Compare BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef
BMC TrueSight Server Automation is ranked 5th in Configuration Management with 6 reviews while Chef is ranked 4th in Configuration Management with 13 reviews. BMC TrueSight Server Automation is rated 8.2, while Chef is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of BMC TrueSight Server Automation writes "Works across multiple operating systems, enabling data collection without worrying about the underlying OS". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Chef writes "It never uses any type of human-readable interface. Therefore, you don't have to go into a GUI nor use a command line tool". BMC TrueSight Server Automation is most compared with Ansible, SCCM and Chef, whereas Chef is most compared with Ansible, SCCM and BigFix. See our BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef report.
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 Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: January 2020. 396,296 professionals have used our research since 2012. | |||||
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros | |
With BMC, we even configured applications, like IE or things that were Java-related. When we scheduled the jobs, it worked fine. It saved us time and there was no need for resources to monitor them. It gives us more speed to deliver services and applications, and we rely on security. The most important feature is the schedulings. The most valuable feature is its ability to remediate quickly and efficiently across a number of IT assets at the same time. It takes away manual efforts from the team to go out and fix those vulnerabilities through patching, conflict updates, etc. Among the most valuable features is its flexibility and ability to work across multiple operating systems. Being able to execute some form of data collection and not have to worry about whether I'm working on a Linux box, or a Windows box, or the underlying OS, I can do these collections, get these results, and put them together in a uniform format which makes it easier to present back to management. Compliance is also huge... By tying it to Atrium Orchestrator, our workflow tool, we'll be able to have a closed loop where we identify a compliance issue, cut CRs, get them approved, and then be able to execute these CRs and more seamlessly fix these issues on the fly. Technical support is good. | You set it and forget it. You don't have to worry about the reliability or the deviations from any of the other configurations. It streamlined our deployments and system configurations across the board rather than have us use multiple configurations or tools, basically a one stop shop. The scalability of the product is quite nice. The most valuable feature is the language that it uses: Ruby. This solution has improved my organization in the way that deployment has become very quick and orchestration is easy. If we have thousands of servers we can easily deploy in a small amount of time. We can deploy the applications or any kind of announcements in much less time. The most important thing is it can handle a 100,000 servers at the same time easily with no time constraints. Deployment has become quick and orchestration is now easy. It has been very easy to tie it into our build and deploy automation for production release work, etc. All the Chef pieces more or less run themselves. |
Cons | |
There is no option to see all the servers we patch and we cannot find what the server status is. Of course, we can what has been completed and what is pending and which servers have failed, but we cannot find server status from the BMC tool. For example, is the RDP up or not. We are using separate scripts for that. Without any knowledge of the product, we used the KB articles to start working. As a result, we definitely did not have full knowledge of BMC BladeLogic... They need to provide a minimum of knowledge with training on YouTube or somewhere else. Another area for improvement is group scheduling if I'm trying to do all the servers. For example, if I want to do all the 2012 Servers - since the patches are the same for all of them - I can't do so. I would like to see more container integration in the next release of this solution. We would like to see this solution handle more multitasking. The number of APIs available within the tool needs improvement. At the moment, we have a couple of different scanning tools used within the organization, but only one of those is integrated back into Server Automation. There is another tool that they use in another part of the business where it doesn't have an out-of-the-box adaptor for it. We would have to go and create or develop something bespoke to be able to integrate it with that scanning tool. Whereas, with the other scanning tool, there was an API available. To make it easier, I would like to have more APIs available for different scanning tools within that line of business. I would like to see a better methodology for handling REST calls and integration into the APIs. They add new APIs as they add functions, but they've missed some from older components which they still haven't added in. Some of the APIs are there but the CLI calls are not there. Needs more use cases into compliance management and the remediation process. | I would like them to add database specific items, configuration items, and migration tools. Not necessarily on the builder side or the actual setup of the system, but more of a migration package for your different database sets, such as MongoDB, your extenders, etc. I want to see how that would function with a transition out to AWS for Aurora services and any of the RDBMS packages. The agent on the server sometimes acts finicky. I would like to see more security features for Chef and more automation. I would rate this solution a nine because our use case and whatever we need is there. Ten out of ten is perfect. We have to go to IOD and stuff so they should consider things like this to make it a ten. Since we are heading to IoT, this product should consider anything related to this. There is a slight barrier to entry if you are used to using Ansible, since it is Ruby-based. If they can improve their software to support Docker containers, it would be for the best. Third-party innovations need improvement, and I would like to see more integration with other platforms. |
