Future of Altiris

[MarkABC]

Hey Guys,

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts were on the future of Altiris. I recently spoke with a Gartner Analysts and have my own thoughts, but wanted to see what everyone else was thinking. Are you happy, uneasy, jumping ship?

[J. Armstrong]

Well, don't keep us waiting... what did they say?!!

[MarkABC]

​Gartner basically said that the product is stale and outdated, which we all knew. However, it is all of the rumors that concern me. I am hearing that if Broadcom's top 1250 do not heavily use Altiris then the product will either be sold off (best case) or sunset (worse case).

What I am already seeing is that if you are not in the 1250 support is almost non-existent. How about all of you? Are you seeing the same or heard differently?

[J. Armstrong]

No, I've not heard that one and not up on the Top 1250 either.

I was introduced to the solution when it was 6.5 (and started working with it professionally since 6.8). Prior to that I've administrated numerous configuration management solutions before 'configuration management' was a popular tag.

I personally believe that it is a better (better being relative to common solutions in each offering) solution than most on the market today but, that includes years of experience with it. I don't need extensive add-ons and distributed host storage solutions to make it work as designed.

Patch management is a breeze with it, most of the 'issues' (at least when I've been customer engaged) with it has been understanding processes 'around' not 'in' the solution.

Common sense actionable reports... well, that one I do have to say falls into the previously stated understanding processes 'around' and relying on 'custom' reporting from the customers side (which would be the 'in' of the solution). I don't necessarily agree with that 100%, this could use improvement.

Could it use improvement? Absolutely, and I am sure there is a laundry list of items that someone has (like any other solution out there).

Is it perfect? Far from it and if it was Microsoft would offer free OS licenses to go with free SCCM seats (are they still offering it free to large clients anymore or is that another rumor ;) ).

However, if everyone is that worried about it. Talk with Broadcom/Symantec team about it. Just my 2 cents worth.

[amandaw33]

I agree with a lot of what you say, but after trying to get the same patch case addressed on now 3 different tickets over the course of months, I'm not feeling great about the product.

The 1st ticket was just lost in the transition to broadcom and never got response. 

The 2nd ticket was held by someone in support for months and closed out on his last day when he was let go a few weeks ago.

The 3rd ticket (referencing prior ticket) basically has been ignored after one response "use a managed delivery policy" not patch... which is hot helpful.

I'm just trying to get patch management to do the 1909 feature update when client has bitlocker on.  This used to work in prior feature updates but isn't working now.  It should just require a command line switch in the installer altiris is using. 

I'm not convinced the whole patch team wasn't decimated in the transition, or if my measely school district is just on the ignore list and will never get support again.

Oh, it also took weeks of begging for my reseller to get response from Symantec for renewal.  

[J. Armstrong]

Are you able to 'suspend' BitLocker from the console itself on a test machine? I am sure from you perspective that might be a dumb question but, try running this from the cli from the console to a test machine and see if it works:

Manage-bde –Protectors –Disable C: -RebootCount 0

0 or zero sets BitLocker not to resume until manually configured to... might be worth a simple test.

to re-able:

Manage-bde –Protectors -Enable C:

[amandaw33]

Yes, I know how to script to turn off bitlocker, but that doesn't help if I want patch to handle feature updates which is something Symantec used to go on and on about supporting. 

Now that feature updates install in relatively short amount of time, I finally want to take advantage of patch handling.  All they'd need to do is add command line switch to how they're starting the installer afaik.

[J. Armstrong]

Guess I misunderstood your post. So turning it off and running the patch doesn't work or the patching solution isn't handling things all at once? Just for my future reference.

[amandaw33]

Yes, if I manually turn off bitlocker or turn it off via script, patch works fine.  The catch is i don't know when patch might need to update a client to time doing that and windows installer handles bitlocker if the right command line argument is used.  I think I found the command line switch they'd need to add and put it in the other thread. 

My real issue, mind you, is the lack of any answer at all from patch support.  I started putting in tickets in January and have begged for a response.

[amandaw33]

From the other thread i linked to from 1/9/20

<<hey @Dmitri - I did some digging and looks like this is the command line Altiris/Symantec/Broadcom is running

 "%volume%:\setup.exe" /auto upgrade /quiet /showoobe none /noreboot /telemetry disable /dynamicupdate disable /Postoobe %STscript%setupcomplete.cmd & SET LASTERR=!errorlevel!

shouldn't there be a  /bitlocker AlwaysSuspend in there?  Really hope we can get this working.  Thanks!  I have a ticket in, if that helps - 31619367>>

My other concern with the future of altiris is they were on a pretty regular release schedule.  When's the last time we saw a release or heard about one coming?  

[Dmitri Gornev]

Hi Sally,

we won't be able to include "/bitlocker AlwaysSuspend" command line switch permanently as it may cause the problems for those who use other encryption tools but I provided recommendations how to override the default command line using Setupconfig.ini in the original thread. You may also try test version of prepare.cmd that should detect and handle BitLocker automatically.

