Not happy with ERA 6

[ajal 1]

 

Agreeing with MichalJ. In the early days of ERA6 (pre-global release) I raised a few "pain point" issues on the forum here. The things I suggested are now standard features in 6.3. If ESET don't know what you don't like, how can they improve?

 

Very happy ERA6 user for 170 seats across 6 licenses.....

 

 

 

Jim

Same here ! 

 

I'm a VERY happy costumer of ERA 6 for 1200 seats across 3 licenses ! 

 

From what I read , most of the user complaining about ERA 6 simply didn't read the documentation. They just excpect it to work like ERA 5 without even trying to understand that it's a completely new product. 

 

For my part I think ERA 6 is WAY better than ERA 5 .  

But before moving from 5 to 6 I took time to read ALL the available documentation, and the deployment was a breeze.

 

 

 

Hi all

Now, about one year after the first tests with ERA6 (it was a nightmare) , I am also a happy customer of ERA 6.

I use ESET ERA Version 5 now for more than 4 years...

 

I saw the great potential of ESET with the new architecture, the new policy-based and dynamic Management of their products, but ERA6 was not more than BETA and the documentation was deficient (it's better now but partially still insufficient).

 

In my opinion, ESET has released ERA6 too early.

Now, with the ERA Version 6.4+, we can start deploying these great security products - growing day by day.

 

With the new more-dynamic way Managing everything, and the possibilities we got with ERA6 - i don't miss my good old ERA5-Console at all.

I am also one of those admins, who still work with vSphere Client and not the WebClient, but this is another Story

The great thing about Web-Based Software is, you can use it on any Client - but it must be fast!

And hey, my ERA6 Webinterface running on a ERA Appliance (CentOS Linux) is not slow at all - and surprisingly, I am a Windows-Guy!

 

Currently. you still need to create a lot of "Dynamic Group Templates", some "Dynamic Groups", a good static Groups structure, and all your Policy-Sets for your different agents, products, Servers and Clients, but the ESET-devs have done a great Job - also between V6.3 and V6.4 and now offers a better overview of policies.

And I am sure, there will be more Built-In stuff in future, so you don't need much time to get ready to GO.

Most of the time I used to prepare my ERA6-Setup was "Policies". You must create all your Policy-Sets (Agents, Security Products, FileSecurity, MailSecurity etc...) for your needs, starting with Common-Settings, and than get more specific, depending the Product and role of your EndPoint. You need to lear and understand the dependencies of the Settings and Subsettings of the products (there are still dependencies of Subsettings-Settings not considered and implemented yet in the wizards).

My best practice: Do this in a LAB - use an appliance (you don't need to be a tux), take snapshots and play!

 

All admins out there, who understand policy-based model will be very happy with ERA6 - and the others (the console-push-rightnow), will need to learn the new dynamic way of managing.

Even though I often use the "Send Wake-Up Call" button during Policy-Creation to test the resultant-set-of-policies

 

For us lazy Admins  , the goal is:

Create a (almost) full-automatic Deployment, Configuration of all ESET products and components in our Multi-Tentant or single Environment - in a "Set It and Forget It"-Way!!!

After all this, set the focus on Monitoring, Reporting and Alerting!!!

Later, we can use ERA for more than just manage ESET products, we have a good base-product with an thin Agent we can use for more exciting things like Deploy SW and run Scripts and provisioning in general.

The new MSP-License-Model (and ELA)  and the integration into ERA is also a great Thing - I love it, not to document  and manage all the license Infos in Excel.

 

With ERA6, all this cool stuff is possible right now!

 

I also agree with cssinfo:

Don't expect ERA6 work like ERA5 - start now learning the new power of ERA6 !!!

[tbsky 11]

I have tried 6.2,6,3, now 6.4. I think I will try to put 6.4 to production, although I still can not get everything right.

