Rolling out a security patch or a software update can be accomplished in minutes, allowing you to keep a step ahead of potential network problems while maintaining a standardized operating environment. You can track the progress of each computer as updates are applied, making it easy to gauge the level of compliance across your entire enterprise.

BES allows you to create and print an audit trail of each issue and its resolution to meet regulatory or policy guidelines. At any time and from any browser, you can view or print graphs and reports summarizing conditions across hundreds of thousands of networked computers.

Using an exhaustive library of Windows, Macintosh, Unix and Linux Inspectors, BES can retrieve useful computer properties from each of the BES Clients. These properties can be used to target your own Fixlet messages, tasks and actions. You can also use these retrieved properties to generate customized, continuously updated reports, graphs and 3D maps of your network.

BigFix’s patented technology distributes computing power to the devices themselves, using the intelligent BigFix Agent to provide a level of visibility and control not possible in legacy solutions. This level of innovation translates into significant advantages in speed, flexibility, and scalability, while reducing the infrastructure and training costs associated with traditional systems and security management.

How Does It Work?

•  The BigFix Console is the command center from which information on the state of all network computers can be viewed and policies can be defined in real time.
  
• BigFix Policies, also known as Fixlet Messages®, communicate policy information between BigFix Agents and BigFix Server environments. BigFix Policy Messages can contain logical criteria to trigger specific actions—for example, “if vulnerability X exists on this client, update software module Y with the appropriate package.” Customers can use BigFix-provided policies or customize their own.
  
• BigFix Relays provide distributed points of communication, aggregation and staging for BigFix Policy Messages and patch/remediation content. They help reduce network bandwidth requirements and provide added fault-tolerance to BigFix-based management systems. BigFix Relays can be installed on existing hardware, including desktops and multi-purpose systems such as file or print servers. No dedicated hardware is required, and deployment takes minutes rather than months without disruptive network configuration changes.

 Managing the “care and feeding” of hundreds of thousands of network devices presents a formidable task for IT organizations. Even a simple question such as, “How many computers do you have?” can generate a variety of responses. Most organizations struggle with these basic questions about their computing environment:

• How do you set up specific endpoints to meet a certain security configuration?
• How do you ensure that users within a certain role are running the correct version of an application?
• How do you deploy patches in a way that minimizes downtime?

The ideal solution provides centralized, automated—yet easily customizable—lifecycle management of all the assets on your network. BigFix Systems Lifecycle Management brings BigFix cost-savings and operational excellence to key IT operations management functions including asset discovery/inventory, patch management, power management, remote desktop, software distribution, software asset management, and OS deployment. Consolidating and streamlining the most common IT operational tasks, BigFix delivers the highest levels of automation combined with fine-grained accuracy, enabling IT departments to maintain service levels, focus on critical issues, and ensure overall operating efficiency.

 Watch the Chalk Talk on Systems Lifecycle Management!

Listen to Jonathan Fan (Senior Director of Product Management at BigFix) explain how you can manage all your assets – fixed and mobile, across platforms – at every stage.

Product Benefits

• Consolidate and simplify key system management services enterprise-wide
• Gain real-time visibility into endpoint configurations across the enterprise
• Enjoy immediate ROROI through power management, software license true- ups, and asset discovery, in addition to longer-term ROROI through resource reduction (up to 80% for labor requirements), server consolidation (up to a 40:1 ratio), and proven operational efficiencies
• Enable autodiscovery of unmanaged assets
• Scale from 1,000 to up to 250,000 endpoints on a single server
• Collapse software update cycles from weeks and months to hours and days
• Transparently manage mobile computers whether connected to the network or not
• Obtain closed-loop confirmation not just that a change command was  acknowledged by an endpoint, but whether the change was/was not successfully implemented
• Manage heterogeneous platforms—Windows, Mac, UNIX, Linux running on physical or virtual machines
• Take advantage of “instant on” functionality without additional software or hardware
• Reduce the clutter and expense of multi-vendor tool sets
• Lower staff learning curves, deepen expertise, improve operational effectiveness
• Reduce electric power costs while synchronizing energy conservation with maintenance processes

What’s Included

Systems Lifecycle Management streamlines IT operational tasks with a lightweight, single-agent, single-console framework. The suite includes the following product components:

• Asset Discovery provides visibility into all IP-enabled devices on your network.
• Asset Inventory offers deep inspection capabilities to report on hundreds of hardware and software attributes out of the box, across platforms, in real time, at massive scale.
• Patch Management collapses patch and update time scales, reduces staff workloads, cuts cost, and increases the effectiveness of patch processes.
• Power Management delivers significant energy cost savings and reduces carbon emissions through enterprise-wide desktop system power conservation. 
• Remote Control configures and manages Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance functionality.
• Software Distribution automates and adds new levels of assurance to the software deployment process. 
• Software Asset Management helps enterprises identify under-used software to manage costs, and over-used licenses to stay on the right side of software license agreements.
• OS Deployment, an optional component, provides bare-metal imaging and provisioning for operating systems.
• Device Management for Windows Mobile enables configuration, encryption, and software distribution management by optimizing the BigFix Windows Agent for the mobile platform

Why BigFix?

Powered by the real-time visibility and control of the BigFix unified management platform, BigFix Systems Lifecycle Management brings cost-savings to key IT functions critical at each stage of the systems lifecycle – for desktops, servers and roaming laptops. Consolidating and streamlining the most common IT operational tasks, BigFix delivers the highest levels of automation combined with fine-grained accuracy, enabling IT departments to maintain service levels, focus on critical issues, and ensure overall operating efficiency.

When it comes to security and vulnerability management, there’s a big difference between identifying problems and resolving them. Or better yet, preventing them. Enterprises want to protect their environments from threats. IT organizations struggle to balance security and industry compliance. How do you protect your environment? How do you report on compliance to get approval from regulators? You need a solution that provides real-time visibility and enforcement into security configurations and settings enterprise-wide. 

What’s Included

BigFix Security Configuration and Vulnerability Management (SCVM) consolidates a suite of services, including vulnerability management, automated security configuration management, and security patch management to cut costs, reduce complexity, and lower security risks.

 Watch the Chalk Talk on Security Configuration Vulnerabiltiy Management!

Listen to Jim Hansen (Senior Product Manager at BigFix) explain why Security Configuration management is so important for organizations to consider as part of their natural security risk assement routine.

Product Benefits

The product components in the BigFix SCVM suite include:

• BigFix Security Configuration Management (SCM) provides a comprehensive set of configuration settings to help IT staff achieve compliance and best practices goals through assessment and enforcement of security policies on their endpoints.
• BigFix Vulnerability Management empowers IT organizations to discover, assess, and remediate vulnerabilities at unparalleled scale and speed.
• BigFix Patch Management collapses patch and update time scales, reduces staff workloads, cuts costs, and increases the effectiveness of operating system and application patch processes.
• BigFix Asset Discovery identifies suspicious or rogue systems entering your network for proactive risk reduction and continuous policy enforcement.
• BigFix Device Control provides organizations with the ability to see, manage, modify, enforce, and report on access and usage of portable devices on all endpoints.