There was ITMS 8.5 RU3 release as part of Broadcom in October and ITMS 8.5 RU4 development is in a progress at the moment.

Best regards,
Dmitri.

[MJammer]

I have to agree with you Sally5432 about support tickets. I feel too that it has recently gone downhill a bit. I had a ticket in the ITA at the end of May and it took an escalation, followup phone call to Broadcom's Symantec Division for a total of a 2-3 week wait just to have a tech pickup the ticket and send me a url for the fix and then immediately closed the ticket without verifying that it solved my issue. I can only hope it gets better than get worse. I did hear through a grapevine of a downward spiral of tech support. :(. I have had Altiris CMS since 2011 and I love it's capabilities. I hope it stays. I have heard that 8.5RU4 is supposed to come up in July. Maybe that is a good sign?

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Technical Support Specialist
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[Adam Fricke]

I find it humors that Gartner says the product is stale, yet nothing on the market really touches every feature it offers.  Unless I am wrong but the last time I saw SCCM & WSUS, it was still back in DS 6.9 stages, which makes sense, its a free product.  Yes they have a strong powershell community and quite frankly its the only thing that keeps them in the running, barely imo.

As far as turn key, I don't know what else out there does everything Altiris 8.5 ru3 does.  Actually curious if anyone has seen something close?

[MJammer]

Hi Adam_Fricke, I have had Altiris since the birth of 7.1 all the way up to 8.5RU3. Management has implemented SCCM for use with wsus (wsus alone is good imo). I have used it as a deployment solution along-side Altiris but just not happy with it as a DS. Feels like a free product. At least Altiris has multiple views for computer information built into window panes. Ex. Computer view will give you everything you need to know instead of going though different views on the console (like sccm).

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Technical Support Specialist
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[deemacgee]

"What I am already seeing is that if you are not in the 1250 support is almost non-existent. How about all of you? Are you seeing the same or heard differently?"

100% this. Leading up to the transition we noticed a significant decline in communications through our usual channels, and then afterwards we had incredible difficulty getting our requests acknowledged, let alone answered. And when we did finally speak to a person, the responses (especially on the future of the product) were vague and non-committal at best. So disheartened were we that platform migration is now seriously on the table (despite my arguments to the contrary). Altiris is immensely powerful and a core component of, not only our support operations, but our business operations; to be dismissed as unimportant or mocked with ludicrous pricing policies is not exactly conducive to securing future business with Broadcom.

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[MarkABC]

I agree with 100% of what you just said, but see that's just it. We went from having a dedicated Sales Rep and 2 Sales engineers (SE) to nothing. They let all of our Symantec reps go and I have had zero contact with anyone from Broadcom. I have been asking around and have been hearing the same. Unless you are in that top 1250 you will not have a dedicated rep and support is degraded down to a break/fix model. ​

[Cody Dirrigle]

Maybe bad info but one of the largest customers of Altiris was broadcom so good chance it will be sticking around, talking with back end staff while working on support issues they have centralized all of the Endpoint management stuff to one group so now instead of waiting months and months devs and engineers have direct contact with each other. 

My biggest gripe is the reporting "look" vs some of the newer things like workspace one, I would like them to overhaul that so it made it a little more friendly to show off to the C-level. Maybe add direct connection to power BI

Also start working with auto pilot/ modern management so we start move away from imaging every new device

Oh and for the love of pete the security settings when trying to add or create new access is a mess, that really needs to be cleaned up

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Aspirus
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[AndreasMuller]

Pretty much the same experience we've had. No-one told us we were not getting the offer to get the same support level, it just ended. We didn't even know who was managing our account anymore.
Considering the pure uninterest Broadcom is showing of taking care of long term Altiris customers, it makes sense that they are looking to either sell or sunset the product. If so, let's hope for a quick sell, or else the risk is that too many customers will leave for other products, and the customer base is so small that sunsetting is the only option. And if this product would have any chance to survive, I think it needs to become a cloud solution and have modern management features.

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Xylem
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[Greg Smith]

Broadcom answers some of these questions in a series of webinars they recently hosted.
This one was specific to the Endpoint Security Portfolio. They speak specifically about Altiris around 52:07 into the presentation.

Our account team went quite for a while but it was understandable as they were getting their house sorted. 
We now have an account team and once we get all of the entitlements restored that we lost during the migration to the Broadcom portal we should be back to where we were.

[Greg Smith]

Spoke too soon......

Accenture Purchases Symantec Enterprise from Broadcom

Here we go again!

[Cody Dirrigle]

That is pretty old news, they sold it soon after buying Symantec 

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Sent from Workspace ONE Boxer

[Greg Smith]

Really?  The purchase was made this weekend and 15 days earlier Broadcom was just announcing their strategy for developing their Symantec portfolio.

