NetOp Remote Control 7.65: Support Tool or Trade Secret? Support Tool or Trade Secret? Mike Houghton
In the enterprise IT support arena, the growing need to comply with the corporate mandate to reduce the time and cost of providing world-class support continues to challenge CEOs. In the wake of this strategy, support and help desk teams are increasingly relying on remote tools to help them meet these challenges.
Just recently I had the opportunity to test drive an application by Danware Data A/S based out of Birkerod Denmark, specifically the latest version 7.65 of their NetOp Remote Control program. Despite having been around the block a few times, so to speak, I caught myself raising my eyebrows in astonishment on several occasions while using the application.
In the continuing search for a useful and secure remote utility, I put this program through the paces of what I considered to be a typical day in the life of a support tech, if there is such a thing. I installed both the NetOp Remote Control "Guest client" and the "Host client" on a variety of hardware platforms, from older to newer machines, all running Windows 2000 Professional, as this was the environment with which I was most concerned at the moment.
Basic setup and installation went without a hitch. The guest client even features the ability to be run from a removable storage device such as a keychain USB drive. Running the program and using some basic functions (i.e. actually remoting into another machine on my network) was very simple and fast. This included the clients over the WAN with a variety of connection types and speeds. I also found the interface to be useful, intuitive, and uncluttered.
Speaking from the perspective of a daily user of remote control-based tools, I can confidently say that any enterprise IT-based support business would benefit from taking a closer look at NetOp Remote Control. Discussing NetOp's focus on security will make it easier to justify the study.
Attention to Security
The program's Security Management section will help you to eliminate that blank stare (emanating from you, of course) when your VP asks if your remote tools are secure. Backed with the knowledge that this application was conceived nearly 20 years ago as a testing and support tool for mission-critical database applications responsible for managing European stock markets, you can safely say, "Yes Sir/M'am, my remote tools are well tested and secure!"
As with nearly all support applications, there are features that may be useful to some support groups and not to others. Having the ability to black out the host machine's screen when you remote into it is a nice feature to have, and handy too in a variety of situations.
I especially like the powerful drag and drop feature. As for some of the others, a few of my favorites include the audio and real-time chat sessions, the centralized security (among many of the other potent security tools), the stealth mode, PDA support, and my personal pick for top honors, the ability to automatically collect scanned inventory items directly into a corporate asset management database. This is an especially nice feature to use, for example, when you have clients that don't like to report back on their software inventory.
Other remote tools often have difficulty supporting NAT'd or low bandwidth-routing locations, not to dismiss the scores of video compatibility,
encryption, and rebooting problems that competing remote tools tend to experience. NetOp exhibited no such problems under these situations.
