Championing the professional management of software
and protecting members rights

Summary

Belarc has created a unique, easy to use SAM tool. The reviewer managed to get the basic system up and running very quickly and without any support help required from the company. The web interface is very easy to use and intuitive from the outset. The company has developed a very robust and easily accessible web based console. The ability to map out management domains using the organisational hierarchy is a powerful feature and enables a company to allow sub departments/companies to manage their own infrastructure whilst allowing for reporting at the top level.

Where the product is slightly weaker than some is in the area of purchase order and licence tracking. The product allows licence counts to be setup manually and fields can be added for purchase order information but this is by no means an automated process and will take time to implement and then manage on a daily basis.

The Hotfix support is unique in that it reports on a very comprehensive list of available hotfixes and allows the administrator to determine which PCs are vulnerable to security threats and take appropriate action.

The product strikes home for ease of implementation, ease of use and minimal disruption to the user. Its ability to sub-divide management domains based on the network map, company organisation or the default out-of-the-box configuration facilitates a structured platform for managing a large network of devices.

Finally, the company has many security conscious institutions already using the product such as the US military and navy and as such has proven that the solution can scale to many thousands of devices and software installations providing reassurance that the software scales very well indeed.

Installation Narration

The BelManage system is provided as two installer files. One for the server and database (if you choose to install SQL Express bundled with the server installation) and one for the client installation files. The server installer is simple, easy to understand and quick to install, in fact the longest part of the process is the Express SQL database if you choose to install this component.

Running the Program

The whole system is managed via a web interface. This makes it ultimately very portable and can be accessed from just about anywhere, security and firewall rules permitting. The web interface is simple to navigate. The first thing on the agenda is setting up the clients and this is achieved by pointing users at the website, using login scripts or manually installing the client. It takes a minute or two to install and run for the first time and then 15 minutes or so for the data to end up on the server.

Setting up the System

Client installation is slick and fast. The user can see that the client is running from the system tray, although this feature can be turned off if so desired. Once the client code is running it takes up to 15 minutes for the data to filter through to the server. The system allows for organisational management groups to be created. This is a particularly useful feature that allows the group responsible at the top of the administration tree to delegate authority lower down the organisational structure for localised management and reporting duties.

Ongoing Administration

As mentioned earlier. The system can be customised to view devices by organisational structure. This allows reporting and management to take place across the different sub companies if this is applicable. It’s a very effective system and new users can be setup quickly via the console interface, users can have full administration rights through to more restricted access and control of the system, in particular control over one sub company/organisation for instance. The interface is easy to understand with the main functions being presented down the left hand column of the browser and granular detail on the right hand pane.

OS/Device/Software Support

The product supports Microsoft and Linux operating systems out of the box. For Linux a manual installation is required. BelManage also interrogates devices for peripherals that are attached to a PC and will report on these if found.

Auditing and Reporting

The reporting and auditing functionality of the product is strong. Interestingly it reports on areas that many others skip over, including AV alerting; informing the administrator if an AV tool is not up to date and if any MS hotfixes need to be applied for instance. This kind of thoroughness is good to see in addition to the normal reporting features. The system can show a granular change log of hardware changes to any device; this information would be extremely useful to helpdesk and support groups with troubleshooting and repair duties. The granular change log is also available for software installation and removal, and for a number of other configuration changes, like adding or removing users.

Support and Pricing

See pricing table

Key Strengths – Technical

• Fast to implement and web based interface very intuitive
• Hotfix and AV detail per device in the reporting interface
• Ability to structure administration around organisation units within the company

Key Weaknesses – Technical

• No real-time application metering if this is a requirement

Key Strengths – Commercial

• Structured approach to management domains
• Very flexible when it comes to management overheads due to web based design and ease of use. Very large organisations can be managed from one or two locations

Key Weaknesses – Commercial

• Those looking for a combined order tracking, licence/maintenance feature set may look elsewhere
• Integration for PO and licence information is weaker than some

How the tests are conducted: