Concentrated Tech compares Dameware Remote Support v9, Dell Desktop Authority Standard 9, and Goverlan Remote Admin Suite v7

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Concentrated Tech’s CompareScope™ evaluates Goverlan’s distinctive features to support Microsoft Windows-based infrastructures.

Concentrated Tech, a recognized industry source, featured the Goverlan Remote Admin Suite v7 along with Dameware Remote Support v9 and Dell’s Desktop Authority Standard 9 (primarily its ExpertAssist feature) in a Remote Support Solutions CompareScope™, an objective compare-and-contrast piece assessing the differentiating aspects of the remote administration solutions.

“ The Goverlan and Dameware solutions address the same problem space within an organization, although the Goverlan product offers broader functionality and deeper management reach. Its approach to batch administration – action scopes, a GUI-based task sequencer, and so on – offer extended opportunities for use, and take the product almost to the point of being a full-fledged systems management tool…”

About Concentrated Technology

Founded by industry experts Don Jones and Greg Shields, Concentrated Tech is a boutique technology analysis and education firm that focuses on bridging technology and business by offering strategic consulting, timely education, and expert analysis.

http://www.concentratedtech.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the complete CompareScope™ analysis by Concentrated Tech, click here.

Here are some highlights from the review:

User and Desktop Management and Support

In the area of User and Desktop Management and Support, the analysis found subtle differences between the solutions;

“For example, when managing printers, environment variables, and other user-specific settings, the Goverlan solution is multi-user aware. When managing a shared computer, for example, Goverlan can ‘see’ individual user profiles and permit you to modify them individually or all at once. This can be a significant advantage; the Dell solution accomplishes this by modifying the profile when the user logs on, rather than in real-time.  Another example: when searching for objects in AD DS, the Goverlan solution provides a simplified UI that enables an administrator to directly search for attribute names. Typing ‘department = sales,’ for example, retrieves all users in the Sales department. The Dameware solution supports AD DS searching through the standard OS dialog, which provides full functionality but is somewhat more complicated to use.”

A key functional component for a remote administration solution is the ability to manage components ‘behind the scenes’ with minimal or no user interaction – or cognizance – without requiring a remote control session. The analysis found that all three solutions can run many background processes, including managing startup items,printers,mapped drives and auto-logon.

Configuration Management

In managing configurations, the analysis found; “Because it is designed as a configuration management tool, the Dell solution offers a broader range of built-in configuration tweaks and settings. These are centrally defined, downloaded by their client agent, and applied at logon…Most of these settings are in the registry, making them manageable with either the Goverlan or Dameware products as well, although those two products do not pre-define configuration packages for these.”

Batch Processing

The analysis also looked at batch processing capabilities, observing;

“The Dameware solution’s batch processing capabilities are limited. You can, in a batch, deploy the solution’s client agent, install services, deploy registry files, manage power state (restart, shutdown, etc.), send pop-up messages, and a handful of other selected tasks.

By contrast, the Goverlan solution has extensive batch processing capabilities. You can define ‘scopes’, which are groups of computers, users, or AD DS groups. Scopes can consist of static lists, AD DS sites or containers, IP address ranges, and so on. An extensive set of actions, broadly categorized as ‘reporting,’ ‘setting,’ and ‘executing‘ are built-in, and custom actions can be created… Execution can include nearly anything the solution is capable of doing on a per-computer basis, including network settings, printers, processes, software, for a total of several dozen discrete actions.

The Dell solution offers the strongest contrast, as it is not intended for real-time batch deployment. Instead, you create configuration policies and rules, which are deployed to computers at logon.”

Team Features

No Sysadmin is an island – often times, resolving problems quickly and maintaining an enterprise’s network depends on the cohesive and coordinated actions of an efficient IT team. By the same token, in using previously saved and configured admin items, a single sysadmin can save significant amounts of time and effort.

“Because it uses a central configuration repository (database), the Dell solution’s configuration is automatically shared across all administrators using the product. We were not able to discover any means of sharing configuration data between users of the Dameware solution. The Goverlan solution supports sharing computer lists, console layouts, remote control connection sets, software installer packages, batch action sequences, and batch action target lists.”

Centralized Settings Management

Concentrated Tech also assessed the solutions’ ability to manage settings centrally, including administrative permissions, base configuration settings, and audit configuration;

“We were unable to discover any central settings administration in the Dameware product.

