IGEL OS – Support is the problem

What are the best aspects of this product?

The OS is cheap. ~$75/license. The hardware is powerful and reasonable priced. I was able to, using their documentation, setup an ISE DACL, Management Server, and configure end-points on my own in a matter of days. The product, for the most part, works well.

What aspects are problematic or could work better?

Code Quality: Unfortunately I've seen basic features in 11.01.100 go from working to COMPLETELY broken in 11.01.130 and not be totally fixed by 11.02.150. This is HIGHLY problematic as the basic feature is retaining display settings when docking/undocking a laptop.

Support: Until you are fully implemented there is zero reason to purchase a support contract. They won't speak to you. No matter how much money you throw at them they won't let you get past the pre-sales engineers, unless you buy advanced services (consulting time). Expertise is hit or miss on various aspects of configuration; getting timelines for resolution is like pulling teeth; responses are, may times, as if they didn't read the issue you are having.

Logging: This is something that caught me totally off guard. When I asked about how to log to splunk I was told "use our API". Which, the API doesn't provide any logging functionality. Outside of that, they have no data dictionary they will provide. The endpoints themselves can syslog remotely, but the servers ONLY log to a DB so you're left either reverse engineering the data structure or paying for consulting time to come in and do this basic config.

What features/services would you like to see in future versions of this product?

Display Switch: This needs to be much more user friendly. The "Identify" feature is useless. The drag/drop is almost good, but isn't super clear to end users. Setting the resolution isn't clear as you have to click to the side to bring up a separate menu.

UMS: There are settings in UMS that won't apply unless you make other changes on the same page. EG Boot Splash. Changing settings like where the progress spinner sits won't be pushed to clients unless you change the image associated with it. This is actively being rewritten so maybe the next version will be better, however there are significant usability glitches that are left hanging around.

What specific problems in your company were solved by this product?

We were looking for an endpoint to replace Windows and switch to VDI. This is the product we investigated most heavily.

Are you a current user of this product?

Yes