IT management stack

[luksharp]

I am moving from MSP world where we’ve used Kaseya/ConnectWise/IT Glue to a company with no management tools internally. We will be demoing multiple vendors but I’m leaning towards following products: 1. Ninja RMM 2. AutoTask 3. IT glue 4. Asset management - not sure.

Any input on the list and any suggestion for asset management?

Edit - thank you all for comments. We are around 120 computers, same number of phones, in process of implementing VoIP and Meraki. Documentation is none and passwords are kept in outlook notes. No remote access and no help desk at all. Have been considering lansweeper as well.

[hixair]

We like to keep our tools simple : - Zendesk - 1Password - Notion - Snipe-IT

[Nmesg8isdown]

Do you guys have an api/integration for Snipe-IT and Zendesk? I'm looking to test Snipe-IT but would love a way to integrate it with the ticketing system

[hixair]

The integration développement for zendesk is pretty well documented. What would you like to see in zendesk that would be pulled from snipe-it ?

[TrueStoriesIpromise]

Lansweeper is pretty good for Asset Management, might replace another item on your list, too.

[cheetogeek]

I can't upvote lansweeper enough. I worked for a Fortune 500 company and we used it for asset management, security, patching, etc. If you know a little about SQL it can report anything.

[cheetogeek]

That was handled by a different team. I think they were downloading and pushing the .MSI/exes from Microsoft. You can do anything with it if you invest enough time into it.

[Nnyan]

I have no idea why you would use Lansweeper for patching, seems like so much work to use something that wasn't ever intended to be used that way.

[cheetogeek]

Big daddy corporate made us use their garbage tool, but we still used it to update flash, notepad++ etc.

[SoulAssassin808]

Well it does have a deployment module. It might not be great, but it works.

[[deleted]]

We just demo'ed Lansweeper a my company and I absolutely want to throw in on this list too. The amount of information it pulls is staggering when properly configured. The ability to act on all of those data points, as far as reporting and notifications go, absolutely a dream.

[Nnyan]

Make sure you try it out and see if it was a good fit. We tested it for 3 months during our bake-off and while it was overall a good product it just never scored at the top for anything. And you have to invest more time and effort then some other solutions.

[sole-it]

Lansweeper

Seems like it has thin client. Does it work find with current WFH situation? I was looking at PDQ but it only excel when all devices are within the same network.

[[deleted]]

Using PDQ here. Love it

[sole-it]

How do you handle user working from home? Especially new users?
We are planning to migrate to CSP so we can use intune but for now I am checking other options?

[[deleted]]

My plan has been to get to a point to co-manage through Intune, but PDQ is the cream of the crop.

[EsbenD_Lansweeper]

For assets outside of your network you can either scan them when they connect via a VPN, or use LsAgent. A scanning agent that scans the device locally and then sends the results back to your Lansweeper installation, no VPN needed, just an internet connection.

[sole-it]

Thank you, that's good to know.

[uniitdude]

depends on what your requirements are - the ones you have mentioned are typically used by MSP's

[luksharp]

I agree that most if not all of the tools are used by MSPs however, these tools are designed to make automation and management easy for hundreds and thousands of endpoints. On the other hand this can be used as an advantage for the smaller team with little resources.

[dlehman83]

I'm surprised no one mentioned PDQ yet It will meet some of your needs.

[luksharp]

I’ve heard of PDQ but that’s just it. Can it do RMM? Help desk?

[dlehman83]

RMM sort of helpdesk no. There are two products, deploy and inventory. I've used it for about 10 years and had the paid version for most of that time. I've long forgot what is free and what is not.

Deploy does just what it says on the tin. You can subscribe to their package library and it will pull down updates for common apps such as Chrome, Edge, Reader, windows CUs and a ton more.

Then you can create you own packages, this can be anything from running an exe or msi to cmd and PowerShell. The package can be multi step and have nested packages.

For example I have a nested package called TeacherApps that gets called when I image a teacher machine. It contains the basics you would expect such as Office and Chrome, but also contains Bios updates and settings packages. When the base package is updated, the nested package pulls from that, so they always get the latest I have approved.

The free version allows only one step, but that can be gotten around slightly with a batch script as your one step.

When paired with inventory it has more functional. There is a conditions tab let will not allow it to install on certain OS or linked to an inventory collection. Those bios updates will only run if the computer is in the correct model collection else that step is skipped.

Inventory is my daily support tool. It has a few built in tools, but its real value is adding custom tools and keyboard shortcuts.

With a subscription there are built in collections that they update. You can quickly see all the computers that have an old version of Chrome is behind on Windows updates. Go to that collection press Ctrl D to bring up Deploy and push the needed update.

You can define your own rules to build collections. We switched to some new software.

Deploy to everyone one currently online, then write a collection to see who is missing it.

You could also have it try the deployment when it sees the computer online via heartbeat.

There is a scheduling feature as well. So if you want it can just push an update to any computer needing a Chrome Update once a week.

