In the Fall of 2013, a group of IT professionals from across UF put forth a recommendation to the VP and CIO to purchase a suite of endpoint management products referred to as IBM Endpoint Manager. This recommendation was the result of an extensive requirements analysis, vendor evaluation and proof of concept conducted by the group. UF has since purchased IBM Endpoint Manager, and UFIT implemented several components of the BigFix service that was available to all UF units to assist in managing their endpoints. This effort is referred to as UF Endpoint Management (UFEM).
In the Spring of 2016, an endpoint governance committee, consisting of IT professionals from across UF, was created to aid in moving forward a stalled IBM BigFix initiative. The committee’s charge was to create standards and policies for the current UF Endpoint Management (UFEM) initiative and make recommendations on service improvement opportunities and service direction. While BigFix was meant to replace several existing products used at UF, including McAfee Anti-Virus and PGP Whole Disk encryption, and provide a complete solution for the management of endpoints – it fell short in several areas and was unable to absolutely replace critical existing services/technologies because of these deficiencies.
Due to these deficiencies as well as the removal of TrendMicro antivirus capabilities from BigFix (with no replacement functionality), the UFEM Governance Committee made several recommendations on how best to move forward. A ‘best of breed’ solution set was recommended as follows:
- November, 2016: Utilize TrendMicro as the antivirus platform for Windows/Mac
- February, 2017: Utilize Microsoft SCCM to provide OS Patch Management, 3rd Party Patch Management, Encryption Management and OS Deployment capabilities to the Windows Platform
- February, 2017: Utilize Jamf Pro to provide OS Patch Management, 3rd Party Patch Management, Encryption Management and OS Deployment capabilities to the Mac Platform
UFEM will now be the umbrella nomenclature containing several best of breed tool suites that are meant to aid the University of Florida community in managing our disparate endpoint systems. As new capabilities are identified and deployed, they will be added to the UFEM suite of tools.