The Dell solution uses a central repository and supports central administration of the application’s settings. The Goverlan solution offers configuration control via Group Policy object (GPO) templates. For more real-time, non-overridable control, the free Goverlan Central Server can be used to enforce settings at the desktop application.”

The Verdict

In summary, the Concentrated Tech analysis concluded;

“The Goverlan and Dameware solutions address the same problem space within an organization, although the Goverlan product offers broader functionality and deeper management reach. Its approach to batch administration – action scopes, a GUI-based task sequencer, and so on – offer extended opportunities for use, and take the product almost to the point of being a full-fledged systems management tool…The addition of the Goverlan Central Server provides additional capabilities for centralization of audit records, amongst other things. Desktop Authority is positioned more as a configuration management solution, with some convenient remote administration features added in.”

 

 

 

 

Goverlan Remote Administration Suite v7 vs. LANDesk Management Suite 9.5

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“ [With Goverlan’s Scope Actions,] you can create an action that detects a PC’s architecture, deletes a file that may or may not be present on the target, deploys an executable installer file to the target, and creates a registry key to configure that software—all from a single action.”

by Jonathan Hassell

Author, consultant and speaker on a variety of IT topics. His published works includes Learning Windows Server 2003 from O’Reilly, and his work appears regularly in such periodicals as Windows IT Pro, PC Pro and TechNet Magazine. He also speaks worldwide on topics ranging from networking and security to Windows administration.

http://www.jonathanhassell.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you want a tool that will help you tame the beasts within your network? Do you want a tool that will give you a unified view of all of the clients on your network and help you manage one or more of them at the same time, all from the comfort of your workstation? Both Goverlan Remote Administration Suite version 7 and LANDesk Management Suite version 9.5 purport to offer this rolled up view of your network all from a single pane of glass. But which product will better fit your needs? Let’s take a look at each of the offerings and see where they are comparable and where they differ.

Product Features

Both Goverlan and LANDesk have similar network management capabilities. They both use agent software installed on client machines to expose management operations to administrators. Each product lets you query information about devices on your network as well as execute processes, perform actions, report on status and configuration, and more. Both products operate from a Windows console based application, but LANDesk also has the ability to operate from a web-based application. While this is a convenient feature for solving problems quickly no matter where an administrator is, I preferred the better response time and more fully featured console clients that both products offered.

One unique feature of LANDesk is the ability to touch and manage clients outside the boundaries of a corporate network through the Management Gateway feature. You purchase a specialized appliance (this is a cost in addition to that of the LANdesk Management Suite product itself) that sits within your network and then use the LANdesk consoles to remotely control, manage, perform actions on, block, and otherwise manage clients wherever they are on the Internet. Goverlan manages client machines within the enterprise network only, and while Goverlan supports remote control of clients over the Internet, it is not possible to initiate management actions on clients outside of that remote control session.

A win for Goverlan’s column on the scorecard is the Scope Actions tool, which allows you to easily define a scope of targets—they could be users, computers or groups—using powerful filtering and selection criteria. Then you can define the administrative actions to perform on that scope, which can be essentially anything Windows permits you to do, including Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) queries, and run those actions either on an ad-hoc, scheduled or recurring basis. Scope actions can be quite complex, with multiple steps and dependencies. For example, you can create an action that detects a PC’s architecture, deletes a file that may or may not be present on the target, deploys an executable installer file to the target, and creates a registry key to configure that software—all from a single action. You can configure the action to only happen if certain properties are true or false as well. Scope actions are very flexible and can support even complex scenarios that might occur in day to day operations for an administrator.

“ It would take a major investment in training, both in terms of time and money, to fully understand and learn how to manage a network using LANDesk. Goverlan, however, boasts a tight, easy to use interface that is quick and responsive–one that I have found is easy to be productive with in just minutes.”

LANDesk has a complicated deployment and rollout strategy that involves a couple of different types of servers: one type that provides the basic infrastructure and management services to administrators, and then a database server that stores the records for the application. These roles can be installed on a single server for moderate use but do require some management and in larger deployment, an additional license for full-blown SQL Server is required. In contrast, Goverlan is a lightweight installable product that requires no servers to use as a fully-featured solution (there is a central administration server available but it is included with all licenses at no additional cost.)

