HCL BigFix is an endpoint management platform that automates the discovery, management, and remediation of all endpoints, including virtual,

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

, and on-premise endpoints. HCL BigFix automates the

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

patching Patching is a small village and civil parish that lies amid the fields and woods of the southern slopes of the South Downs in the National Park in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It has a visible hill-workings history going back t ...

, and

inventory Inventory (British English) or stock (American English) is a quantity of the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying ...

of nearly 100

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

History

In 2010,

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

acquired BigFix, Inc., a

software developer Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

out of

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

, and its endpoint security platform, which is also called BigFix. Under IBM, BigFix went through a series of re-brandings, including a 2013 release as IBM Endpoint Manager (IEM). Then, in 2018, India-based software company HCL acquired BigFix in a $1.8 billion purchase of select IBM

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

products.

Relevance language

Relevant language enables authors to query the hardware and

properties of networked clients. Developed for BigFix prior to its purchase by IBM, the Relevance language provides an

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Inter ...

displaying information about a

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...

, such as processor usage or available disk space, and it allows for real-time modifications of all clients in the network. Relevance language abstracts platform-specific query mechanisms like proc filesystems (

procfs The proc filesystem (procfs) is a special filesystem in Unix-like operating systems that presents information about processes and other system information in a hierarchical file-like structure, providing a more convenient and standardized metho ...

) and SIM, and it is capable of responding faster than native alternatives, like

Windows Management Instrumentation Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's implementatio ...

(WMI).

ActionScript

ActionScript ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (mean ...

is a

scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...

used in BigFix. ActionScript provides an interface to administer clients. ActionScript abstracts platform-specific scripting differences like directory traversal, script execution, and flow control, allowing an administrator to write a script once and apply it across all platforms.

Platform components

The core HCL BigFix platform can be extended using additional components: * HCL BigFix for lifecycle management includes patch management,

remote control A remote control, also known colloquially as a remote or clicker, is an consumer electronics, electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operat ...

software distribution Software distribution is the process of delivering software to the end user. Free software distribution tools GNU Autotools are widely used for which consist of source files written in C++ and the C programming language, but are not limited t ...

, and OS deployment. Patch management includes patches for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

operating systems. Remote control allows for remote monitoring and control of network PCs and servers. Software distribution provides a package library and automation toolkit for endpoint administrators. OS deployment provides for imaging and provisioning of operating systems as well as OS migration capabilities. * HCL BigFix for patch management includes vendor patches for Microsoft, UNIX, Linux, and

operating systems as well as patches for third-party applications by

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

, and Microsoft. * HCL BigFix for security and compliance provides common STIG, CIS, and third-party security baselines, network self-quarantine, and removable device control. * HCL BigFix for software asset management gathers information about installed software and hardware in a customer's infrastructure. Software use analysis tracks application usage on endpoints to determine the number and type of licenses required for licensed software. * HCL BigFix for server automation provides

hypervisor A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

operations to build and manage

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

s in a

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

centre environment. In addition, the server

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

component provides the ability to do

middleware Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue". Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...

management tasks to support operating system patching for clustered systems.

References

{{Remote administration software System administration Remote administration software Configuration management