I hope I will be a happy customer of ERA 6.5

[slansing 1]

I am never actually certain if I am seeing the current status of a task, because the list won't even sort by time accurately.  I have hundreds of computers to manage; how is this even remotely acceptable?  Who designed this interface?  Client task vs Server tasks...why the distinction?  Arbitrary, annoying, incredibly hard to follow, click click click click click click STOP IT!!!  An antivirus program that performs so well, and I have this all-time horror show of an interface.  I'm not complaining that tasks don't always go through, etc.  That's always a pain when deploying AV.  But the console....god, man, seriously.  How could you look at this interface and think, "Yeah, this is how this should work!"?  Get a copy of the Sophos software and LOOK AT IT.  Use it for an hour or two so you can get a feel for how an interface is actually supposed to work.  And hit everybody with any authority over this design process over the head with it.  Or just fire them and put some human beings in charge.

 

Fortunately I've worked through things like this before, and the software is excellent, so I'll make it work.  But I have not a lot of patience for interfaces designed by either blowhards who insist on over-thinking everything, or geek types who will never understand that simple is elegant and good.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Marcos
Inappropriate words removed

[slansing 1]

Server task = install the agent.  Client task = remove existing AV and install AV...  this distinction seems arbitrary to me.  Tracking progress of tasks is awful, among the worst interfaces I've ever seen, and on top of that, it's DIFFERENT for client vs server tasks.  That is absolutely senseless.  I want to view details, I can choose to view failed, in progress, or completed...but I can't see all of them and sort the results.  On some of the screens, sort by date/time and things will shuffle around on your screen, but the resulting order is arbitrary.  I can click on the icons on the left of the screen, and see the menu...or not click on it, and see a different menu when hovering.

 

I saw a similar lack of intuitiveness in earlier ESET products, but this takes it to a new level.  Really very hard to maintain visibility and accurately manage computers.  I am honestly baffled at the horrible execution of the console.  I literally do not even see how it is possible that something so convoluted, disjointed, dysfunctional, and utterly frustrating could survive in the marketplace.  I'm utterly baffled.  I've used ESET before, and I've used other products.  This is a slam dunk first ballot nominee for worst interface I've used this year.  Please end the chaos or whatever is going on inside ESET and get this mess fixed.  The AV is awesome, as always, but if I cannot be clear, be sure about the status of my clients, I'm vulnerable.  And that defeats the entire purpose of this software.  The management console is NOT an afterthought!  It's as important as the AV software itself.

[Marcos 5,074]

First of all, I'd like to emphasize that we are open to criticism, we listen to our users' needs which is also proved by incorporating a lot of improvements based on users' feedback during the initial ERA v6 development as well as after the release. Of course, a product is never finished as there are still some new features that some users are missing and would be useful for them, We are already working on another release of ERA (v6.5) which bring further benefits to our users.

 

As for the interface, I'm sure that the product manage, developers as well as the gui architect have analyzed competitive products, have talked to our big customer regarding their needs and developed ERA with all that in mind. I'm not familiar with the competitive product you've mentioned; I don't even know if it's a Windows or web-based application but I'm sure that the ERA product manager will chime in and will be able to comment on it more.

 

Again, we are open for any suggestions or constructive critics. We don't develop ERA according to what we think is best for our users (although this plays a substantial role in making decisions too). We listen and will listen to your feedback either positive or negative and will do our best to tailor ERA to your needs. Of course, there may be situations when we cannot satisfy all users, e.g. if some request ERA to be a Windows application as it would substantially limit us as well as other users who require a web-based application.

[bbahes 29]

Server task = install the agent.  Client task = remove existing AV and install AV...  this distinction seems arbitrary to me.  Tracking progress of tasks is awful, among the worst interfaces I've ever seen, and on top of that, it's DIFFERENT for client vs server tasks.  That is absolutely senseless.  I want to view details, I can choose to view failed, in progress, or completed...but I can't see all of them and sort the results.  On some of the screens, sort by date/time and things will shuffle around on your screen, but the resulting order is arbitrary.  I can click on the icons on the left of the screen, and see the menu...or not click on it, and see a different menu when hovering.

 

I saw a similar lack of intuitiveness in earlier ESET products, but this takes it to a new level.  Really very hard to maintain visibility and accurately manage computers.  I am honestly baffled at the horrible execution of the console.  I literally do not even see how it is possible that something so convoluted, disjointed, dysfunctional, and utterly frustrating could survive in the marketplace.  I'm utterly baffled.  I've used ESET before, and I've used other products.  This is a slam dunk first ballot nominee for worst interface I've used this year.  Please end the chaos or whatever is going on inside ESET and get this mess fixed.  The AV is awesome, as always, but if I cannot be clear, be sure about the status of my clients, I'm vulnerable.  And that defeats the entire purpose of this software.  The management console is NOT an afterthought!  It's as important as the AV software itself.

