Best Practices in Lifecycle Management: Comparing KACE, Altiris, LANDesk, and Microsoft SCCM

Summary

This Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) white paper compares the Dell KACE family of appliances with leading competitors Altiris, LANDesk, and Microsoft. It explains key best practices in lifecycle management, uses these as a framework for functional comparison, and includes a cost comparison to determine overall solution value.

EMA has found that for over 35 features across seven key areas—Discovery, Inventory, and Asset Management; Bare Metal Provisioning; Software and Patch Distribution; Endpoint Virtualization; Configuration Compliance and Remediation; Process Automation and Service Desk; and Interfaces and Reporting — KACE appliances compare well in functionality across most disciplines.

However, KACE appliances are less expensive (based on published list prices) and have negligible infrastructure cost, compared with competitive offerings.

With such a strong value proposition, EMA recommends any mid-sized business evaluating solutions for lifecycle management should include KACE appliances in their product evaluations.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

1

Best Practices in Lifecycle Management

1

Functional Comparison

2

Bare Metal Provisioning

3

Software & Patch Distribution

4

End Point Virtualization

4

Configuration Compliance, and Remediation

5

Process Automation and Service Desk

6

Interfaces and Reporting

6

EMA Perspective

8

About KACE

8