Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Difference between Intune Standalone and ConfigMgr hybrid mode

When using Microsoft Intune, you can choose between Intune Standalone and ConfigMgr hybrid mode. Both have their own pros and cons. Microsoft is still recommending hybrid mode, because then you have best of both worlds. Point is, I'm not convinced anymore. Both ConfigMgr and Intune are great products, where Intune still need some development on new features. Customers are not always convinced about the solution, asking more enterprise features.
 
Having a look at my experience so far, I detect the following:
 
Intune standalone (pros):
-Easy to setup, Software As A Service (SAAS) solution;
-Can be managed everywhere with internet access;
-Very fast on enrollment of applications and/or policies (!);
-Can be used for both patch management & antivirus on endpoints with internet access;
-New features are released immediately.
Intune standalone (cons):
-With ConfigMgr in-place, two consoles for management;
-On some parts, less features then hybrid mode;
-You need to sign-in at every application change.
 
ConfigMgr hybrid mode (pros):
-Recommended configuration by Microsoft;
-Best of both worlds in a single management console;
-More features then Intune standalone;
-Deployment types and deployments are easier to handle.
ConfigMgr hybrid mode (cons):
-Less easy to setup; on-premises ConfigMgr infrastructure needed;
-Cannot be managed from everywhere, on-premises ConfigMgr console needed;
-Way slower on enrollment of applications and/or policies (!);
-Cannot be used for both patch management & antivirus on endpoints with internet access, because you need direct access or internet-based client management (IBCM) for that;
-New features will released slower in hybrid mode.

So yes, Microsoft is working on the feature part, and new features are available in ConfigMgr hybrid mode sooner. This because of the Service Connection point in ConfigMgr Current Branch.
But what's most annoying, You cannot have both patch management & antivirus on endpoints with internet access, because a ConfigMgr agent will be present on the device. Not an Intune agent, pointing to a SAAS solution. Therefore additional solutions like direct access or internet-based client management (IBCM) are needed.

And overall; when deploying applications and/or policies from Intune standalone, they are applied in few seconds. Within ConfigMgr hybrid mode it can take multiple hours (or more) when something happens. Still I truly believe in ConfigMgr hybrid mode, having best of both worlds. But Microsoft still needs some development for a way better experience on that! Hope they will soon :-)

More on that in a next blogpost. Thanks for reading.
Read more on part 2 and part 3

3 comments:

  1. Great article. For organisations thinking of cloud management, would you recommended Azure AD + Workplace Join + Intune, or stick with On-premise AD and SCCM + Intune integration to manage Windows 10?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for comment. It's hard to say which recommendation is better. First one is more future-proof, second one is most seen these days..

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  2. Very informative, our management is considering MDM solution, however I understand SCCM+Intune requires AD synch with Azure AD which is allowed per our security. Any suggestions, if we can manage devices without Synching AD to Azure (cloud).?

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