 

I agree with you that interface is still big problem in ERA 6.x (still unable to change timeout on Administrator account, search and sorting missing in most forms). Millions of clicks (HTTP requests) to get some information, but eventually we will have to accept 6.x as it is. In my company we are still on v5, mainly because of story of updating via apache proxy. I am not happy opening service to internet for clients that should not touch internet. But as time goes on we will have to accept this new updating model, or maybe they surprise me in 6.5

 

I've been doing testing with each release and it's getting better and we plan to switch to v6 mainly because of security and other non-security features it offers that we don't see in v5.

 

I too was very disappointed and frustrated with v6 when it came out, but that is what it is. Basically if you don't like it you can buy other solutions out there. And don't think I didn't tried and test at least 10 of them.

They are all almost identical in philosophy. Central console, agents, products, updates...In the end I decided to give them a chance to "fix" the product for production. I say this because I am not very happy with fact they decided to ask big customers what they like. They should have looked at v5 and improve great product.

 

Regards.

[jimwillsher 65]

Use SQL Server to change the timeout. When I login with admin, the timeout shows > 9 hours. There's a post by me somewhere on this board.

 

Not ideal I know, but it works.

 

What I'd like to see is a way to block login by "Administrator" from anywhere other than the local LAN. The GUI prevents you from enabled 2FA for Administrator, which seems a gap.

[MichalJ 434]

Hello,

@slansing,

Thank you for your feedback.

At the beginning, just a couple of words trying to explain the differences between client tasks, and server tasks:

• server tasks are executed by ESET Remote Administrator server (server sends reports, server pushes agents, synchronizes with AD, etc).
• client tasks, are executed by ESET Remote Administrator agent, on managed computers

In the very beginning, the interface for both was looking the same, and was providing the same kind of information (the same kind of results were shown as for the server tasks).

Based on the customer feedback, it was changed for the ERA 6.3, where the new client task interface with more granular status reporting was provided. Please note, that we will perform some minor adjustments, so for example filtering by latest execution time will be added in upcoming release. Also, from the long-term perspective, we are planning to remove the separation to server / client tasks, and basically what is called "server tasks" will be evenly dispersed into the different sections of the webconsole. I am fully aware of the capabilities of Sophos interface (you have not mentioned if you were referencing the Cloud, or on-premise console, but I have figured out that you were referencing the Cloud). I do agree, that among the competitive products, it´s definitely the one, which is very straight-forward, and simplified for daily operation.

 

To address some of the problems you were reporting:

- you can view all of the tasks, simply by clicking each of the options in the context menu (failed/running/planned) and remove the filter on the top of the list (I will examine the option, to make this more straight forward for the future release).

- sorting by the time of execution will be improved into the coming version - ERA 6.5

- side menu, is basically a "main" (5 buttons - dashboard / computers / threats / reports / admin) and 2nd level menu for "Admin" section. The main menu is dynamically expandable. You can freeze the panel, so it won´t pop out. Navigation is going to be improved in the next release as well.

 

@bbahes:

Possibility to change the administrator account timeout is working OK (at least in my ERA 6.4), filters and search is being added to more and more parts of the webconsole (on most of the screens, you can however use the browser based search). I am not going to please you out, with promising the offline mirror is coming back in ERA 6.5, as of now it is not planned. But there are several improvements being considered to improve also the user experience with updating our products.

 

But to sum it up, we are always listening to feedback from every customer, and are doing our best, to improve the user-experience with our products.

[bbahes 29]

@bbahes:

Possibility to change the administrator account timeout is working OK (at least in my ERA 6.4), filters and search is being added to more and more parts of the webconsole (on most of the screens, you can however use the browser based search). I am not going to please you out, with promising the offline mirror is coming back in ERA 6.5, as of now it is not planned. But there are several improvements being considered to improve also the user experience with updating our products.

 

But to sum it up, we are always listening to feedback from every customer, and are doing our best, to improve the user-experience with our products.