It isn’t just deployment that is complicated in LANDesk; configuring the service and managing day to day operations can often be a bear. It would take a major investment in training, both in terms of time and money, to fully understand and learn how to manage a network using LANDesk. Goverlan, however, boasts a tight, easy to use interface that is quick and responsive–one that I have found is easy to be productive with in just minutes.

LANDesk Management Suite has a special emphasis on software distribution and license management. Multiple options are available for packaging and automating the installation of software as well as bare metal builds of client computers with no operating system. Goverlan does not really focus on software distribution; while it can kick off installation program, it does not assist with packaging or reporting.

In terms of client operating system support, management functions are available for most recent and vintage Windows operating systems in both products, while LANDesk expands management capabilities to Macintosh clients as well as various editions of Linux, Solaris, and HP UX.

Pricing and Support

While Goverlan’s Remote Administration Suite is priced at $699 per administrator with no client node fee, LANDesk does their pricing on a per-user basis as well; however, the cost is much higher, on the order of System Center Configuration Manager from Microsoft. Goverlan provides bulk discounts off list price for their products. LANDesk pricing is negotiated.

Goverlan provides 90 days of live technical support, and non-expiring e-mail support, with every license, and you can purchase one or two year extended maintenance which offers live technical support and upgrade coverage.. According to the LANDesk corporate website, customers can use 24×7 pay-for telephone based support, dedicated support resources, online self-service, system health checks, e-learning, and tech support in English, French, German, and Japanese.

The Verdict

LANdesk is a very capable software product that finds itself right at home in large, cross platform organizations that have a specific need for a solution that emphasizes software package distribution and license management. If those elements are not central to your network management strategy, then you can save a ton of money and get substantial management and control features in an easier to deploy package by choosing Goverlan Remote Administration Suite v7.

IT Group Uses Goverlan Remote Administration Suite to Support Network Infrastructure at Kingdon Capital Management, LLC

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Goverlan improves first-call resolution & efficiency for IT Group supporting fast-paced trading firm.   

IT Group at Kingdon Capital Management has been successfully using Goverlan Remote Administration Suite to provide secure and fast systems support to international traders around the clock. The group also manages the firm’s IT infrastructure during hectic business hours.

The IT Group, consisting of 4 admins operating from one central office, must support and troubleshoot approximately 200 desktops and 25 servers without disturbing the users, whose uninterrupted workflow is critical to the daily operation of the busy securities trading firm in New York City, NY.

”Other solutions had limitations on what you could do once connected and the performance was often terrible and intrusive. With Goverlan we’ve increased our first-call resolution by 95%…we can also perform tasks in the background with minimal or no interruption to the user”

After evaluating other system management solutions, the IT Group chose Goverlan because of its extensive administrative capabilities, instant access to real-time, comprehensive machine/user information, and ability to run tasks and troubleshoot inconspicuously without disrupting users’ work. “Other solutions had limitations on what you could do once connected and the performance was often terrible and intrusive,” explained Vince Rooney, Chief Technology Officer.

“With Goverlan we’ve increased our first-call resolution by 95%. In many cases we can also perform tasks in the background with minimal or no interruption to the user, who can continue to use their phone or manage paperwork undisturbed. Before Goverlan, we had to visit each user’s desktop and interrupt their workflow as we worked at their computer to resolve the issue,” he added.

In an environment where time is of the essence, staying proactive in preventing issues and monitoring problematic users/machines is vital. With Goverlan’s drill-down GUI, which puts in-depth, real-time machine information at an administrator’s fingertips, the IT Group has been able to radically increase their efficiency and diagnostics acumen. Moreover, the IT Group can report on and pushsoftware updates to maintain their network security. “We now have the ability to drill down into various aspects of the desktop OS when troubleshooting issues, which greatly expedites and streamlines our process. We can drill down on a machine and take a look at what processes and programs are running and check things like system stats and memory utilization. In our fast-paced environment, being able to see everything that is happening at a machine allows us to hit the ground running,” elaborated Rooney.

“With Goverlan, we have saved so much time and effort; because we can perform our tasks and troubleshoot more efficiently, our staff can also be on hand to handle calls while performing other tasks. Goverlan continues to get better with each new version and has become a staple in our environment,” he concluded.

 

To learn more, read the full case study here.

