A Review of Zoho ManageEngine

In this post, we'll look at ManageEngine's key products and available tools, as well as their worth and distinctiveness. In addition, we'll discuss why developers should think about adopting ManageEngine for their IT management needs.

Regardless of the size of your business, we believe this article will assist you in identifying solutions to help you optimize your IT operations, increase efficiency, and meet your business objectives.

A Comprehensive Catalog of Tools - From Active Directory to Security Management and Monitoring

ManageEngine has developed a comprehensive range of enterprise IT management software that provides solutions to simplify and streamline operations. Their products cover every aspect from identity and access management to cloud solutions for enterprise IT, making them a versatile choice for any organization seeking to optimize their IT processes.

Their identity and access management solutions provide powerful tools for managing and securing digital identities and privileged access, ensuring that only authorized users have access to sensitive information.

For example, Samsung SDS America was facing challenges with manually creating reports using PowerShell for Exchange Server. It was a time-consuming process that didn't provide all the necessary details. To address this issue, they switched to ManageEngine's Exchange Reporter Plus, an Exchange reporting, auditing, monitoring, and content search solution.

With Exchange Reporter Plus, the IT team was able to quickly and easily obtain meaningful insights, purge inactive distribution lists, and remove excessive mailbox permissions. The solution comes with over 450 reports, can be scheduled and delivered automatically, and allows for custom reports. Exchange Reporter Plus helps ensure the safety and compliance of users' mailboxes and their content.

Their enterprise service management solutions enable delivering a consistent employee experience across business functions, building a one-stop portal for customers, and centralizing and automating the complete IT asset life cycle.

With their enterprise and IT service management tools, you can streamline service requests, automate workflows, and improve service delivery. These solutions offer customizable service catalogs, SLAs, and ITIL-based best practices, allowing you to standardize your service management processes and ensure compliance.

For endpoint management and security, ManageEngine provides unified solutions for managing and securing desktops, servers, laptops, mobile devices, and web browsers, simplifying the task of protecting your IT assets. Their IT operations management products enable you to monitor and manage networks, servers, and applications, ensuring that your systems are running smoothly.

For example, Bank of Wolcott, a community bank in Indiana, turned to ManageEngine's DataSecurity Plus for data visibility and security. The bank had previously used ManageEngine's Desktop Central and was satisfied with their experience. DataSecurity Plus enabled the Bank of Wolcott to monitor changes in their data, ensuring file integrity and preventing data theft.

ManageEngine also offers advanced security information and event management solutions for log management, security auditing, threat detection, response, and user and entity behavior analytics. Their advanced IT analytics solutions provide unified IT analytics, AI-powered insights, IT data correlation, and capacity planning, enabling you to optimize your IT operations and improve efficiency.

The platform provides a low-code app development tool, AppCreator. The latter is useful for business process management, workflow automation, and custom app development, allowing you to create custom solutions tailored to your specific needs. Using AppCreator you can easily develop apps from the most basic apps like web forms to the most complex apps like ERP and CRM.

The IT management solutions for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), provided by ManageEngine, offer a comprehensive range of tools making it easier for MSPs to manage their client's IT infrastructure.

These solutions include Site24x7 offering a Cloud-based Remote Monitoring Tool for MSPs, RMM Central for unified network monitoring and endpoint management, ADManager Plus MSP for unified Active Directory management and reporting, and EventLog Analyzer MSSP for log management and advanced threat intelligence.

In addition, other tools such as PAM360 provide completeprivileged access security for enterprises like secure remote access provisioning, just-in-time privilege escalation, SSH key and SSL/TLS certificate management, and more.

Password Manager Pro is another MSP management tool from ManageEngine, that provides privileged password management for enterprises. With this solution, you can securely store, manage, and distribute sensitive information inside your business, ensuring the security of your data at rest and in transit.

In addition to Password Manager Pro, ManageEngine offers a range of other MSP-focused tools, including ServiceDesk Plus MSP for full-stack service management. This solution enables you to streamline service requests, automate workflows, and improve service delivery.