Pricing and Cost Advice | |
We're looking at less than $100,000 USD for this solution. Licensing is a bit pricey. Be mindful about the components that you need and buy as appropriate. | I wasn't involved in the purchasing, but I am pretty sure that we are happy with the current pricing and licensing since it never comes up. We are using the free, open source version of the software, which we are happy with at this time. Purchasing the solution from AWS Marketplace was a good experience. AWS's pricing is pretty in line with the product's regular pricing. Though instance-wise, AWS is not the cheapest in the market. We are able to save in development time, deployment time, and it makes it easier to manage the environments. The price is always a problem. It is high. There is room for improvement. I do like purchasing on the AWS Marketplace, but I would like the ability to negotiate and have some flexibility in the pricing on it. When we're rolling out a new server, we're not using the AWS Marketplace AMI, we're using our own AMI, but we are paying them a licensing fee. The price per node is a little weird. It doesn't scale along with your organization. If you're truly utilizing Chef to its fullest, then the number of nodes which are being utilized in any particular day might scale or change based on your Auto Scaling groups. How do you keep track of that or audit it? Then, how do you appropriately license it? It's difficult. |
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Ranking  | |
Views 4,869 Comparisons 3,544 Reviews 6 Average Words per Review 1,140 Avg. Rating 8.2 | Views 5,204 Comparisons 3,789 Reviews 13 Average Words per Review 602 Avg. Rating 8.5 |
Top Comparisons | |
 Compared 47% of the time.  Compared 15% of the time.  Compared 13% of the time. | Compared 27% of the time. Compared 27% of the time.  Compared 15% of the time. |
Also Known As | |
| TrueSight Server Automation, BladeLogic Server Automation, BladeLogic Automation Suite | |
Learn | |
| BMC | Chef |
Overview | |
BladeLogic Server Automation allows you to quickly and securely provision, configure, patch, and maintain physical, virtual, and cloud servers. · Threat remediation: Combine with BMC SecOps Response Service to link vulnerabilities to identified patches and create a remediation plan · Compliance: Integrates role-based access control, pre-configured policies for CIS, DISA, HIPAA, PCI, SOX, NIST, and SCAP, documentation, and remediation · Provisioning: Supports unattended installs and image-based, script-based, or template-based provisioning · Configuration: Consistently manage change and configuration activities across a broad range of server environments with one tool · Reporting: Assess change impact or complete an audit using multiple dashboard views · Patching: Supports and follows maintenance window guidelines to ensure timely delivery of patches | Chef, is the leader in DevOps, driving collaboration through code to automate infrastructure, security, compliance and applications. Chef provides a single path to production making it faster and safer to add value to applications and meet the demands of the customer. Deployed broadly in production by the Global 5000 and used by more than half of the Fortune 500, Chef develops 100 percent of its software as open source under the Apache 2.0 license with no restrictions on its use. Chef Enterprise Automation Stack™, a commercial distribution, is developed solely from that open source code and unifies security, compliance, infrastructure and application automation with observability. Chef provides an unequaled developer experience for the Coded Enterprise by enabling users to express infrastructure, security policies and the application lifecycle as code, modernizing development, packaging and delivery of any application to any platform. For more information, visit http://chef.io and follow @chef. |
Offer | |
Learn more about BMC TrueSight Server Automation | Learn more about Chef |
Sample Customers | |
| State of Michigan, Fujitsu FSAS, Transamerica Life Insurance Company, SAP | Facebook, Standard Bank, GE Capital, Nordstrom, Optum, Barclays, IGN, General Motors, Scholastic, Riot Games, NCR, Gap |
Top Industries | |
Government25% Financial Services Firm25% Pharma/Biotech Company13% Outsourcing Company13% Software R&D Company58% Comms Service Provider11% Financial Services Firm6% Media Company5% | Software R&D Company33% Comms Service Provider16% Government8% Construction Company4% |
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight Server Automation vs. Chef and other solutions. Updated: January 2020.
396,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See also BMC TrueSight Server Automation Reviews, Chef Reviews, and our list of Best Configuration Management Companies.
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