Key Features for Endpoint Management

Endpoint Management Product should support all features starting from acquisition to retirement of the target device , a complete end-to-end solution. Some of the key scenarios include Patch Management , Software Management , Inventory Management , Security and Compliance Management and OS Deployment.
The entire process starting from acquiring a new endpoint to its retirement is known as Endpoint LifeCycle Management.

 

Asset Management is nothing but  managing the physical inventory in an organization. Assets include software and hardware devices like computers, switches, hubs, routers, mobiles etc.

License Management is about managing the licenses for software enabling IT to align software spending with business priorities. For example a company needs to buy licenses for windows operating system for all its computers.

Patch Management is an area of systems management that involves acquiring, testing, and installing multiple patches (code changes) to an administered computer system.

For example Microsoft release patches for its operating system. These patches are nothing but code changes or fixes to the problems in the existing operating system or applications.Patches are also released by RedHat , Suse , Solaris and other operating system vendors

Software Management (Distribution) is a process of installing / uninstalling the software on a particular endpoint depending upon the end-users need and business requirement. For example in order to read / write Microsoft excel sheets , Microsoft Office needs to be installed on the endpoint.

Also a company might have a requirement that a software with invalid/cracked license should not be used in its business environment.This will involve uninstalling the prohibited software. (Black listed software)

Inventory Management in the domain of Computer Provisioning means collecting the information about the physical devices in your business environment. This includes collecting data about the software installed on a desktop/laptop , its hardware configuration details like RAM , CPU , STORAGE, NETWORK Interfaces, Plug-n-Play Devices ... etc.

OS Deployment involves capturing/cloning operating system images and deploying them on bare-metal desktops/laptops (machines which do not have a OS installed on them are known as bare-metal ).