Asset Management Suite

I have to at least partially agree with you, but i will say that so far in my testing of both CMS7.0/DS7.1 and the beta ITMS 7.1 (with DS7.1 sp1), PXE is MUCH faster.  WinPE loads in about half the time it does from my existing DS 6.8 production server... and my test pxe server is a 5 year old dell desktop, where the DS is a massive server in the datacenter.  I can't speak to its reliability compared with ds 6.x because i haven't really put much of a load on it nor have i had it running a long time yet, but i can tell that improvements were made. 

i'm not trying to defend symantec on this - lots of things still have a beta or version 1.0 feel to them, simply because features we had in 6.x haven't been recreated in 7.x yet.  And because of the way they're integrating everything, it's not just a simple matter of reusing code - i have a feeling a lot of this is starting over from scratch. Honestly I don't think they should have stayed with the 7.x version number, because the product is almost completely brand new from scratch.  However, I can see that CMS7 is a natural evolution of NS6, so at least that part makes sense. 

I'm not a huge fan of silverlight either, but it beats the ever-loving crap out of Java and endless activeX plugins, that's for sure!  I'll be glad once the whole entire suite is completely integrated/converted over to silverlight because it'll mean an end to all the (SLOW!) java and activex junk, and when i have to get into the console from another machine, i will only have to install ONE plugin (if that), and can just get to work.

Things ARE getting better... I just wish I had the luxury of waiting for 7.2 or later - something more feature-complete.  The head honchos here want Windows 7 and Altiris 7.x this year, so i don't have much of a choice.

Altiris/Symantec has been focussing in the wrong place for the 7.1 deployment.  They put so much effort into yet another new console that they've not focused on fixing the problems they have with the old system.

Remember back in 1992 when then Governor Clinton said "It's the economy, stupid!"  Well, that's what we have here.  The issues are reliability and performance, not the bells-and-whistles of the console.

For your slow PXE problems, I had them too, it was writing logs for my MFTP server, even though the setting was off in the console. I manually changed the config on the site server to not log, and it sped up amazingly.

Can have a further discussion offline or via private message here if you would like, but there are a ton of ways Workflow and IT Analytics can be used to improve your daily use.  We (at ITS) have built workflows to ease things like scheduling resources, tracking goals, and other non-IT proceses along with IT related processes.

Symantec has promised to ship pre-built workflows to help with things like imaging, assest procurement and also other products (example being a SEP lockdown workflow that integrates w/ Symantec DLP).

ITA is a much better reporting engine and there are different packs based on the solution you are working on: SEP, Service Desk, CMS, Asset, etc.

Drop me a note or send me a message through Connect if you want more information

I come from that professional services (as you put it CHA-CHING) focus, but a large # of our customers are waiting for 7.1 to ship before moving solely for the transition to 64-bit and how much pain it might cause.  You aren't the only customer waiting

A lot of the speed improvements are moving towards Microsoft Silverlight in the console instead of using Java as mentioned by the above poster.  On my VM (Windows 2008 R2 64-bit 2 CPU 4 gigs of RAM) it is running much much faster then the same VM running 7 SP5.  Don't knwo what all was done but it is indeed faster

First off, Thanks Jesse for sharing a first look at some of the new features. The devil is always in the details and the beta has just started.

I've been doing v7 upgrades steadily since mid 2009 for new and existing v6 users. In that time, many things have come up regarding features from v6 that would be nice to have again (paste directly into excel, scroll through long lists, auto size content in columns) and new features that are missing something (deliverable sw resource info that doesn't include the package size, a very user-unfriendly SQL Report Builder, automation policy configuration that borders on byzantine) as well as simple things like there are no Altiris Agent command lines in the SMP userguide... still.

The comments above echo what I have been hearing from some customers, particularly in regard to changes to Deployment Solution. I was just at a User Group meeting where the confusion was evident when the Symantec rep began discussing DS 7.1 among a gathering of CMS6 and DS 6.9 users. At the end of the day, my job is to help my customers get what they need out of this software but there is a lot of frustration out there with Symantec in general.

Altiris is and has always been a big toolbox. Every customer is different and every one is being impacted differently by these changes to the products. I'm doing my part to deliver results for my customers but I do have to say, on some levels, Symantec isn't making my job any easier.

TOTALLY agree w/ comments by spar1GreP - it appears that Altiris has been asked (forced?) by Symantec upper management to adopt all of the very worst policies/practices in place within Symantec. 

• "To hell with what customers want/need/have paid for - let's get that next release out the door and keep that upgrade engine churning!"
• "It doesn't matter if it's documented - charge them for the support call - and get them off the phone as quick as possible so we can charge them for another - it doesn't matter if we get to the root cause of the issue!"
• "It doesn't matter if it's easy to use - all that matters is what's easiest for our dev team so that we can keep those upgrades moving!"

One other very notable screw up I think I see here that nobody else seems to mention is that it appears Altiris has made the mistake of moving from a responsive Windows-based interface into a browser UI, probably with a bunch of Java crap overhead baggage that will come with it.