 

About Kingdon Capital Management, LLC

Founded in 1983 by Mark Kingdon, Kingdon Capital Management offers Global Long/Short Equity and Long/Short Credit strategies. The firm’s specialized investment research teams are focused by industry, region or asset class and its investment approach incorporates top-down macroeconomic and bottom-up fundamental research with a focus on liquidity, diversification and dynamic exposure management. The firm’s diverse global client base includes prominent endowments, foundations, corporate and public pension funds, family offices and financial institutions, with managed assets totaling $2.6 billion.

 

Goverlan Remote Administration Suite Helps Lean IT Department Tackle Hefty Task at Ellenville Central School District

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Goverlan allows two-person IT team to provide exceptional IT systems support to entire school district.

Ellenville Central School District’s IT Department is using the Goverlan Goverlan Remote Administration Suite to support their network infrastructure, ensuring the district’s mission of providing the highest academic standards to its students in Ellenville, NY.

The Ellenville IT Department consists of one systems administrator and one technician and is responsible for 2,000 students and 300 staff – totaling 750 computers. Goverlan’s systems admin capabilities and integrated functionality, which make scripting virtually unnecessary, has allowed the department to drastically improve time-to-resolution and make their day-to-day tasks more efficient and expedient. “A lot of the functionality that I might take the time to write in a script is already built into Goverlan with Scope Actions. Within a few clicks I can build a ‘Scope’ to automate a task that might have taken me an hour or two to write and test in a script – now I can test and deploy in 10-15 minutes,” remarked Bill Cramer, Director of Operations and Network Administration.

The Ellenville IT Department frequently uses Goverlan’s Scope Actions feature to save valuable time. Scope Actions allows a SysAdmin to define a scope of targets – users, computers or groups, – use powerful filtering and selection criteria to define the actions to perform on that scope, and then run those actions either ad-hoc, scheduled to run when needed, or on a recurring basis. “We use ‘Scopes’ to run reports for our computer inventory, asset management,  patch management and software licensing; as a tool to make global changes to software or PC management; to make changes in our server infrastructure; and also for software Active Directory records or inventory on a regular basis. We also use Scopes to run reports, make machine changes, and install software remotely on mass numbers of machines,” explained Cramer.

“From the standpoint of Dameware and LANDesk, Goverlan was much easier to use, more cost-effective, and a more full-featured program…A lot of the functionality that I might take the time to write in a script is already built into Goverlan’s Scope Actions. Within a few clicks I can build a ‘Scope’ to automate a task that might have taken me an hour or two to write and test in a script – now I can test and deploy in 10-15 minutes”

Goverlan also makes it easy to share frequently-used, complicated tasks with the entire IT team by simply clicking to share and run. “We have greatly reduced our operational time by being able to recycle and reuse these Scope Actions on other projects as they arise,” added Cramer.

Goverlan offers perpetual licenses that are priced per technician, with no node fees. In a time of dwindling budgets for school IT departments, this makes it a particularly cost-effective systems management solution. “With its no-cost-per-client motto, the current pricing model allows for an organization to purchase Goverlan for its available tech staff while not having to purchase it for all their desktops and servers, which would be significantly costlier. This model is very much in line with the available support budgets in K-12 technology departments,” described Cramer.

After evaluating other solutions, Cramer chose Goverlan as Ellenville’s systems management solution for its ease of use, quick return on investment, and extensive feature set. noting; “From the standpoint of Dameware and LANDesk, Goverlan was much easier to use, more cost-effective, and a more full-featured program…Goverlan’s return on investment was seen on day one; the functionality of all the components makes it a well-rounded tool to meet any helpdesk management needs and its advanced feature set allows for an unlimited number of uses for systems management.”

 

For more information, read the full case study at our site

  

About Ellenville Central School District

The Ellenville Central School District endeavors to be a school community in which all children learn, achieve, and exceed the competencies outlined in the New York State Learning Standards as prescribed by the Board of Regents and the Board of Education. The District maintains the highest academic standards to provide every student with a foundation that will make them life-long learners, capable of competing in a world economy.  To learn more, visit ecs.k12.ny.us

 

 

 

 

Goverlan Provides All-in-One Remote Administration Solution to Communications Leader Teltech

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Goverlan helps Teltech slash costs and time, increase staff productivity, and provide more efficient support to sustain the company’s global expansion.

