of the solution. An agent-based system is one where every computer on the network has to have a client installed in order to be able to report on it or deploy to it. In the case of this solution, you need to have the SCCM agent installed on every computer. To me, that is a weakness because if you don't have the agents installed in some computers, then you cannot reach them for the deployment of software updates.

An agentless system means that you don't need to have an agent installed on computers. You would simply sweep the network, see all live computers and deploy the updates be able to deploy updates. It is worth noting is that the installed agents open and run on specific ports in the computer. These may be used as launch pads for attacks; making your network more vulnerable to security breaches.

This is a stable solution. They release regular updates and upgrades, and they keep enhancing the features. I have not had any bugs that I would say were a challenge.

This solution is very scalable. As your network becomes bigger, you're able to accommodate more computers in terms of deploying the updates that you need to.

Microsoft technical support is fairly good, and I would rate them eight out of ten. They try to act promptly, but there are two issues that cause delays. The first is related to the difference in time zones, and the second comes about from the different levels of support licensing.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The initial setup for this solution is straightforward. It is a Microsoft-based product, and they usually have startup wizards. It is graphical, and the process of installation is self-explanatory. It is easy, even for a new user.

The initial setup, depending on whether it is a server and what tests have to be done, might take about two hours.

Once running, the time required for the deployment of updates varies depending on how many computers you are deploying to. If you have, say two thousand computers, then it will take approximately a week for all of them to be fully updated. This also depends on how regularly the computers are online. In cases where systems are frequently offline, it will take even longer. Once they come online, they get the deployment and update.

The first priority after installing the software is to gather all of the end-user devices. Make sure that they are all covered and up to date all of the time.

One IT administrator is enough to deploy and maintain this solution.

We handled the implementation and deployment ourselves.

The licensing is good because they have various options, depending on what you are looking for. There are one-year up-to three-year license contracts.

We did not evaluate options other than this one, from Microsoft. It is our company policy to run on Microsoft SCCM.

Since this solution is agent-based, computers without the agent cannot be reached on the network. In addition, non-Microsoft products are not supported. So if you have a mix of platforms like Linux and Mac OS, you'd be better off looking for an agentless solution and not SCCM.

Security is one of the big problems with Microsoft products, but usability is equally good. 

I would rate this product a seven out of ten.

• Application deployment
• Software metering
• Batching

There tons of ways it has improved our organization, especially when you tie SCCM in with cloud-based tools like Intune. You can have global 24/7 coverage and purview off your workloads. When you are outside of the network, it still is covered by Intune's policies and procedures. That's the main value that we see now.

Application deployment is the most congenial tool we have seen. With the right administrator, it can do wonders.

The main thing is that SCCM has to become an appliance instead of a server.

When I say appliance, it has to come preconfigured so that it is drop-shipped into the enterprise and then you activate the feature sets that you want. It should pull down all the latest binaries. Once that is all there, it should have a discovery tool which goes out and discovers the assets within an enterprise. If the server, workstation, and applications are all coming from the same vendor, why not have the vendor do this work for us and automate it as much as it possibly can?

SCCM has the same DNA, it is coming from the same vendor. It does exactly what every other tool does, but since it is from Microsoft they should have thought about these things.

SCCM should be an automated solution, an appliance. Drop-shipped into the organization, discovery should be automated. Inclusion should be automated. Portals should be within the product itself. And it must have a cloud component to it. It should automatically upload the metadata to the cloud so we can monitor it in the cloud at a very high security level.

It is stable. We haven't experienced crashes for the last four or five years. Since Windows Server 2012, crashes are literally nonexistent.

No issues with scalability.

Tech support is horrible, but that's expected from any big-box company.

We used to use a third-party company which, unfortunately, went out of business. The solution was beautiful. But that was something like 10 or 15 years back. It was gobbled up by BigFix and they completely reduced it to garbage. Literally, there was nothing to look at.

We are very knowledgeable about SCCM so for us it takes an hour or two, at the most, to set up. For other people, it may be complicated, but for us, setup is the least of our concerns.

We evaluated BigFix. Again, I'm talking about 10 years back. It was garbage. We evaluated NetIQ at the time but it was complete fluff.

Pricing and licensing are horrible. You have to not look at dollar value to use SCCM. It's super-duper expensive but it works. The acquisition cost is expensive, it's labor-intensive. But it works.

There is no advice anybody can give on SCCM. Everybody has to go through their journey. It's like giving birth. There's no advice. It works. But you have to deliver yourself.

I like its ease of use. It does what you need it to do, and it's a one-stop-shop for the company and for all your deployments. If you incorporate Intune into it, you can have both. You can bring your own devices and corporate devices, and everything runs out of SCCM and Intune.

They should improve their anti-malware policies like the SCEP policies. For instance, you can't have different policies for different servers, there is only one policy in all the servers, and everything is covered under that. 

For example, say you want to scan one group of servers on Saturday, and then you want to scan another group of servers on Sunday, you can't do that. You have to scan all your servers, a regular scan or a full scan, on the same day and at the same time. That's definitely one thing they need to resolve. 

In the next release, it would actually be nice if they included Apple products. It will also help if you can use Intune again. Their compliance reporting feature could also be better. They can maybe work a bit on that for patching now.