[Cody Dirrigle]

You may want to read it closer and not the headline, it's for the sale of the cyber security managed services 

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Sent from Workspace ONE Boxer

[Martin Sapsed]

"They speak specifically about Altiris around 52:07 into the presentation."
... but they didn't say much apart from that they've not abandoned it yet!
Is there anything anywhere which says what they are going to do with CMS/ITMS/Altiris?
Thanks

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Bangor University
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[Clint]

I echo your experience with Broadcom as I, too, have gotten zero response from them.  In fact, I had opened up a support case with them simply asking who my current Account Manager is where someone tersely replied that "We have been instructed to withhold support for your account. Please contact Account Director:..."  An email to this person "2 weeks ago" has gone without a response where my support is supposed to end in September.  I had opened up a support case for a Software Management issue prior to this where someone did help me resolve the problem but now I'm not sure if I'll be able to do so again.

Anyway, communication is key in situations like this where Broadcom is failing badly.  They've already lost our SEP business and if things continue to go in this direction then Altiris could be next on the chopping block for us.

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City & County of Honolulu: DIT
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[Stu Harris]

I'm ready to jump ship.  It pains me to say that, but I've had the same experience with support that was mentioned earlier where it took over a week to get a response on a ticket.  And that was after I used the button to escalate to a manager.  I've been working with Altiris for almost 20 years and it's served me well, but I think it's time to move on for me.

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Guggenheim Partners
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[AndreasMuller]

Through a partner, we managed to initiate a Product Webinar, that is said to be held shortly. ​According to Product Management for Altiris, there is a new version of Altiris to be released this summer, and it and the future of the product (we hope) will be presented during the webinar. At least that is some comfort. Keep your eyes open and let's hope for good news.

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Xylem
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[Dale Anderson]

Is this webinar open to others?  i would like to listen in and find out more.  We have great concerns also about Altiris and would really like to know the direction it is going.

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Growmark| Inc
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[AndreasMuller]

Yes, it will be open to others. I can add info about here when I know more.

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Xylem
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[Hannah Massie]

I expect we'll get the usual guff about commitment and development plans but the truth is as Gartner say it is a stale and outdated product. Asset Management hasn't been touched in 10 years, we've lost the backup and recovery software, the mobile management, the virtualization products, the remote control solutions  and had a neat little Helpdesk replaced with the poor and functionally uncompetitive Service Desk. Monitor solution hasn't changed in years. The patch management database is now bought in, while software license management has not really advanced and is way way behind competitors. The core software delivery tools and OS builds are really all that is left and have been subject to a few tweaks over the years but things like CEM are hardly ground breaking advances.  It will take a lot of investment to bring it up to date nad there has to be a question as to whether this is now worth it as the market is very mature.

I've seen many many customers move away from the product set - mainly because they want some security in the long term future. SCCM may not be the best but its comparatively safe. Many of the specialist partners have also moved on too...

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Incit Technology Ltd
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[J. Armstrong]

Everyone will have to forgive me I am not up on the latest Gartner Group report that includes 'stale' and 'outdated'. Can someone send or post the link?


I am hearing a lot of valid concerns over the responsiveness of Broadcom/Symantec since the change, it only shows that the product is good enough to worry about.

Why don't we as a group, those in this discussion start another thread were we address the centric concerns (i.e. as a list of items of improvement, real actionable items that are needed, wanted and wish list). It may not get noticed or it could... but, at least it would show a certain amount of support from our end for it.

It might actually be a starting point for a product road map, if anyone is interest feel free to respond.

-John

[Shawn Mayhew]

​I am in the 1250 and had management pay for a dedicated support rep. So I do get someone on the line pretty quick. Been around since 5.5 so I rarely call in anymore. I got the standard road map right before the take over.  I think I even have a power point copy of it someplace  Watched as guys I have worked with in the last 15 guys were let go in mass.  

Product set as a whole is being forced by Microsoft to SCCM SCOM and all the other MOM packs. MS itself is making it very difficult to use a 3rd party tool to manage there software. I think all the products are stale at this point due to Microsoft.

I would recommend finding the April 15th presentation - on Symantec Endpoint security was telling in that they spent 2 slides on Endpoint Security - with Endpoint Management -( Altiris) as a subpoint  and then move right into security management. In the same slide deck they talk about going to cloud management of Symantec using the SMA.  That's a tough sell in healthcare enviroment - where I have been last 9 years..

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Altiris since 5.5
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[Hannah Massie]

I'm from 5.5. days too. I don't think its just a case of MS making it difficult for others to provide alternative management solutions. Symantec diverted the development and marketing funds that should have gone to Altiris to prop up its security business, a business that had become increasingly commoditised and 'part of the OS'. They also tried to sell Altiris a a security solution which it has never been nor ever will be. It just basically got lost under mismanagement. Most people these days only use it for OS builds and software deployment but it delivered so much more world class capabilities in its heyday. 

We'll have to see what direction they take it in... the CA products do compete with it, so at some point in time there will be some inevitable rationalisation... but quite what the vision  is here remains to be elucidated.

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Hannah
Incit Technology Ltd
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