Endpoint Central MSP (formerly Desktop Central MSP) provides unified endpoint management and security, allowing you to manage and secure your entire endpoint infrastructure from a single console. Using this, you can automate patch management, software deployment, and OS imaging, while also ensuring that your endpoints are protected against security threats.

Finally, Mobile Device Manager Plus MSP offers comprehensive mobile device management (MDM), enabling you to manage and secure your organization's mobile devices.

ManageEngine's cloud solutions for enterprise IT are designed for scaling IT in cloud native, multi-cloud, hybrid cloud, and edge infrastructures, enabling organizations to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud computing while maintaining control and security.

In addition to these premium offerings, ManageEngine provides a range of free tools for developers, making it accessible to developers, devops, network engineers, and other IT professionals. These tools help with different aspects, such as network and device management, security, and service desk software.

As you can see, ManageEngine offers a wide range of IT management solutions designed to simplify and streamline operations. With products covering every aspect of IT management, the platform is used for multiple use cases, different business types, and industries including healthcare, manufacturing, education, government, and financial services.

In the next section, we will discuss if ManageEngine is the right solution for your need.

Is ManageEngine Worth Your Attention?

Implementing a sophisticated IT management platform involves a serious time, resource, and effort investment. It is critical to analyze whether such a move is advantageous for your business. In this part, we'll take a deeper look at ManageEngine to see if it's worth your time. To assist you in making an educated selection, we will explore its value proposition, distinctive features, and consumer advantages.

ManageEngine offers a suite of IT management and security software solutions that aim to meet various business needs. Their solutions are built on a value proposition that claims to provide tangible benefits to customers.

The company has a significant customer base of over 280,000 worldwide, which showcases its ability to provide solutions for businesses of all sizes and industries. Inclusion in reports by top analyst firms such as Gartner, Forrester, and IDC can be seen as a validation of the quality and effectiveness of ManageEngine's products.

As a matter of fact, ManageEngine was nominated a “Challenger” in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Platforms. It has been recognized in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) for the sixth time. In the same year, it has been recognized in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management Tools.

Additionally, it offers free trials with full access to its premium features, allowing prospective consumers to completely assess their products before making a purchase choice. This allows for making educated decisions while also demonstrating ManageEngine's trust in its products.

ManageEngine's solutions are available in on-premises, public cloud, and private cloud offerings, which provide businesses with flexibility in choosing the deployment option that best suits their needs and this is one of the differences between it and other platforms that focuses more on public cloud.

In addition, ManageEngine offers a wide range of solutions that cater to different use cases, including DevOps engineers, IT analysts, observability teams, security specialists, network engineers, and more. Having multiple teams work on the same platform necessarily leads to improved productivity and streamlined processes as fewer integrations and interoperating efforts are required. The customizable dashboards, reports, and alerts ensure that each team can view the data that is most relevant to their work, while giving management a data-driven picture of the overall business, leading to faster decision-making and improved efficiency overall.

While ultimately the decision to adopt ManageEngine's solutions will depend on your organization's specific needs and requirements, the real, tangible benefits and added value provided by their IT management and security software make them a strong contender in the market.

We encourage you to explore their solutions, read their case studies, take advantage of their free trials, and see for yourself how ManageEngine can help optimize your IT operations and improve overall efficiency.

ManageEngine vs Other IT Management Solutions: Which One is Right for Your Business?

When comparing ManageEngine to other alternative solutions there are several key differences that set ManageEngine apart.

The first point that grabs our attention is the breadth of offerings. ManageEngine offers a comprehensive suite of over 60 products for IT management and security, providing a one-stop shop for organizations to manage all components of their IT operations.

Some cloud providers have similar products like AWS Systems Manager and GCP Operations Suite, however, these offer a more limited range of solutions, mainly focused on cloud infrastructure management, they can also be more complex to set up and use, requiring a higher level of technical expertise.

One of the most prominent alternatives to ManageEngine is SolarWinds. Both platforms offer comprehensive suites of IT management and security software solutions and some similar products, but there are some differences.