It would be better if SCCM came with the functions of Right Click Tools built-in. If SCCM would have all those functions already built-in, we won't have to go and spend $5,000, just as an add-in from another company to get those functions.

I have been dealing with SCCM for nine years.

I used to be the SCCM administrator for quite a big company that had 80,000 people. That's pretty much all I did all day, every day.

BigFix is the poor man's SCCM. It's for people that can't afford SCCM and for small and medium-sized businesses. There's nothing else out there that can do what it can do.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SCCM a nine.

SCCM is used in the insurance and public administration sector. We have various sized customers using it.

We are using the solutions for PC application inventories, patch management for new PC installation, PC reinstallation, and zero-day patching. We're using it to its full capabilities. It's a complete solution in the Microsoft environment.

SCCM has made it easy for our organization to personalize all the distribution schedules and how we want to distribute. It is very easy to manage, and there is a lot of option.

The most valuable feature of SCCM is the application distribution.

SCCM can improve on third-party application support.

The next features are coming through their newer solution Microsoft Intune or Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM).

I have been using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) for approximately 15 years. 

SCCM is stable.

The scalability of SCCM is good, it can scale a lot. You can manage a very small environment and go up to a couple hundred thousand PCs.

The support we have received from Microsoft was excellent.

I did not use another similar solution to SCCM.

The SCCM deployment difficulty level and time frame are dependent on how large the deployment is. If it is a large company then it can be complex. It can range in time from a couple of hours to a couple of days to a couple of weeks.

SCCM is an old on-premise solution. We're moving through to MECM and that is a cloud-based solution to do similar functionality, such as Intune. SCCM is used at its most. We will not increase the use of SCCM.

We are consultants and we do all of the implementations of SCCM for our customers.

The number of staff we need for maintaining the solution depends don't the size of the company, but usually, we have two to three people.

The ROI has been very good from SCCM.

The price of SCCM depends on the size of the organization. The price is competitive.

I rate the price of SCCM a three out of five.

We did not choose SCCM. It's a solution that evolved, and at one point it changed its name.

My advice to others is to plan ahead and make sure to take into account everything that the solution can do because if you do not understand what the product can do, you will probably buy a lot of software to do what the solution is already doing. Understand all the features and how you will be able to use them.

The next features are coming through Microsoft Intune.

I rate Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager nine out of ten.

The administration of the solution is very helpful.

It offers many of the same features other solutions would offer. It's very similar in scope.

The solution has been very stable over the years.

The product is capable of scaling.

Technical support is very helpful and very responsive.

It is a bit of an old and outdated product.

The cloud would have been the best improvement and already Microsoft is looking into it. They are moving into the cloud and all it will make the product better. There's a roadmap in place, from what I understand. We'll move ahead toward whatever Microsoft decided to deploy.

The solution is mainly used for client management and software deployment. However, there maybe should be a more self-service experience. Microsoft may be addressing it in their cloud-native solutions, as currently a lot of administrative tasks are still needed. Automation would be helpful in those cases. If they could add more automation, that would be ideal.

I've used the solution for the last eight to ten years or so. It's been almost a decade. I've worked with it for a long time. 

The solution offers good stability. there are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance overall has been very good.

A company can easily scale this product if they need to.

Technical support has been amazing. It's Microsoft and their bread and butter is understanding their product. They built this technology and therefore can offer amazing support. At any level, for any questions, they can support you. We've very satisfied with the level of assistance they've provided.

I've also evaluated VMware, which would be a good option for companies that are not dealing with a lot of Microsoft applications.

We're just a customer and end-user.

We use the latest version of the solution. I can't speak to the exact version number.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's an incredible product.

I would recommend other companies to go ahead with whatever the latest cloud option is on offer. That is due to the fact that there is no SCCM as a product now. They have already transformed it into Microsoft Endpoint Manager. 

If a company is heavy on Microsoft products, like Office 365, this is the right tool, however, if not, if they are not a Microsoft centric organization, then maybe they can explore VMware as well. 

Our primary use case for this product is for patching and sending back packages to the client.

SCCM helps to file the claims from servers.

Patching is the main feature because SCCM is made to control the entire environment without manually interpreting. So it is good to use for patching.

The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made.

Overall, as of now, it's sufficient for us. I don't have any scope of what new features would be needed for our company. I'm not sure if we require anything more. We are good with this product. If our companies move to the cloud or something, maybe we'll need additional features.

I have been using SCCM for 10 years.

The stability is also quite good.

The scalability is quite good.

We don't have a separate team using it. It's an operations team, where everyone works in every technology.

There are about 5 - 10 people using it - Windows server persons, applications teams, and other teams.

We very rarely have contact with the technical service. I think about once a year. That's it. We don't require it because most of the time we fix any issues ourselves.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was quick and it took a day. We didn't have any issues.

My advice for this product is that it's a team tool that can be helpful. At the same time, it can be harmful if you are not using it properly - it can ruin your company. That's because if someone messes up, they can send a package to one client instead of sending it to another. Once you start the initial installation, it is difficult to stop it. So you should be careful.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SCCM an eight.