Managing a distributed fleet
As one of the top 50 privately held property management companies, Aspen Square prides itself on transforming neglected apartment complexes into welcoming communities.
To that end, the company relies on a small IT team to manage and support about 550 Windows devices across 70 locations in 15 states. Alex Leloup is the system administrator on the team, overseeing infrastructure and cybersecurity.
Searching for the right agent-based solution
"PDQ was the solution that met everything we were looking for."
While Alex and his team already leveraged SmartDeploy for their imaging needs, they used Group Policy for pretty much everything else. But this approach required that users be on the network to get updates, which proved complicated with a distributed workforce.
"With so many of our users being remote and frequently traveling, we were often out of compliance,” said Alex. “We're not always aware of everybody's schedule and aren’t informed when they're coming to the home office. It was tough to get hands on devices, and if your schedule didn't line up with whoever's here at that moment, then obviously that device isn't getting touched.”
And, unfortunately, Group Policy wasn’t reliable even when users were in the office, leaving the IT team to cross their fingers and hope for the best.
“Even if they were on the network, there was a good chance that whatever policy I was trying to roll out didn't work or it wasn't going to work. A lot of times it's two or three tries before a policy is applied,” said Alex. “It was very difficult to ensure that they were going to get updates reliably.”
Alex knew that the most effective way to manage Aspen Square’s fleet was leveraging a remote agent to push out updates, install software, and uninstall software. PDQ was already on Alex’s radar because he used SmartDeploy, so he wasn’t surprised when its name popped up again in his search for a solution.
“I worked with PDQ through SmartDeploy already, peer recommendations were positive, and the price point was also very important,” said Alex. “PDQ had all three.”
"PDQ is very well regarded in terms of scripting, automation, and everything else that it can do to take the burden off my job."
While he had to make a case to leadership to get PDQ Connect, it didn't take a lot to convince them. “It was pretty obvious given how we weren't able to manage our environment fully and how Connect would allow us to.”
Embracing a solution that just worked
After an easy setup, Alex’s team was up and running with PDQ Connect. Soon, it was helping them keep their machines current while saving time.
“It does the thing, and it does it well.”
Software deployment
Pushing out software to both on-prem and remote machines is now quick and easy for Alex. According to Alex, "With Connect, I can deploy a package in your library in 20 seconds; it's super easy. When creating one with an MSI or something, it's maybe a couple minutes."
“I was surprised at how easily PDQ installed things, honestly. Kind of like at a weird level," said Alex. “Like Gimp, for example, that's like a 3-gig software. It's pretty beefy software, and PDQ installed it in like five seconds.”
Automations
With automated updates, Alex has one less thing to worry about. And that means less work and more up-to-date machines. But updating software isn’t the only task that Alex has automated. He’s also automated monthly reboots (via a script) and the uninstallation of proprietary software that’s no longer in use.
“Anytime there's a new update, I don't even think about it. Everything's just automated,” said Alex. “Before I was spending at least a couple hours a week trying to figure out updates or removals or whatever, but now it's not even a thought.”
Cybersecurity
As part of his work overseeing infrastructure, Alex also handles cybersecurity. Before PDQ Connect, outdated software and proprietary applications that were no longer in use increased the attack surface. By automating updates and removing the old proprietary software using PDQ Connect, Alex enhanced Aspen Square’s security posture.
Real-time insights
While Connect’s biggest strength is its ability to work quietly in the background, Alex checks in a couple of times a day to see what’s going on in his environment.
"I always pop into it just to kind of look at some of the groups I've created, see if certain machines are coming online, that kind of stuff."
Remote desktop
Since Alex’s team already has remote desktop through a three-year contract with Pulseway RMM, they haven’t transitioned to PDQ Connect for their remote desktop needs ... yet. But Alex has spent some time in it, and he is already a big fan.
“I've used the remote desktop a lot, and I've shown my team how it works,” Alex said. “They're all just very blown away by how quickly and easily it works.”
And since the team isn’t satisfied with their current remote desktop solution, having remote desktop as part of their PDQ Connect subscription may come in handy when their contract with the provider expires.
Exceptional support
“Anytime I reach out to support it's been pretty quick.”
Alex has also enjoyed PDQ’s speedy support, which is an increasing rarity among software providers. But as a company for sysadmins, by sysadmins, PDQ knows there’s no time to wait around.
“I don't have to wait three days for an answer. You guys are usually back to me within the same day, which I think is huge,” said Alex. “At this point, good support is pretty difficult to find, so that's huge for me.”
Approachable pricing
PDQ’s excellent value also won over the Aspen Square team.
“You guys are priced right. You're not trying to fleece people, which is very important to us,” said Alex. “A lot of times, you're sold the world and you don't get that. Getting what we paid for was a bit of a surprise.”
PDQ Connect and SmartDeploy: Better together
Aspen Square started its PDQ journey as a SmartDeploy customer, later adding PDQ Connect to its tool kit. Alex and his team soon realized that using the two products together improved the uniformity of their fleet. According to Alex, this got all of Aspen Square’s devices “on the same page, both from an imaging standpoint and updates to the software.”
Not only are devices more consistent, but Alex and his team now have less work on their plates.
“It’s nice because with the Active Directory options in SmartDeploy, you can drop the machines directly where you want them. So once you have it set up well, it's just plug and play, and the machines get dropped into the right OUs. They have all the right software. Combined with PDQ Connect, the second a machine is online, it gets updated with everything.”
“I feel like you guys just kind of hit all the marks.”