Kace V-KBox 1200: Systems Management Appliances

At the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace you can buy “certified production ready” appliances. I tested Kace’s Virtual KBox 1200 Systems Management Appliance and found it far from easy to implement.

Based on my work with the virtual and physical incarnations of the Kace appliance, I recommend that IT managers think of virtual appliances as a “first version” rather than a mature product.

The V-KBox 1200, like the real-world KBox 1200, is a system management tool that provides software and hardware inventory information, rudimentary asset reporting, basic software distribution, patch management, a trouble ticketing system, and an extensive reporting tool. The physical KBox is explicitly designed to be up and running in hours without the need for extensive implementation consulting that is normally associated with enterprise-class system management tools.

Our experience (and this project did call on the talents of most of the labs staff) was that the V-KBox needs significantly more effort to install than the physical system. Still, for small to midsize organisations, the V-KBox is a well-rounded tool that delivers useful system management information that fits neatly in a virtualised data centre.

The V-KBox is available only from Kace but can be requested through the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace. The V-KBox is “certified production ready,” a VMware certification program that is slated to be replaced in March with the “VMware Ready” certification. V-KBox had to successfully pass VMware compliance tests to be listed as a certified production-ready product.

The V-KBox that I received was a 32-bit version that had to be converted to run on our 64-bit VMware Virtual Centre 3.5 infrastructure. I point out this cumbersome step because it shows a general weakness in the virtual appliance acquisition process. There was not enough information gathered during the handoff from VMware’s Virtual Appliance Marketplace.

I was expecting the V-KBox to come in an OVF (Open Virtualisation Format), platform-independent technology used to package virtual machines. Instead, V-KBox was delivered to me as a series of VMDK files (VMware’s Virtual Machine Disk Format), intended for use in VMware environments. Kace provides instructions for using the VMware Converter utility to create a V-KBox appliance that runs in a VMware ESX environment.

After creating and configuring the V-KBox appliance, I was able to use it to manage both physical and virtual machines.

As with the physical KBox appliance, the virtual version depends on agents that must be deployed on all managed systems—agents that add complexity to the management and maintenance of the Kace system. However, two worthwhile benefits derived from the agents softened my dismay.

The first is that the agents worked well across a variety of platforms to provide accurate system information. I was able to collect information from my Windows Server 2003 servers and Windows XP and Vista desktop systems, as well as my Mac mini and Mac Pro machines. The agents can also be installed on Linux and Solaris systems.

How the V-KBox Worked

The V-KBox is managed via a Web user interface that is clean and simple. From the home screen I got an at-a-glance overview of my client status, including the number of systems under management, the software security threat level and the number of management tasks under way.

The inventory screen provided me with some of the most useful information, including what software applications, running processes and services were present on my managed systems. The inventory system and all the other features provided by the V-KBox could be sorted to show only machines in certain IT-defined groups. I was impressed with the completeness of the software inventory information.

In addition to inventory, the V-KBox provides rudimentary software distribution (the KBox 2000 family provides sophisticated operating system and application deployment tools), patch management, scripting tools that assist with system management chores, an adequate help desk trouble ticket system and a well-populated reporting facility.

Version 4.3 of the V-KBox 1200 shipped 19 Jan and lists for $8,900 (£6,150), which includes the appliance and the first 100 managed nodes.

Conclusion

It takes some effort to get Kace’s V-KBox 1200 Systems Management Appliance product installed, but once done, the tool does a good job managing both virtual and physical machines in a virtualised data centre. The V-KBox 1200, which also is certified through a VMware program to be production-ready, is particularly useful for SMBs. The platform-independent tool collected information from Microsoft Windows Server 2003, XP and Vista machines, as well as Linux, Solaris and Mac systems.