How do you bring a command-line, documentation-dependent infrastructure task into a modern web interface — without losing the power that expert administrators depend on?
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cloud providers supported
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key design decisions
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net-new, no prior UI
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section information architecture
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HCL BigFix is an enterprise endpoint management platform used by large organizations to discover, secure, patch, and manage thousands of devices across their network—from laptops and servers to cloud virtual machines. Originally built for on-premise infrastructure and managed through a traditional desktop console, BigFix is now transitioning to a modern web UI as part of a broader SaaS transformation.
As enterprises rapidly shifted workloads to the cloud, a critical gap emerged. IT teams were discovering and managing cloud instances outside BigFix, then trying to reconcile that data manually. This created blind spots in security posture and compliance reporting — the very things BigFix is designed to prevent.
BigFix addresses this through cloud plugins — provider-specific connectors that automatically discover cloud instances and bring them into BigFix for management. This project was about designing the administrative interface to install, configure, and manage those plugins from within the BigFix WebUI for the first time.
The Core Gap Cloud infrastructure is dynamic and ephemeral. New instances spin up, get terminated, and change regions constantly. Without a way to automatically discover and onboard these devices, enterprise environments have blind spots. Unmanaged cloud instances become unpatched vulnerabilities — a direct security and compliance risk.
A key technical detail that shaped the design: the Plugin Portal is a dedicated component introduced in BigFix 10, specifically built to manage cloud devices as well as modern devices such as Windows 10 and macOS endpoints enrolled in BigFix. It acts as the host for all cloud plugins. Without the Plugin Portal installed and running, no cloud plugin can function—making it a hard prerequisite that had to be surfaced prominently in the UI.
Plugin Management sits under Administration → System Configuration. Five sub-sections: Plugin overview, Authentication, General settings, Provider specific settings, Advanced settings.
Plugin Management sits under Administration → System Configuration → Plugin Management—a privileged section accessible only to Master Operators. It was one of several net-new sections being designed as part of the BigFix Settings redesign initiative, alongside SMTP Configuration and Authentication (SAML/LDAP).
BigFix operates across a complex organizational hierarchy. Research surfaced a rich ecosystem of interdependent users—each with distinct goals, mental models, and pain points. Understanding this landscape was critical to designing a plugin management experience that fits real workflows.