The AppSense Application Manager (AM) can be set up as a standalone product in a test environment before actual deployment. The standalone
preconfiguration enables an administrator to get to know and tweak the program for the best configuration for each particular environment.
The Application Manager starts with a default set of rules that can be changed for specific network requirements. However, this product will only manage network access through file, folder, network drive, or application access. Certain file extensions can also be allowed or disallowed.
This product was fairly simple to use, but the user interface was a tree menu and it took some time to work out how to navigate through it in order to get to all
the features.
AppSense AM can control the entire network from just one computer. Agent deployment is quick and easy as well.
AppSense AM did everything as advertised. During the test, we were able to prevent the test machine from opening or saving certain file types and from keeping access from certain folders on the network. It did not, however, meet our endpoint configuration requirement.
Documentation provided with this product included a quickstart guide, and a separate installation and configuration guide. All the manuals were clear and well-organised, while the documentation was also very easy to read and understand.
AppSense offers free email support as well as an online knowledge base. More support can be purchased from AppSense and there are several premium support packages to choose from.
At £40 per desktop to buy both the Application Manager and Environment Manager, or £20 per desktop for each one, and £995 per server for each, this comes in at the higher end of the price scale.
Although it performed well, the product does not address all our criteria for true endpoint security, and if you decide you need support services beyond email, it only comes as an extra cost.