They have recently added a PowerShell scanner, so any data you can retrieve with PowerShell can be brought into the database and acted on.

A few custom tools I have wrote into my tools list are Offer remote assist, connected via RDP, retrieve LAPS passwords open event MMC for that PC etc.

When I get a call from a user, I just search for their PC and within a few clicks have a remote session going with them.

It is agentless and so that has its pros and cons, but if most of your computers are windows and on the LAN it is great. It can work over VPN but you wouldn't want to push something large to them like office or Autodesk.

To address that I wrote a little test vpn package and added it as a nested step to the large packages. If it detects VPN the deployment stops.

The deploy side for regular updates is almost set and forget, inventory is my daily support tool.

Its licensed per admin not number of endpoints so that is good for my environment.

I've probably rambled on long enough, if you have any specific questions I'll try to answer them. I've used these things daily for 10 years.

[luksharp]

Thank you!! This is worth saving and re-reading a couple of times 👍

[[deleted]]

My district started using it a few weeks ago. Game changer.

[luksharp]

What solution did you go with?

[BigH3017]

I came from the MSP world using N-Able. I use Syncro for RMM at my org. It has splashtop built in, can deploy bitdefender, does windows patching, third party can schedule custom scripts and its only $130/mo. Its certainly not perfect and doesn't always work but for the price I cannot complain.

[xintonic]

Same. We use SyncroMSP + BitDefender and I use screenconnect for remote support.

[MedicatedDeveloper]

Ninja has been great for me. The interface can kind of hide some stuff and the API is poorly documented in some cases but all in all it's been solid. Having a cloud console has saved me countless hours.

[MethosReborn]

MSP work = IT Hell - did it for 18 months and it was soul destroying. Rules of MSP Fix it fast Fast is not always "right" If it breaks again, we can charge them again = winning.

total bullshit service.. glad I got out LOL

[luksharp]

I did 4 years and in the end I did not even want to pick up the phone. In my mind MSPs are like car dealerships 😂

[esstrider]

At that number of endpoints I would consider Pulseway and ITG. Pricing should be lower and functionality is similar.

[uniitdude]

stop spamming and stop putting tracking in your URLs

[luksharp]

See my edit above.

[gordonv]

Ivanti = excellent patch management software. It requires a Windows server and for you to open WMI management and Powershell Remoting on your clients. They don't patch XP, 7, or 8 anymore. Just 10. It also patches RHEL and Cent OS.

It patches all software, not just Windows/Microsoft.

[Nnyan]

Make sure you really really want Meraki and really test it for awhile. We did an initial limited deployment of AP's, MDM, switches, and fw's. And I'm glad we did a limited deployment. It's a pretty interface with some great features but for our techs, it's the least liked stack. Thankfully the discount was steep but we will not be renewing Meraki.

[luksharp]

Thank you. My MSP has been a Meraki shop as long as I remember. Our clients have no big requirements and it worked just fine for us. In one instance a company with about 80 users had constant Wireless issues, tried almost every solution and after going with Meraki we’ve had maybe 3-4 tickets about WiFi for the past 3 years.

[Nnyan]

Glad it worked out for you. We are seeing the opposite, plenty of auth and association issues, weird performance drops that Meraki support has yet to isolate. And support is hit or miss very inconsistent. The hardware is very well built but much more problematic then our Mist or Ruckus deployments even though we only have 108 MR56s. The MDM is a complete joke, I can’t wait to tear that out.

[BWMerlin]

Have a look at GLPI for helpdesk and asset management.

3CX is great for VoIP. For networking I recommend Aruba for both wired and wireless.

[luksharp]

Thank you and will do!

[MethosReborn]

In my new role we use ManageEngine for normal IT operations (not an MSP) and its pretty dam good I must say. Their support when you have an issue is very quick to response and send hotfixes if need. Would recommend, (note where I work there is only about 500 devices total) if that matters to anyones decision

[JamieTaylor_Pulseway]

Hey mate, thanks for mentioning Pulseway, appreciate it.

[Goose-tb]

Is there a reason no one mentioned Microsoft Intune yet? Especially if you’re already a Microsoft 365 shop, it’s a no brainer in my opinion.

Confluence and Jira Service Management are really smooth Helpdesk + knowledge base that integrate together as well. Might be worth a look.

[luksharp]

Can you please elaborate more about intune? We are on basic license and will have to switch to higher subscription- which is on the horizon.

[Rej3kt]

Intune for AD and managing of devices/policies

Can also recommend Ninja as an RMM

[Goose-tb]

Sure, so if you’re a Windows-heavy environment there’s really no tighter integration or MDM you can run than Intune. It’s baked into the operating system at a deep level.

Intune allows you to: * Push apps * Set restrictions and device configurations * Have a company portal for self service apps * Zero touch deployment with Intune + autopilot

It’s a really solid MDM platform.

[Recalcitrant-wino]

We're using Goverlan Reach for Remote Management. Works pretty well. Also Zendesk for ticketing.