If we take the example of ManageEngine OpManager and SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), we will find out that both solutions provide continuous, real-time monitoring of network devices. While SolarWinds NPM is primarily focused on monitoring on-premises, hybrid and cloud networks and devices, ManageEngine OpManager offers end-to-end monitoring of IT infrastructure, including WAN links, local and non-computing devices, and wireless networks. ManageEngine OpManager monitors the health of the network and more than 2,000 key built-in performance metrics, while SolarWinds NPM monitors based on health and performance metrics such as network traffic anomalies, application delivery, response times, availability, router traffic, and slowdowns. Also, OpManager provides more than 100 built-in reporting profiles available on the UI, including the relevant monitored data, and users can generate custom reports to suit their needs by using Advanced Reports to create a new report with specified criteria. These reports can be scheduled periodically and automatically emailed to authorized users.

In terms of industry recognition, ManageEngine has established itself as a reliable and trustworthy provider of IT management solutions with a large customer base and recognition from top analyst firms. Other vendors providing similar tools like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure also have industry recognition, but their focus on cloud infrastructure management may limit their appeal to organizations with more complex IT infrastructures.

When it comes to deployment options, ManageEngine provides on-premises, public cloud, and private cloud offerings, providing flexibility for businesses with different infrastructure requirements. This differentiation is important if your organization adopted hybrid and multi-cloud strategies.

ManageEngine also offers a range of free tools and trials with premium features, enabling businesses to evaluate their products before committing to a purchase. Other alternatives offer limited free tiers but do not offer the same level of free tools and trials as ManageEngine.

Scalability and integration are also important considerations when choosing an IT management solution. ManageEngine's products are designed to scale with an organization's growth and can be easily integrated with existing systems and tools. Alternative vendors offer the same level of scalability. However, when it comes to integration with your existing systems, many vendors have limited options.

Depending on the ManageEngine product you are using, the software offers different integrations, for example, the ADManager Plus integrates with HelpDesk, apps, and log forwarding tools like ServiceDesk Plus, ServiceNow, Zendesk, ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, Jira, Freshservice, PAM360, Syslog, Splunk and more. The OpeManager tool integrates with ServiceNow, and Slack and can be integrated with any other tool using webhooks or its REST API.

ManageEngine IT management solutions can also be self-hosted on public cloud platforms like AWS and Azure using their respective marketplace. ManageEngine, as a matter of fact, has 73 listings on AWS marketplace. This is in our opinion, one of the most important differences between ManageEngine and other vendors.

Lastly, while considering IT management systems, innovation, and constant improvement are necessary to consider in your decision. ManageEngine has a track record of launching new products.

When considering whether to choose a vendor, it's important to evaluate your organization's specific needs and compare them with the features and benefits of other alternative solutions available in the market. In this section, we studied key factors some of which are industry recognition, integration, scalability, offering, and innovation.

To summarize, we found out that ManageEngine is an ideal alternative for businesses looking for a cost-effective and comprehensive IT management solution. It may take some time, as with other vendors with a wide selection of products, to completely grasp which specific tools are most fit for your needs and how to effectively utilize them. But having access to a diverse set of products and technologies, on the other hand, gives greater flexibility and allows for a more personalized approach to managing your IT operations. Organizations may pick the tools that best match their unique requirements and adjust as their needs grow over time by having the freedom to choose from a variety of solutions. While accessing numerous products may involve more work and resources at first, the long and mid-term benefits of having a more comprehensive range of tools accessible may lead to higher productivity and better outcomes.

Ultimately, the decision should be based on what solution can provide the most value to your business in terms of IT management, security, and cost-effectiveness.

Conclusion

ManageEngine's comprehensive suite of IT management software, combined with its affordability, ease of use, industry recognition, and continuous innovation, make it an ideal choice for developers looking to optimize their IT operations. However, it is important to evaluate your specific needs and understand your organization's unique requirements before making a decision. These resources will help you know more about ManageEngine:

• The ManageEngine website: manageengine.com
• The ManageEngine community portal: https://pitstop.manageengine.com/portal/en/community
• Free trials and demos of ManageEngine's products: https://www.manageengine.com/download.html
• Upcoming webinars: https://www.manageengine.com/webinars.html