Teltech Communications, LLC, a leader in legacy and next generation telecommunications networks and worldwide supplier of communications solutions, has implemented the Goverlan Remote Administration Suite  to support its domestic and emergent global clients.

“The product is intuitive and just works; the management suite is full of cool tools. We’d used many alternate solutions in the past, from Radmin to VNC to Net Support, but have always preferred Goverlan because of its ease-of-use and deployment, cost-effective licensing, and the built-in management capabilities like Active Directory integration, remote command line access, system information, and network scanner, among many, and a powerful remote control component that supports multiple monitors easily,” stated Patterson Cake, IT Director.

Goverlan presented an all-in-one, integrated and unified solution with a simple licensing model – a perpetual license per admin with no node limit – at an affordable price.

“Prior to Goverlan, we used a combination of tools depending upon the need and circumstance.  For example, Windows Remote Desktop is a great tool for non-interactive support that requires no user involvement, yet it doesn’t work very well when trying to educate a user or when supporting a sales person who may not have a Windows Professional operating system. We were using Internet-based tools for interactive support, but these required user involvement to initiate a session, which didn’t work well for day-to-day maintenance tasks,” described Cake.

Goverlan can be used for non-interactive user support whereby an admin can perform tasks remotely while the user continues their work uninterrupted. Daily maintenance tasks can be executed in the background and sessions can be initiated without user involvement. In cases where more interactive support is required, Goverlan’s user-centric interface allows admins to quickly pinpoint logged-in workstations by username search and instantly access in-depth, real-time system information in an intuitive drill-down menu. The Teltech support team can also invite multiple admins to a remote control session and have interactive chat sessions among admins and users during or outside sessions.

“With Goverlan, we now have the ability to observe, interact and instruct as required per support situation. Interactive support is simply a requirement for many end-user support scenarios, as users are prone to report ‘it’s broken’, which isn’t very descriptive or helpful! It is invaluable to be able to ‘join’ a session with a user, ask them to repeat their actions or demonstrate the problem,” he added.

The team at Teltech now performs all of their support and troubleshooting tasks from one centralized solution, saving substantial time and costs to sustain the company’s global expansion. “Our primary facility being over 200,000 square feet, we use Goverlan’s remote control component extensively to support our end-users. Not having to visit individual workstations is invaluable, whether at the far corner of our building, across town or across the country,” elaborated Cake. “Like most small to mid-sized businesses today, staffing is one of our most-significant IT expenditures. Tangible cost savings from Goverlan’s suite of support tools comes down to increasing staff efficiency. Being able to engage a user or system from our desks without having to repeatedly walk from one end of the building to the other saves us thousands of dollars per year,” he added.

Additionally, by using one comprehensive solution with a negligible learning curve, Teltech can slash the costs associated with training and maintain a more productive and streamlined support team.

“We have recently used Goverlan to help us organize and maintain users and computers in AD, expedite Group Policy updates,  install printers on workstations in remote locations, and provide remote Internet support via Remote Assistance, all of which will help us as we grow and become more geographically dispersed,” emphasized Cake.

 

For more information, read the full case study here.

  

About Teltech

Founded in 1999 by Kelley Church and Lisa Hanlon, Teltech has successfully grown to become a recognized industry leader, offering technical and project management services in a wide variety of disciplines including engineering, operations, construction, logistics and strategic planning, and spanning multiple wireless and broadband technologies including CDMA, UMTS, GSM, WiFi and WiMAX voice and data networks.  Teltech’s goal is to be the wireless industry’s first choice for services throughout all the stages of the wireless network lifecycle.  Teltech is certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, GSA Schedule 70, California Public Utilities Commission and Woman Business Enterprise. Learn more at ttcsales.com.

 

How to query the machines activated for the Goverlan product on your network

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For some of our large clients, keeping track of license usage of the Goverlan product is difficult.

In some cases, the license key is embedded within the distribution package so that an automatic activation is performed upon installation of the Goverlan product. In other cases, the license key is simply made available along with the advertised product. In these contexts, the activation count quickly gets out of control over time, and a clean up needs to be done.

This article explains a way to scan your computers and generate a report of machines which are activated for a Goverlan product.

These steps must be performed on a machine equipped with the Goverlan Remote Administration Suite.

