101 Must Have Features for Server and Desktop Systems Management

Organizations have come to expect quite a bit from their systems management vendors -- especially from those vendors that handle the complete life-cycle of server and desktop systems management.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of useful features and capabilities comprise products like KBOX, Altiris, LANDesk, Microsoft SMS and others. 

Helping businesses save a tremendous amount of time and money through automated systems management is at the forefront of our design philosophy at KACE.   Customers spot the wow-factor in our products from the first demonstration and it's usually related to the fact that our KBOX products are designed to showcase ease-of-use and low total cost of ownership as competitive weapons.

Nevertheless, our KBOX appliance for server and desktop management is loaded with industrial strength features just like all the rest.  I've taken a bit of time today to highlight 101 features that KBOX supports and every business ought to demand from their systems and security management vendor (alphabetically listed)...

1. Administrator access control segmentation of groups and functions
2. Advanced cron-style scheduling engine
3. Affordable, low cost of ownership
4. Agent and Agentless Capabilities
5. Agentless provisioning and system recovery
6. Agentless SNMP Scan
7. Agentless, automated system discovery and agent provisioning
8. All-in-one
9. Appliance: purpose-built, high reliability and secure
10. Asset management for computers, software, contracts, and other items (e.g., phones, desks, mobile devices)
11. Audit Windows, Macintosh, Solaris and Linux computer assets, any software title or digital asset, and their configurations
12. Automated network and system inventory for discovering image-ready infrastructure
13. Automatic agent update
14. Automatic hardware inventory
15. Automatic population of software metadata
16. Automatic process inventory
17. Automatic services inventory
18. Automatic startup inventory
19. Automatic software inventory
20. Award winning ease of use
21. Built-in redundancy RAID and backup
22. Bundled drivers for simplified image re-purposing
23. Call home auto diagnostics and update
24. Compatible with application virtualization (e.g., Xenocode, Thinstall)
25. Compatible with disk encryption (e.g., Guardian Edge)
26. Compatible with server and desktop virtualization (e.g., VMWare)
27. Configurable Administrator Alerts
28. Configurable pre and post installation tasks for OS provisioning operations
29. Configurable ticket policy-based workflow, auto-assignment and escalation rules
30. Configuration and policy templates for common activities
31. Configure email alerts for asset changes, compliance policy violations and expiring maintenance, warranty and service contracts
32. Custom inventory rules to identify any item of value on a target machine
33. Custom ticket fields and the ability to customize values (e.g., Priority, Impact)
34. Dashboard reports
35. Direct link between OVAL vulnerability scan results and remediation tools for patching and repairing systems
36. Disallow program control
37. Easily import asset data through flexible data import
38. Easy-to-use integration with KBOX management capabilities including hardware and software inventory, asset management, deployment, patching, configuration management, remote control, alerts, reporting, self service and knowledge base
39. Email & User Portal submission/notification for tickets
40. Email or web trouble ticketing inputs
41. End-user messaging
42. File synchronization
43. Flexible, configurable reporting engine
44. Flexible, state of the are filtering metaphor for tagging and organizing IT Assets
45. Hierarchical categories for trouble ticket classification
46. Integrated automatic and configurable customer satisfaction survey
47. Integrated CMBD that's comprehensive, yet flexible to integrate with others
48. Integrated event log reporting
49. Integrated help desk trouble ticketing system
50. Integrated knowledge base management system
51. Integrated user self-service for approved applications
52. Integrated wake-on-LAN capability
53. Integration to allow creation of KB articles from tickets
54. Integration with AppDeploy.com offering immediate access to technical best-practice information populated by hundreds of thousands of IT administrators monthly
55. Integration with hardware vendor SLA and Warranty information from key vendors (e.g., Dell)
56. Intuitive Scripting, configuration and policy management wizard
57. iSCSI support for off-board image storage
58. Knoppix and WinPE/KPE based preinstallation environment
59. License compliance
60. Machine and group image targeting
61. Managed installation queues and sequencing
62. Managed software installations and updates for popular packaged applications (e.g., microsoft office, adobe acrobat) and custom apps
63. Multi-platform support (e.g., windows, solaris, linux, macintosh)
64. Multiple help desk queues
65. ODBC and Open Database Schema
66. Open Communication Architecture (HTTP, HTTPS)
67. Option for user bypass of managed installation (aka, snooze feature)
68. OVAL security and vulnerability scanning and remediation
69. Patch management backed by industry leading Patchlink technology  (cross platform for key operating systems and applications)
70. Payload encryption and secure verification for package deployment
71. Prepackaged portfolio of reports
72. Quickly reconcile asset data with financial data to ensure contracts are accurate and compliant via standard or customized reports
73. Rapid to Deploy: minimal training overhead, quick roll-out, minimal services
74. Registry control
75. Remote control
76. Remote site support and replication capabilities
77. Run now or scheduled actions
78. Scripted installation and imaging support
79. Script and policy result reporting
80. Scripting and policy wizard
81. Security configuration template for managing Internet Explorer
82. Security configuration template for managing McAfee
83. Security configuration template for managing Microsoft firewall
84. Security configuration template for managing Symantec
85. Security configuration template for system quarantine
86. Server-side, editable K-image format
87. Simple AD/LDAP integration
88. Single Agent
89. Software metering
90. Support for a wide variety of deployment package types (e.g., virtual, msi, zip, exe, other)
91. System Power Management capabilities for scheduled machine power on / off
92. System throttling to manage bandwidth for widespread management activities
93. Systems image library and image management system for managing installation media, drivers, applications and system images
94. Tether feature for remote diagnostics and support of the management product by the vendor
95. Ticket cross link to hardware/software inventory reports
96. Tight integration between computer inventory and non computer inventory data reduces complexity by aligning multiple databases
97. Track complete asset history, including changes over time
98. USB drive control
99. User portal for application deployment, knowledge-base and help desk self service
100. Verbose logging of all activity
101. vState management for keeping systems images in sync with baseline master

While that's a long list, it's not a complete list of what you'll need for complete life-cycle management of your desktops and servers.  Nonetheless, these 101 Must Have features ought to be on everyone's evaluation checklist.

More than that... as I outlined at the beginning of this entry it's important to look beyond features to understand what really makes a product special.  At KACE, we've centered our design efforts around saving our customers time and money; we believe that we do that better than any other player in our space.  Moreover, we've isolated four specific areas of differentiation where our KBOX product line delivers a powerful punch relative to our competitors:

1. Easiest-to-install and operationalize:
   Minimal pre-requisites, training or services to get up and running
2. Easiest-to-use:
   Extremely intuitive interface and unprecedented approachability for both novices and power users while maintaining industrial grade capabilities
3. All-in-one:
   Complete server and desktop life-cycle systems management in a box from first time systems provisioning to inventory and asset management to application deployment to configuration management to security vulnerability detection and remediation to patching to help desk to reporting and more.
4. Great value and TCO:
   Industrial grade features and unprecedented ease-of-use top plus modest pricing combine to deliver the lowest total cost of ownership in the market -- often a third or less than software-only alternatives.