Mar 19
ZCM vs. SCCM
Jason Cooper
I’ve been a C/D/H consultant for five years. I have the dual distinction of being both C/D/H’s first Southeast Michigan consultant AND our first VMware Certified Professional. Specializing in desktop management and virtualization, projects involving MetaFrame or ZENworks or VMware expose me to almost every corner of the enterprise, from messaging to networking to collaboration.
Technology is what I work at. Family and music are what I work for. In my copious spare time I enjoy gardening, camping, and cycling. I play guitar and a little harmonica, sometimes simultaneously. It occurs to me that I could duct tape a tambourine to my knee, but that would just be too weird.
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Articles by Jason Cooper
Today I will be presenting at the 2009 MACUL Conference (http://www.macul.org/). Several people have contacted me expressing interest in my presentation, so I thought I’d post a synopsis here. You can use this link to download a PDF of the slide deck.
ZENworks Configuration Management is the next generation of ZDM, ZAM, and ZPM. It’s the only ZEN management platform for Vista and Windows 7. In some ways ZCM is one step up, and two steps back. It is not a direct upgrade; rather it is a wholesale migration which ought to be treated as a new product rollout for the purposes of development, testing, and training.
Because of this, we are encouraging anyone considering ZCM to also look at System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 (R2).
Microsoft has come to the game with a robust, scalable, and manageable product that goes toe-to-toe with ZENworks.
Both products offer remote control, patch management, software distribution, operating system deployment, and hardware and software inventory.
My presentation at MACUL compares the two in eight categories. Here’s the rundown.
ZCM wins in three categories:
- Directory Integration
- Deployment
- End-user experience
ZCM integrates with both eDirectory and Active Directory but needs neither. SCCM will live only on top of AD. You have more deployment options with ZCM, including Windows and Linux for installation, and SQL, Oracle or Sybase for the database. End-users of ZEN today find that SCCM has no corollary to the Application Launcher.
SCCM wins in three categories:
- Manageability
- Workstation imaging
- Update management
The ZCM web interface just doesn’t do it for me. SCCM snaps-in to the MMC. System Center wins the imaging battle because injecting drivers into the imaging environment is simple and quick. WSUS provides patch management and it beats the pants off Patchlink.
I’m calling it a draw for application packaging since both come with a stripped down version of Acresso AdminStudio. I also draw the comparison on workstation inventory, because both ZAM and SMS are proven players in this arena.
The bottom line is that these are both full featured products with real value. Each has strengths and weaknesses, but both should be considered by organizations looking to replace ZEN7. Anybody thinking about either of these desktop management platforms is well-advised to consider both.
What do you think? Please reply with your SCCM / ZCM successes or failures.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hi J,
Nice blog. Can you expand on the workstation imaging critique? What makes SCCM better than ZCM. Your blogs on VDI Were very informative as well.
take care.
Reply
Jason Cooper Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
The imaging environment in ZEN is based on SUSE. The driver support for new hardware is notorious. It’s the major drawback of the Linux platform.
Reliance on the opensource community for drivers for new hardware overrides all of the other points of comparison.
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September 11th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Althoug this blog post is a few months old, a quick responce.
I assume you’ve seen ZCM now comes with Adminstudio Standard edition, not the stripped down version anymore.
On imaging, are you aware that ZCM can also work with winpe and ghost?
And, what makes the WSUS so great that it beats the pants off patchlink? With ZCM you’ve got the integrated patch management, to me this beats the pants out of WSUS.
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Jason Cooper Reply:
September 11th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
The announcement of the full AdminStudio (rather than the ZENworks edition) practically coincided with the development of this presentation. In point of fact the announcement was public at the time, but the Novell PR and Marketing engine didn’t do a stellar job getting the word out. Your point though is well taken; ZENworks does have a superior application repackaging solution.
The ability to extend ZCM imaging with Ghost Enterprise substantially increases the cost of ZCM. The comparison becomes invalid once you license the Symantec product.
WSUS costs nothing. For ongoing ZCM patch management there is a recurring annual fee. While the benefits of ZCM patch management might outweigh WSUS, the fact that it has a hidden annual cost tips the scale to SCCM.
The overall point of the presentation is this: ZCM is not ZDM version.next. It is not an upgrade, it is a major migration. Organizations committed to Novell WILL be able to survive the pain of migration, accept the long list of new limitations that accompany the short of improvements, and enjoy the ZCM platform.
If the comparison were ZDM7 vs. SCCM, ZENworks is the hands-down winner. In System Center, Microsoft has stepped up with a full featured platform at the same time Novell took a major step backwards with ZCM. Novell’s timing couldn’t have been worse.
As more and more schools adopt the Microsoft platform, ZENworks no longer provides the same foothold to maintain a Novell presence.
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December 30th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Jason, Have you found ANY comparable products to Zen’s application launcher? We are contemplating a move to SCCM, but rely heavily on NAL
Thanks
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June 8th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Hi, can someone tell me if zenworks 10 and SCCM R2 can both reside on the same XP computer?
Thank you in advance
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Jason Cooper Reply:
June 8th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Amelie
I don’t know of any reason why both agents wouldn’t be functional installed on the same machine. The clients don’t share any ports that would cause a conflict that I’m aware of.
I can’t imagine the performance of a machine running both agents would be stellar. Further, since SCCM and ZCM offer substantial feature overlap, I don’t know why you’d want both management platforms in your environment.
The short answer is, “Yes, probably.” I wouldn’t recommend it.
jlc
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