Preparing Goverlan to Query License Information

  1. Download the following utlity http://www.goverlan.com/Downloads/dodata/GovLicQuery_v1.zip  and extract its content under your local drive (let’s assume C:\Script\GovLicQuery )
  2.  Open Goverlan v7 and select the Scope Action feature.
  3. Double click on Add New Scope Action…
  4. Enter the Scope Name:  Report Goverlan Activated Machines and click on Next
  5. Select the Computers Target Object Type and double click on the Add New icon to define your machine scope. Define the scope of machines that you wish to scan, and click on Ok, then Next.
  6. Double click on the Add New to create a new Action Module.
  7. Under Execute the following Action(s): (blue window), clcik on
    Add / Remove > Execute Computer Action > Processes > Run a Batch or Script PACKAGE
    SA_RunBatchScript
  8. In the argument window, click on the [...] button of the Batch Package attribute, and select Add / Remove Batch & Scripts Packages…
  9. In the Batch Manager, click on the green PLUS sign to add a batch, and enter the name Query Goverlan License Info
  10. Under Run enter:  C:\Script\GovLicQuery\CheckLicense.bat  (assuming that you have store the utility under this path.
  11. Under Transfer make sure the following options are enabled:
    Transfer the program to the following directory then run from local path
    Transfer the entire parent directory
  12. Under Output
    Enable Wait for completion
    Record console output to:  C:\Script\GovLicQuery\Report.txt    The configuration window should look like this:
    RunBatchScript_Config
  13. Click on Apply > Ok.
  14. Back on the Argument window, click again on the [...] button of the Batch Package attribute, and this time select Query Goverlan License Info. Click on Ok.
  15. Click on Ok to configure the Action Module window.
  16. Click on Next and Finish.

Running the Query License Information Report

  1. Select the  Report Goverlan Activated Machines scope action object, right click on it and select Run.
  2. Wait for the execution to complete.
  3. Open the C:\Script\GovLicQuery\Report.txt file to view your report

GovBlogActivation Screens

 

 

 

Goverlan Remote Administration Suite – Not Your Standard Remote CMD & Task Manager

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Under The Hood

Imagine going to a mechanic and telling him you may have an oil leak. Then the mechanic opens the hood and takes out a spatula and frying pan…

Every tech should have the proper tools and know how to use them. One of the first things you are taught when troubleshooting issues in any version of Windows is how to use the command line and the task manager. They are the trusty number 10 wrench and flathead screwdriver that every mechanic should know how to use.

But here’s something that even mechanics cannot do yet; let’s get the command line and task manager to work remotely!!  You may say, “So what Mr. Goverlan, there are plenty of remote command line and task manager tools”.

Well, in this blog we are going to talk about how the Goverlan Remote Administration Suite goes above and beyond your expectations for a Remote CMD and Task Manager.  The Goverlan Remote Administration Suite adds a layer of functionality to these standard tools to extend their ordinary use, making your job faster and your life easier.

 

“The Goverlan Remote CMD and Task Manager go beyond the standard functionality of the useful utilities. ”

 

Goverlan Remote CMD

Let’s start with the Goverlan Remote CMD. When it comes to the command line, the requirements are really simple. Give me a flashing cursor – that’s it. You should be able to troubleshoot anything once you see that command line cursor.

With the Goverlan Remote Admin Suite, one of your best tools will be the Remote CMD.

GovCons

First of all, the Goverlan Remote CMD allows you to switch between target computers very easily. You can switch from Computer A to Computer B with the ‘Connect To’ link.

The next awesome thing about the Goverlan Remote CMD is that you can also switch the user account that the console is running as. You can run CMD as the console user, as yourself or as any account that is logged into the workstation or server. Now you can see how commands will behave with the permissions of the account you select. This is very useful for troubleshooting access rights issues to network shares, UAC problems or environment variable issues.

GvConsshadow

Now for the BIG PICTURE! When Microsoft announced they were no longer supporting the ability to natively shadow remote desktop sessions, many Citrix Xenapp and Remote Desktop admins lost the ability to help their users. With Goverlan you can get that power back and more! Point the Goverlan Remote CMD to your terminal server or Citrix Xenapp Servers and run the console as any user who has an active session. Forget about shadowing, just fire up the Goverlan Remote CMD and run a ‘net use’ command to see what drives are being mapped in less than 5 seconds!