 

I have given up on offline mirror, since I expect you will offer cloud solution in futur, but some info or control inside ERA regarding update is welcome.

 

Regards!

[MichalJ 434]

@Jim,

As of now, we do understand the "Administrator account" to be the one, that should be "stored safely into the safe" and to be used for standard logins, but only as a fallback.

Basically, you should specify a extremely safe, one-mile long password, and not use it at all, unless needed.

We are however evaluating changing the current behavior in a way, that it would be possible to disable the "Administrator" account totally, and simply keep using normal created accounts, with admin privileges, secured with 2FA. Would this be sufficient for you?

[jimwillsher 65]

Yes that would be perfect. In fact I only ever used Administrator (I'm the only admin) until I decided to improve security by enabling 2FA. I then created a second account. And then I realised that Administrator couldn't have 2FA set up. So the one account with a common name is the one account that can't be hardened :-)

 

Having the ability to disable it would be perfect. In the mean time, yes, I have a password that's so long and so random that I have to copy-paste it from my password manager software :-)

 

 

Jim

[georgepal 0]

I just upgraded from Server 5 to 6, including ERA and I also do not see any benefits in the upgrade, not to mention that ERA 6 (including SQL & TomCat) now required more than 300mb of RAM 

[kimahansen 0]

You say that you listen to your customers, but if you did, the documentation of ERA 6 should have been stellar by now. Unfortunately it is not. It is still lacking a great deal.

For example, you want to see what a specific field in a policy actually means, how it works or how it should be formatted etc. You click the "?" and you get no useful help.
Every single field should be documented fully. It should be obvious.. You are simply cutting corners and your customers are paying for it with their wasted time.

Also.. "Next-gen" software with no automatic in-place upgrade. What a joke.. There is a lot of ways the v5 to v6 upgrade could have been handled better by ESET. You simply did not spend time on it because it.

My feeling is that somebody in ESET management panicked because they did not know how to answer the "cloud" hype and just push for the release of a product that was not finished and not thought through.

 

Brgs,

10y+ Eset NOD Administrator

[Hmm 0]

I have been using this for the last 9 months. I have headaches every time I see it.  I rather use Sophos antivirus, it has a more understandable console and very easy to nagivate and use. 

 

This Console has lots to offer, but if one does not know how to use the features, then it's useless. It's like having a Ferrari and being limited to 65mph on the freeways. PFF>. 

[Marcos 5,074]

1 hour ago, Hmm said:

I have been using this for the last 9 months. I have headaches every time I see it.  I rather use Sophos antivirus, it has a more understandable console and very easy to nagivate and use.

Please elaborate more on what you dislike about ERA v6. We've made many improvements based on users' feedback. Our goal is to tailor ERA to your needs and therefore we seriously consider suggestions and ideas that you provide us with and which are valuable source of inspirations for future versions.

[bbahes 29]

7 minutes ago, Marcos said:

Please elaborate more on what you dislike about ERA v6. We've made many improvements based on users' feedback. Our goal is to tailor ERA to your needs and therefore we seriously consider suggestions and ideas that you provide us with and which are valuable source of inspirations for future versions.

All this confusion and problems regarding v6 (and upcoming v7) would be gone if documentation is complete. Trust me.

[Oliver 9]

On 8/1/2017 at 7:51 PM, bbahes said:

All this confusion and problems regarding v6 (and upcoming v7) would be gone if documentation is complete. Trust me.

Hello, bbahes. 
What exactly are you missing in the documentation of v6? 

[bbahes 29]

5 minutes ago, Oliver said:

Hello, bbahes. 
What exactly are you missing in the documentation of v6? 

Out of the box I can think one example...I don't see in documentation where you explain why certificate for agent is required. This topology is never presented in diagram like this one for example: hxxp://help.eset.com/era_install/65/en-US/high_availability_enterprise.htm

[JaapHoetmer 0]

Having read through the many comments I see a lot of frustration and concerns that mimic our own. We have deployed ERA6 at several of our customers, but have become more and more frustrated by the complicated setup, lack of documentation, and weird user interface logic.

It is customary that version upgrades introduce new features and a new vision, so we accepted a learning curve, but after several months of struggling we've not come any closer to a reliable use of the various installations, and security risks are mounting as a result.

