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KACE Asset Management Appliance

Score7.6 out of 10

20 Reviews and Ratings

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What is KACE Asset Management Appliance?

KACE Asset Management Appliance (formerly Dell's Asset Manager) from Quest Software is an IT asset management (ITAM) and software asset management (SAM) solution.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features KACE Asset Management Appliance has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 20 ratings of KACE Asset Management Appliance's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Software and hardware inventory tracking

    Discovery and management of hardware and software inventory

    Category average: 8.2

  • Contract management

    Tools to assist in managing purchase orders and contracts

    Category average: 7.3

  • License management

    Tracking license agreement compliance to ensure that infrastructure is neither over nor under licensed

    Category average: 7.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Asset relationship management

    Asset relationship management is the ability to see relationships between assets to help with troubleshooting

    Category average: 7.6

  • Asset lifecycle monitoring

    Monitoring asset lifecycle from acquisition to retirement

    Category average: 7.5

Reviews

What users are saying about KACE Asset Management Appliance.
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KACE SMA (My Thoughts)

Incentivized
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use KACE Asset Management Appliance SMA to manage our endpoints via the inventory module, patch management option and lastly the ticket system aspect. This has saved us from having to buy separate products for each of these needs/wants.

Pros

  • Inventory management with the agent
  • patching of certain manufactures to go along with windows patching
  • able to access the appliance from anywhere (we put our device outside the firewall)
  • Ticket system function has a lot of features

Cons

  • The UI is clunky and could use a redesign
  • Support is good but sometimes it's hard to get someone right away or a response in a timely manner
  • expand some support beyond dell and others to include something like Microsoft Surfaces, etc.
  • KB articles need a refresh, there are a lot of older things out there that don't apply anymore.

Return on Investment

  • Implemented inventory system without having to purchase a secondary product, cutting down cost.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

PDQ Deploy & Inventory

Other Software Used

PDQ Deploy & Inventory, Zoho Assist, Keeper Connection Manager, Cisco Umbrella

DAM will not Bust your Budget!

Incentivized
Todd Frazier
Systems Administrator in Information Technology at County of Culpeper (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Gives you real time data to systems on my network.
  • I can get information on all applications running on devices on my network.
  • I can get information on what systems are not currently patched and up to date with MS and Virus definitions!

Cons

  • As with most items in IT there is a learning curve to using this product. But once you get the general idea of how this software flows it is quite easy to navigate and get information.
  • Has a good reporting base but it was easy to learn how to make your own specific reports!
  • I would like to see more color options for dash board setup is sorta blah!!

Return on Investment

  • Original investment was very substantial but I believe will be well worth it in the long run!
  • DAM gives us a great view of what happening and whats on out network as far as PC, Laptops and Servers.
  • The reporting function will help with budget proposals to BOS for County Budgets and giving exact numbers of systems and software and devices on the County Domain

Other Software Used

Dell EqualLogic PS Series, Adobe Acrobat DC, vSphere with Operations Management (VSOM)

KACE management could do 1 thing amazing, but instead does many things mediocre

Incentivized
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • Monitors remote computers and tracks software installed on those computers.
  • Smart labels allow for automation of software installs/upgrades using analytics.
  • Contract monitoring system with alerts when a third party contract is nearing expiration.
  • Comes with a ticketing system, that can have multiple ticket queues, to manage incoming requests for support.
  • Using processes, you can automate opening multiple tickets for work needed on a task. (ie. open multiple predefined tickets for a new employee hire).
  • Kace has had substantial improvements since Quest assumed ownership from Dell.
  • You can configure notifications for almost anything, since you can utilize their wizard or manually write your own SQL queries.

Cons

  • Configuring automated software installs is difficult, and logs do not present useful information for troubleshooting.
  • Customer support will just refer you to search itninja.com when you call in for support issues.
  • KACE community site (itninja.com), has outdated documentation, and answers to questions are usually vague at best.
  • KACE Amp agent constantly breaks, and has to be re-installed on end user computers.
  • A parent-child relationship in the ticketing system requires you to create a process.
  • Remote provisioning fails consistently and does not provide any useful information as to why it failed.
  • K1000 is overpriced for the jobs it actually performs and the work that is required to maintain it.

Return on Investment

  • Asset Tracking works exceptionally well, until the AMP agent breaks an endpoint machine. Quick re-install of the AMP agent usually resolves the issue.
  • The remote provisioning tool fails 90% of the time. If this worked properly or informed us why the remote provisioning failed, this tool could become an invaluable asset.
  • We canceled the support contact because the renewal price was expensive and cost just as much as the initial purchase price.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and JIRA Software

Other Software Used

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, JIRA Software, SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor