KACE Product Support

I agree the latest 5.3.5 is worth installing. The check-ins are faster and annoying bugs are fixed (for example: IE search with return key; alert dialogs Cancel or Snooze; and Last User history).

We finally took the plunge [about two to three weeks ago] and went from 5.2 to 5.3 SP1, and so far we have not had any major issues.

Thanks for the feedback, just a follow up question


Will the 5.1 agent work with a 5.3 server? We do plan to upgrade the clients but there's a lot of them and we need to do more testing before we do it, so it will be some weeks before they're all upgraded to 5.3.

Thanks,

Mike

Does anyone know if they fixed the Remote Site Bandwidth Replicaton issue in this release?

We have 80 remote sites and have not had any throttling issues. I believe that is one of the major bug fixes in 5.3 SP1 (check the release notes).

ms01ak - the 5.1 agent should be left on clients when you upgrade the server to 5.3. The old agents will work with the new server but not vice-versa. You want to be on 5.3 SP1 on the server before upgrading any agents.

Unless I'm blind, the replication issue isn't mentioned in the patch notes.

I know it was mentioned by someone from Dell KACE. I thought it was in the patch notes, but I could be mistaken. Either way, we have 80 repos and haven't had any throttling issues.

In my opinion, I think it comes down to what modules you're using. We mostly use it for Inventory and Distribution of 3rd party software. We don't use Patching or the Help Desk so I can't tell you if anything is broke in those modules. There are still some bugs with the latest versions. Unfortunately, testing will show you if it's worth the ride or not.

We moved to the 5.3 server last year and kept our 5.1 clients after deciding there were too many bugs with the 5.3 client. Read some of the posts on 5.3 to get a better feel.

Dave

The 5.3 L10N so far for us has been a good upgraded. Agent check ins are fast, software information is being pulled correctly again from the registry. MI's, File Synchs, Patching all seem to be working for us so far.

I recommend it. There is a document on the download site that will explain pre-req's and how to prep the K1 for a faster update

Note that "L10N" moniker on any of our products means that it supports multiple languages abroad; the latest release numbers though are quite solid.
Call me biased if you will, but there's some awesome stuff in 5.3 including an agent that has no .Net dependancy, new reporting tools, helpdesk enhancements, and more. I think it's worth it, but I use every part of my appliance- as mentioned above it's largely going to be related to what you care about. Check the release notes and see what's new that might benefit you. Some things had issues in the initial release of 5.3, but with the AP1 maintenance release a lot of that was resolved.

As a side note- as of the next major release the configuration you mentioned will become unsupported; Kace only supports the current release and one previous.

cblake your biased, but correct as always sir.

The newest 5.3 agent / server combo is definitely worth the upgrade.