V6 is simply too much for small and medium businesses, where time is limited and more costly than with larger organisations. My clients won't foot the bill for hours of tweaking and trying to get it right.

Therefore we have decided to revert back to v5, and when the time comes that v5 will no longer be supported, we will review the situation and our options, and decide which AV solution to adopt. One of our customers is currently using GData with 100 endpoints, and their management server looks promising. Pushing endpoints is a breeze.

Having just completed our own ERA v5 installation, and pushing the first end point, within the space of one hour, I am very happy to have gone back to the trusted v5 environment, it simply works well.

ERA V6 is at present just too much for what it is supposed to do.

[MichalJ 434]

@JaapHoetmer Will you be interested in sharing your experiences with ESET directly? We will be interested to hear the pain-points, as it´s our best interest to resolve them for our customers and partners. However, as you have correctly stated, V5 EOL date is approaching, and it´s not possible for us, to maintain it for the future.  If you will be interested in a more direct talk, please send me a PM.

[bbahes 29]

7 minutes ago, MichalJ said:

@JaapHoetmer Will you be interested in sharing your experiences with ESET directly? We will be interested to hear the pain-points, as it´s our best interest to resolve them for our customers and partners. However, as you have correctly stated, V5 EOL date is approaching, and it´s not possible for us, to maintain it for the future.  If you will be interested in a more direct talk, please send me a PM.

I have already tried contacting you but you have not responded to my request for direct or Skype meeting. However, since we don't use v6 it was not so critical to arrange this meeting. What I would love to hear from you is v7 status, maybe late access to documentation. Has anything been done to improve documentation?

Regards!

[MichalJ 434]

@bbahes

I have not forgotten about you. We have your contact form, I will handle it to my colleagues handling research with SMB customers / re-sellers and they will contact you shortly (next week, most probably). Concerning the V7, that one is in the works, we do anticipate having it done in upcoming months, with release by H1/2018 (as of now, I can´t provide any more granular timeline).

Concerning the documentation, we are periodically improving it. What are the areas of your interest in particular?

[bbahes 29]

16 hours ago, JaapHoetmer said:

Having read through the many comments I see a lot of frustration and concerns that mimic our own. We have deployed ERA6 at several of our customers, but have become more and more frustrated by the complicated setup, lack of documentation, and weird user interface logic.

It is customary that version upgrades introduce new features and a new vision, so we accepted a learning curve, but after several months of struggling we've not come any closer to a reliable use of the various installations, and security risks are mounting as a result.

V6 is simply too much for small and medium businesses, where time is limited and more costly than with larger organisations. My clients won't foot the bill for hours of tweaking and trying to get it right.

Therefore we have decided to revert back to v5, and when the time comes that v5 will no longer be supported, we will review the situation and our options, and decide which AV solution to adopt. One of our customers is currently using GData with 100 endpoints, and their management server looks promising. Pushing endpoints is a breeze.

Having just completed our own ERA v5 installation, and pushing the first end point, within the space of one hour, I am very happy to have gone back to the trusted v5 environment, it simply works well.

ERA V6 is at present just too much for what it is supposed to do.

By the way, latest V6.5 version is much much better than previous V6.x releases.

[kingoftheworld 10]

6 hours ago, bbahes said:

By the way, latest V6.5 version is much much better than previous V6.x releases.

Agreed on this part.  I am actually almost hesitant to move from 6.5 to 7 until it is a couple major revisions in.  But the sooner I get my hands on a beta version to install on my dev server, the sooner I will feel comfortable. 

[MichalJ 434]

@kingoftheworld Thank you for your feedback.

From the perspective of 6.5 => 7.0 Migration. The difference would not be as in case 5=>6, it will be more like 6.5 => 6.6 (which will not happen, we will move to 7, due to changes in Endpoint, and other related products, that will interact with ERA).

ERA V7 will be provided as a in-place upgrade, using the component upgrade task. You will see it in the repository, and it will be your choice, to upgrade it or not. It will be also background compatible with older agents. In order to benefit from the new functionality (push wake ups, improved replication protocol, hardware inventory - just to name a few), you will however need to upgrade also the agents. As soon as the "beta" will be ready, we will share it with you here. I do not want to over-promise, but in early 2018 it should be possible.