Or get down and dirty with Powershell. Run any Powershell command by simply starting the command with “powershell” – like this:

C:\>powershell “get-wmiObject -class Win32_printer | ft name, systemName, shareName” and get a list of printers by querying WMI. This is very handy for troubleshooting Citrix Universal Printer Driver problems.

GovConsPowershell

 

Here are a few more features that make the Goverlan Remote CMD a tech’s best friend:

  • No more Right Click and Marking for a copy operation. Simply highlight the output and Ctrl+C (because we all know how much we love Ctrl+C).
  • Save frequently-used and complicated commands, such as the Powershell command to the Send Command section above, and use them with one click.
  • Now, if you are feeling generous that day you can share your all-powerful commands with your fellow Goverlan users with one click.

 

GvConsSave

 

Goverlan Task Manager

Ever since the Windows NT days, we have used the venerable Windows Task Manager to help us determine and locate performance bottlenecks. We know applications run while residing in memory that uses resources such as CPU time, valuable memory space, disk seeking for files, or open network connections that consume bandwidth.

Of course, with the Windows Task Manager you can see at a glance what process may be taking up CPU and memory resources.

Has this ever happened to you?

1)     You’re helping someone take care of an issue on their computer.

2)     You notice the computer is not very responsive.

3)     You open the task manager and set it up so you can see what program is causing the issue but  by the time you are ready to see what is going on, the computer starts to respond again.

Sometimes those priceless seconds are all you need to get an idea of what is going on and point yourself in the right direction for troubleshooting.

The Goverlan Remote Task Manager is designed to give you the information you need from a process-centric point of view.

Parent Child Relationships

With the Goverlan Task Manager you can see which process was actually responsible for calling another process. This comes in handy when you need to hunt down the virus that keeps spawning no matter how many times you end it.

GovTaskParentchild

The Binary Path and Command Line Parameter columns allow you to see where that process is on the disk and what options were called when it was first run.

Binarypath

 

Top 5 Active Processes

This is by far one of my favorite screens in the Goverlan Task Manager. Instead of pouring through the Processes tab looking for a process and only its CPU usage or memory, use the Top 5 tab to see the most active processes in CPU, Disk IO, Memory and Page Faults (Virtual Memory) usage. This screen tells you at a glance where your bottlenecks may be found.

GovTask

 

At-a-Glance Diagnostics

One screen in the Windows Task Manager is the Performance tab. We all
know how we would rather look at graphs than tables. When we see a spike in CPU,
memory or disk IO, we get that “Aha!” moment. The problem is we never know what
the offending process is. That problem is now solved because when you mouse
over any part of the performance graphs, the Goverlan Task Manager tells you
the most resource intensive process at that moment.

 

GovTaskperf

 

The Goverlan Task Manager has other helpful features such as:

  • Network Bandwidth Graphs.
  • Switch between several connections using the Connect To option.
  • Viewing Startup programs for any profile on the computer.
  • Reporting screen contents to text reports with a single click.

 

In Summary

Goverlan’s unique Remote CMD & Task Manager features that go beyond the standard:  

Goverlan Remote CMD

  • Run Goverlan as any user with an active RDP, Xenapp, or console – access user sessions without shadowing.
  • Save frequently-used & complicated commands – then simply click to run or share with your IT team.
  • Quickly & easily switch computers with the Connect To link.
  • Simply highlight output and Ctrl+C for copy operation.

Goverlan Task Manager

  • See which process called another process using the parent-child relationship view; see location  and the options called when first run.
  • Pinpoint bottlenecks with the Top 5 tab and see the most active processes in CPU, Disk IO, Memory and Page Faults (Virtual Memory) usage.
  • View performance in an intuitive way with graphs that display the most resource intensive process.
  • Switch between several connections using the Connect To option.
  • View Startup programs for any profile on the computer.
  • Report screen contents to text reports with a single click.

 

Goverlan’s Scope Actions – Helping You Wear the Many Hats of IT Systems Support

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In today’s world of shrinking IT departments, we have to learn to do more with less. Fortunately, with the right tools you can ease those change control nights, respond to emergencies faster, and gain global visibility into your environment.

A changing IT world needs a more versatile System Admin

Who remembers the children’s book, “Caps for Sale”? There is one picture in the book that comes to mind, where the hat salesman is sitting under a tree wearing several hats.

