BigFix Reviews

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

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.

• 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.

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.

• Patch Management
• Software Distribution
• Security Compliance
• Software Compliance

Patch compliance has improved. Using software distribution, the software distributed in the environment has been standardized. With the same software versions across the environment, compatibility issues have come down with a reduction in helpdesk tickets arising out of different software versions. There is also a check on software assets by means of implementing the software inventory module and a great deal of software compliance has been achieved.

Patch Management for a variety of operating systems makes it valuable as we can rely on a single tool for obtaining patch compliance of the entire compute infrastructure. This also ensures that we do not need to have different skills for different OS patch requirements.

• Relay selection and availability needs improvement as an incorrect relay selected can cause network chokes.
• Client reporting to the console is a minor issue but definitely needs improvement.
• Reporting needs to be enhanced with maybe a simple GUI based report generator with drag and drop features to create a custom report. The current mechanism is a bit clunky by use of filters.  

It is very stable.

No scalability issues. We have customers ranging from 250 endpoints to over 100,000 endpoints.

Customer support is excellent, but involving customer support and crossing the initial hurdles of getting past the first level of support personnel sometimes takes a while. But once it lands with the right support people the support is excellent. Level 1 support from IBM definitely needs improvement. 

No other tools were used.

The setup is pretty straightforward provided you have planned well for the deployment. Know the environment well prior to deployment: The architecture needs to be drawn up prior to deployment. Plan the deployment of main server, database server, BigFix application(s), relays, console, and finally the deployment of clients.

We are a BigFix vendor. We rate ourselves as excellent subject matter experts. Given the exposure and experience of handling fairly large deployments on Bigfix, we have gathered vast knowledge in the Patch, Security & Software compliance space.

ROI is pretty quick if you consider Security & Software Compliance as your primary use cases as Patch Management and Software Inventory Management. It has worked out to be under six months in many of our deployments. You may not be able to directly attach a ROI for security, but given the fact that Bigfix has been able to address many vulnerabilities that arise out of non patching makes Bigfix a compelling investment

Plan well to ensure you have a stable and scaleable deployment. If you have a need for many use cases: Patch Management, Software Distribution, Remote Control, OS Deployment, Software Asset Management, Vulnerability Management, Security Compliance, and Server Automation, make sure you prioritize your requirements before deployment. You should go about meeting the requirements in phases, not try and burn the entire ocean.  

No other products evaluated.

Get started with BigFix.

Server management patch management and software deployment, where we have multiple platforms, such as Windows Servers, Linux, Unix, etc.

• Patch compliance reached 100%.
• Patch management, because it significantly improved the patch compliance.

Patch management, because it very much improved the patch compliance and has the capability to manage Windows and non-Windows clients.

• OSD and other features listed in SCCM, like desired configuration management
• Internet-based client management
• Offline patching of virtual machines
• Network Access Protection (NAP) technologies to prevent computers with vulnerabilities from gaining access to networks.

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.