Altiris’ Express Client Management Suite

You can never have too much desktop management. This time around, we’re reviewing the Altiris Express Client Management Suite.   When it comes to hard disk imaging, Altiris stands out. While this could be considered a poor man’s back-up procedure, it does provide a significant capability for restoring corrupted operating systems or rolling out a complete operating system upgrade. Altiris has long been known for its disk imaging products. The Altiris product also supports remote control to mobile devices.

You can never have too much desktop management. This time around, we’re reviewing the Altiris Express Client Management Suite. 

When it comes to hard disk imaging, Altiris stands out. While this could be considered a poor man’s back-up procedure, it does provide a significant capability for restoring corrupted operating systems or rolling out a complete operating system upgrade. Altiris has long been known for its disk imaging products. The Altiris product also supports remote control to mobile devices.

We liked the fact that Altiris Express provided several predefined reports that specifically look for a particular Microsoft security update to Internet Explorer. These typically are numbered by the particular Microsoft Knowledge Base article that describes the problem and fix.

Altiris delivers its product in several configurations. As part of the product we tested, Altiris includes a migration tool along with the standard software distribution capability. This tool also is sold as a stand-alone product. The software distribution tool uses the before-and-after snapshot approach to building a distribution package.

Altiris uses Carbon Copy (acquired from Compaq in April 2001) as its remote-control function. A nice feature of the current version is that it works down to the handheld. We could view the screen of an iPAQ device from a workstation on our network. The server portion works from within a Web browser, giving added flexibility.

When it comes to software metering, Altiris Express Client Management Suite offer software metering and application monitoring, which lets you control and monitor the usage of specific software applications.

Altiris Express required multiple steps to get the software installed and licensed. Installing Carbon Copy for remote control required an additional step and a separate client program for each workstation. The multiple-step process could be seen as a benefit or a detractor. Only installing the modules of interest keeps the management console uncluttered, while the extra step takes an additional amount of time and effort. The extra steps were somewhat of an annoyance, but overall the product performed well.

For the full report, go to https://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2003/0210bgrev.html