BigFix Reviews

Ability to run custom reports and custom relevance.

It allowed us to proactively seek out issues as well as quickly react to issues and target only computers which needed fixes. It was very easy to streamline down to what was needed.

We need a much better multi-tenant option. 

We had 60 plus divisions and there was no real way to effectively give those people the help at the division sufficient rights within the console to see just their responsibilities. We wanted Bob at one of our divisions to have console access and only be able to manage his computers. We were not able to find a way to effectively do this. They had a web console that did not really handle our needs. 

My current company is a consulting firm. If they had a better way to have multi-tenant access, this could be a product that could potentially do great good for us. As it was, when I last used it, it would not work for us without setting up a new instance for every customer we manage. Not really effective for our needs.

I have used it for about four years.

Yes, occasionally we did.

Yes, we did find some “quirks” and had to get creative, but we were able to work within the solution to streamline transfer speeds to not saturate networks between sites when synchronizing enormous install packages to our relays scattered around the country. Also, we could not easily scale the management to multiple tenants as we hoped and as we were able to do with other products in the past.

I didn’t have to deal with them much. Others did. We frequently found that we were bringing solutions to them.

I did not do the initial setup.

This was not my responsibility.

I was not the decision-maker here.

It is a great product. Spend some time really learning about the capabilities and how things are organized within the product. Then, spend some time really planning your structure and how the organizational groups should play out. It will make things a lot easier down the road when you need to send something to just one area of your business. Unfortunately, it is usually after a product is implemented that we truly understand how to best implement for our environment.

• A central engine for endpoint posture improvements
• Excellent compliance reporting with customizable dashboards
• Scalability and expandability support any heterogeneous environment.

BigFix has helped us in improving the overall endpoint posture and lifecycle management of the workstations as well as applications.

• Compliance reporting is the best.
• Patch management makes it easy for out-of-band and in-band patching.
• Inventory correlation with third-party tools.

• Complex design and administration
• Offline management
• Remote support on unsupported platforms
• A large infrastructure required to implement for a medium-sized organization
• Also, I would like to see if BigFix could be application aware for more in-depth compliance and reporting.

We use this solution for patch management and software distribution.

Initially, for the customers that we consult for,  their IT Security and IT Operations units were working in silos, especially with regards to patch management and vulnerability and compliance reporting. BigFix effectively bridged the gap between both teams while providing a single robust reporting interface for both teams.

Compliance is the most valuable feature. It allows you to build custom policy checklist while leveraging recommended industry security compliance checklists e.g DISA-STIG, CIS, PCI-DSS

Upgrading from an Evaluation license to a production license is not error free. Managed endpoints still gets stuck with the evaluation masthead and as such would not let you execute actions outside the BigFix management client maintenance actions. This needs to be improved

It's very scalable. The highest I did was between 9000 to 11,000 networks and I didn't lose any performance with that.

I initially onboarded with Microsoft SCCM. The user interface leaves a lot to be desired, performance impact as you go above 10,000 endpoints and also maintenance tasks like setting up of distribution points are not available at the click of a button.

The initial setup is straight forward. I deployed it in around three weeks. I started with installing the servers and the primary relay, then I installed 2 relays per subnet,  made the relays deployment points and then installed the BigFix clients locally from the deployment points.

Compliance, and lifestyle are a bit pricey especially to customers that get SCCM included as part of their ELA. It's makes convincing harder.

I would advise someone considering this product to go for it. It's easy to use, cheaper than the value, and there is tons and tons of support from the BigFix community. With almost every challenge we have someone who has encountered it, and we will have a solution right away. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. To make it a ten they should improve on the issues stated above

The most valuable features of the BigFix solution are integration with a single agent and that the customer can deploy the Inventory module, the Lifecycle Management module, or the newly announced BigFix Detect Security module. That's really valuable because it allows for a very thin infrastructure on the end point, that the customer can exploit for multiple purposes.

It represents to a customer a very strong and quick ROI, so the investment and value becomes very positive early on. There is a higher level of security and awareness, along with a very high level of control at the end points.

The one feature that I would have like to see included (I know it is coming in the next release), is the block function of the newly announced BigFix Detect module.

In my opinion, the products are on the right track and we've had great success with them.

Stability has not been an issue at all.

There have been no scalability issues.

The most important factor while choosing a vendor is how much profit we can make after selling the solution. Secondly, how successful could I make the solution in the marketplace. The third factor would be the level of support from the provider.

Just do it!

I like the inventory and life cycle management feature. It's simple to use. This platform is easier than Azure.

The remote software installation could be better. I would also like to see mobile device management within the BigFix itself. I would also like to have GlobalProtect management.

I have been using BigFix for approximately three years.

BigFix is a stable solution. You can deploy it and forget about it. 

BigFix is easy to scale. 

Technical support is very good.

The initial setup is straightforward and took us a day to implement.

I would recommend BigFix to new users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give BigFix a seven.

My primary use case for this solution is for department management. It helps us manage about 25,000 individual workers, who are all at work stations.

The product is less costly when compared to other solutions, and this is a good solid solution for what we have paid.

It is very flexible, and very user-friendly.

I would like to see a system to erase a virus and then create an analysis to find a virus. This would be a nice additional feature for the product.

In addition, sometimes there is a lag time for our users.

The technical support was pretty good. The response time was good.

I did not find anything difficult in the implementation process.

When selecting a vendor, I think it is important to consider whether the product is going to be a long-term product. And, we also need to provide the best solution for the department.

It is cheaper than other solutions on the market.

Vulnerability scanning and patch automation.

Also, software deployment in distributed environments, as it provides control over compliance and saves us a lot of time.

Before an internal IT team performed all these activities manually, which took time and did not guaranteed full control over compliance. These activities required access to a corporate network via LAN, because VPN often generated errors. 

Now, the process is centrally controlled, reported, and has an independently formed location (also over Internet).

There is no support for patch management on SLES on IBM pSeries (only the Intel platform is supported). This should be improved as soon as possible. It is a stopper for us to roll-out BigFix to all datacenter servers (500+).

About three years for PCs and one year for servers.

No issues.

No issues.

There was a technology consultant available in Poland, who was very helpful, but recently he has left and no one has replaced him.

Yes, Itelligence Germany uses HP automation and we had a pilot implementation.

We have complex requirements.

We offer BigFix as a service for our datacenter hosting customers.

I have various use cases for this solution. It has many varieties of infrastructure. For example, if you have a very high bandwidth in your network infrastructure, it will work very well. If it doesn't have an internet connection, it also works very well. If you have a lower bandwidth within your offices, it will also work very well. This is lacking in many other tools. 

My company provides support services to a lot of customers and companies. We have reduced a huge amount of man-effort. Along with the man-effort, we have reduced the timeline to fix the compliance and security gaps. We have an unbroken record. The documentation clearly says that we have done the patching of newly released patches, including Microsoft and third-party patches, in up to 80% of the computers, within 72 hours of the release of the production. That was a very massive benefit that we have seen. When I talk about the 80% endpoints, it is 100 or 200. I am talking about 25,000 endpoints.

There are 250,000 endpoint scans that can be handled by one single server. We can build a robust infrastructure within BigFix, which is a feature that other tools are lacking. Second, you can customize the tool. We can use the tool according to how we need it. By using IBM BigFix, we can get whatever we need done. All tools will have limitations but when compared to other solutions, BigFix has significantly fewer limitation. In terms of scalability, the limitations are in the data transfer from the main server to the regional servers, or regional endpoints, or the end users. It provides various aspects to what is endpoint protection management.

The first and foremost thing that I would like to see improved is the insight into the right-click menu context itself. The second thing is that IBM has sold IBM BigFix to another company. That's negative feedback that we can give them. For the next quarter, BigFix will not be a part of IBM. That's another drawback that we are going to see. 

I would request them to build robots, or an easier way for integration with other tools, like ITSM tools.

When it comes to stability, it is very stable and it has a robust infrastructure.

I have a good grip on this solution so I don't need to contact technical support for anything. 

When considering a solution the criteria we consider are the features, whether the specific tool provided by that vendor will cater to our services or our requirements. Second, we look into the credibility of the OEM. Third, is the cost.

The initial setup depends on the network infrastructure. Sometimes it will be very easy to implement, and sometimes it may become complex. I did the entire solution implementation in four hours but I took almost four months with another implementation because of the complexity. Sometimes it's straightforward, sometimes it's complex.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. It has great scalability and customization. It also has one console that can be used for many endpoint management tasks. I deducted two points because BigFix is not a brand that you can just use. It is not very user-friendly. You need to have some training before you use the tool.