Systems Management

Giidday MMW,

We have a MS environment for 4000 users. Bandwidth testing has shown us that the SMS Remote Tool has less impact on the pipe (128K frame). As far as ease of use and functionality go DameWare Mini Remote and MSTSC offer more versatility. MSTSC doesn't have the user interaction component which is sometimes desirable. Dameware had the largest 'presence' but is in our opinion is superior to other remote tools because of it's non reliance on existing software/SOE configuration and is easily configurable. We also have in use VNC and have tested the mini VNC, both giving issues and poor performance (as well as huge licensing cost) I would recommend you keep a selection of 2-3 products available to cater for those contingencies when your primary remote tool just falls over for your Lv1 support group.

Thanks Wayne,

We also tried a few VNC versions, but didn't get the performance we were looking for either. I am going to try out DameWare and maybe it's the solution we are looking for.

Thanks

I love DameWare because it can deploy the client agent itself so all you have to worry about is network connectivity and having the security credencials to install the agent.

For ease of use UltraVNC is great. All the user does is double click a file and you're connected. It does have some speed issue -- not near as fast as Terminal Services.

Since we are on this subject,
does anyone have a remote control tool that does not inform a user of being controlled? I know old versions of VNC could be hacked to not show icon in the taskbar, but it doesn't work on newer versions...

We use Novell ZENworks for Desktops. Within this huge Software Suite is a Remote Control Utility as well. We're happy with it. Since it is very reliable and easy to use.
The Remote Management is policy enabled. What I want to say is, you can define for each Computer or Computer Groups, whether the users will notice being remote controlled or not. You can even blank their screen to do things that they may not see or lock the users mouse and keyboard to not being disturbed during a Remote Session.

Cheers

Roland

If you are using DameWare, make sure that you configure the application to remove itself from the remote client when disconnecting - just from a housekeeping point of view.

We use CA Unicenter Remote Control and it has the ability to be used for Stealth Viewing. You can also do a Secure Control method that blanks the screen and disables the keyboard/mouse on the other end. The default mode is Shared Control, which allows you to interact with the User's session. As a caveat to the Stealth View, you can record your sessions for monitoring purposes or to retrace the steps that have lead to an error. I have also created some informationals for our users using that feature.


ORIGINAL: revizor

Since we are on this subject,
does anyone have a remote control tool that does not inform a user of being controlled? I know old versions of VNC could be hacked to not show icon in the taskbar, but it doesn't work on newer versions...

I recently built a new system for myself and after loading the Landesk Console my remote control won't work anymore was there another program I need to install?
thanks guys

I found one site I worked with has discontinued use of DameWare because they find it to be insecure due to this issue.

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/395987