We are considering moving our entire customer base away from Symantec SEP partially because of the poor performance of their Java/browser based UI which is slow, clumsy and doensn't respond to standard keyboard input - simple stuff like hitting the TAB, ESC or RETURN keys doing anything in places where you'd expect them to that help save a lot of time navigating the UI (yes, there are still people out there who prefer the speed of a keyboard shortcut rather than reaching for a mouse to accomplish everything).

Of course, nobody from Symantec or Altiris ever actually reads these threads and if they do, they are never people with pull who actually LISTEN to their users and partners.  So the company just blindly rolls forward and does what someone THINKS is a good idea without ever LISTENING.  Then they'll cry and whine as they lose market share and blame their partners rather than having the guts to listen, and put the brakes on bad ideas after they make them.

This company really should MAKE their management and executives eat their own crappy dogfood.  Stick these fools in a locked room and tell them to make their own products work well, and that they can't leave, or receive a paycheck until they do.  Maybe in that environment, which is essentially what most of us in IT exist in, they'd step up and start listening and addressing these very real concerns that we all keep telling, and YELLING at them to fix!

Blah - glad I got that off my chest.   I have no hope that Symantec management will ever listen, but feels good to vent!  :-)

Hi

When Altiris will by can install site component ( DS7.1 ) on Windows 7 32/64

No info. ;/

Michał

I am not sure why anyone else purchased Deployment Suite or Notification Suite, but we used it for inventory, deployment, packaging and patching.  7.0 and 7.1 do not deploy images well enough to be considered production and the packaging features in 6.9 seem to have mutated into Wyse's terrible MSI editor.  So the only reason why we are still holding onto your product is for deployment via 6.9 SP4 and patch management.

Symantec doesn't seem to be providing much of an incentive for me to keep renewing our licenses.

I agree with spar1GreP about sorting out the problems with 7.0 first.

I'v heard that transitioning from 7.0 (32-bit) to 7.1 (64-bit) is labor intensive.

Heck we are on the 6.x version and haven't even gotten to the 7.0 version - again, very labor intensive and it is highly recommended you obtain outside Professional Services to accomplish the task...cha ching.

Why are you now talking up 7.1 and how it is 64bit ready when the version 7.1 is based on (7.0) has some serious problems that are preventing it from becoming the replacement for 6.9?  The biggest one being a lack of adequate documentation to allow for problems to be diagnosed and a lack of documentation on how to migrate HII configurations from 6.9 to 7.0.  The taboo subject of latency between site servers and the SMP/DB servers that is not mentioned once in any of the user manuals as they must have been written using a single SMP/Site Server/DB setup.  The lack of information re. how any of the 00's of scheduled tasks configured on the SMP relate to what functionality within the SMP console, you know in case you dont have two hours to wait for a computer deleted from the SMP to be acknowledged by a site server so you can rebuild the PC.  The really poor performance on loading a Windows PE preboot OS image from the PXE server which the 6.9 implementation of Win PE preboot OS can load the WinPE preboot OS five times before the Altiris 7.0 PXE has finished deploying the Win PE OS once!

It seems to me that normal Symantec activity is resumed where rather then fixing the problems in the current version of the product you release a new version which promises to fix the problems with the previous broken version but ends up fixing only a a few and introducing a wealth of others.  Its the whole Backup Exec 11d, 12.0, 12.5 and SAV 10 to SEP 11.0 MR1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 cycle again.

IT people are getting tired of this cycle and serious consideration should be giving to move away from Symantec products as this cycle carries on.

Take a look at my support calls re. Altiris 7, SEP 11, Backup Exec you will see how it is always the same problems over and over again with no real solution being offered.

And lets not talk about this shocking new support portal you have, all of it's broken links, how it does not integrate well at all with search engines (as the search capability within the Facebook esq support portal is really poor).

Has anyone running the beta noticed any improvements in the responsiveness of the console?

From what I've been told the correct upgrade path from 7.0 to 7.1 will be:

• Rebuild your existing 7.0 server with the new OS, W2K8 R2.
• Install ITMS 7.1.
• Reconnect to your existing DB which 7.1 will then upgrade to include the new schema changes.

So I guess it all depends on your idea of "Easy" as to how a complete server rebuild is categorized.

Moving from 6 to 7, I found, was a somewhat inelegant process, especially with getting agents updated etc and I encountered bugs, which still haven’t solved, so I was just trying to say, I hope it’s a really smooth process for customers that have already made the leap to 7.0 to transition to 7.1 despite the backend OS move to Windows Server 2008 R2 etc. Also any improvements for customers yet to migrate from 6.0, can only help.

pro.gti - are you saying that it's a smooth transition if you already have 7.0 up and running?  so you can just stand up a new 7.1 server, stop your 7.0 server, and tell the 7.1 box to start using the 7.0 database? 

Good article, covers the new activity center interface well.

I have liked what I have seen with the beta, administration and ease of use looks substantially better, it should really help first timers as well as experienced Altiris administrators.  Hopefully performance issues are a thing of the past now it’s 64 bit and it’s a smooth process to transition from 7.0 to 7.1 as well, not only with the DB but agents etc.

I personally see this as a make or break release, if they can’t get customers off the 6.x branch at this point, Symantec probably aren’t doing something right. I am intrigued with the inclusion of IT Analytics and Workflow into the suites, I’ll be interested in how that adds value to the product for customers like us.