Caps for Sale

IT support roles have changed a lot over the past 15 years. In a market where IT support positions and budgets are dwindling, support roles have to become increasingly versatile. We are expected to wear more hats than ever before. This is why it’s so important for support teams to find the right tools for the job. I am going to be talking about one such tool in the Goverlan arsenal: the venerable Scope Actions!!

What are Scope Actions?

Gain more power and respond to issues more dynamically

As its names implies, a Goverlan Scope Action is the configuration of a set of actions that is bound to a scope of objects. Since Scope Actions use a push technology to perform the configured tasks, they are perfectly suited in urgent situations where real-time actions and results are critical. Scope Actions allows you to report on or take action on Active Directory objects and computers on demand, in a fast and easy-to-use way. So when I am wearing my Asset Management hat I can get a report on all my hardware with just a few clicks.  Then, when I am wearing the Compliance hat, I can quickly pinpoint the local administrators on workstations.

Anatomy of a Scope Action

When setting up a Scope Action, we need two pieces of information before we begin. We need to know the Who (Scope Module) and the What (Action Module).

The Who:  (not to be confused with the band) can be AD Objects such as users, computers or groups, or it can be actual workstations or servers. Once you have your targets in mind, you can determine how you want to select them. You can select objects by “Ctrl” selecting them from a list, using wildcard searches, an IP subnet, or Active Directory OU. You can even select entire AD Sites or import static lists of objects. The choice is yours based on the particular situation and your organization’s specific needs.

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The What: What actions do you need to accomplish? Typically these might be choosing report properties, setting AD attributes, or executing actions on computers – or any combination of the three!! I could write an entire book on the number of actions available to you when configuring Scope Actions. Think of it this way – anything you can accomplish at the command line or with a script, you can do in a Scope Action, at a fraction of the time and effort.

Here is a personal experience that illustrates how useful Scope Actions can be:

Phone: “Ring….. Ring……”

Me:      “Help Desk. How can I help you?”

User:    “Yea, no matter what website I go to it keeps taking me to some site asking for my bank account and social security number…. Should I put it in?”

Me:      “Umm no…. let me remote control your computer and check….Ok…. somehow your proxy settings were changed to somesite.hasvirus.com.”

User:    “Oh, it must have been that suspicious looking file that I downloaded from that suspicious website that I told the entire marketing department to download…”

Me:      “… (thump)”

User:    “Hello…?”

Me:      “Oh sorry I just fell out of my seat… I changed your settings back and cleaned your PC with the antivirus scanner. You should be all set!”

User:    “click…..”

Me:      “You’re welcome…….”
Great, now I have to run an AV scan, reset everyone’s IE proxy settings, and check to make sure everything is clean before anyone else calls in. Luckily I have Goverlan and Scope Actions – I can take care of this in one sweep.

Define:  The Who - Marketing Department. We have an OU for their workstations so I will use that.

Define:  The What – Set up the actions:

1st step – Run the command: “myantivirus.exe /scannow /logfile –{computername}-avlog.txt”.

2nd step – Apply a .reg file with the correct proxy settings.

 

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3rd step – Report on all the proxy settings.

 

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Note: We do the report action in a separate module because it has to report the proxy server after the settings have been applied.

Now we simply click Run, and let the Scope Action do its thing.

Time to complete Scope Action: less than 10 minutes.

Time to execute Scope Action on 30 computers: less than 5 minutes.

Total Time to Resolution: 15 minutes, Disaster Prevention: Unlimited!

 

Conclusion

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the power of Scope Actions. Other examples of what you can do with Scope Actions include compliance reports, file server content scans, WMI queries, updating user accounts, reporting on Outlook delegate access, etc.

I cannot begin to tell you how many hours I saved in change control nights applying patches, updating software or making general system wide changes with Scope Actions. Scope Actions are very powerful, but remember what Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility”, so test out those Scope Actions thoroughly before implementing!

Get your free full Goverlan trial today!

Goverlan Chosen to Support Schools in Graves County, Kentucky

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Goverlan helps the Graves County School District IT Department patch Java7u10 zero-day vulnerabilities, improve reaction time despite shrinking budget, and reduce energy footprint.

With three systems administrators in charge of supporting an entire school district, comprised of 18 locations distributed across 556 square miles with over 2,000 devices, the Graves County Schools IT Department needs to be able to act fast to resolve issues.

“Since our district covers a rather large area, responding to issues efficiently can be a challenge when they may occur at locations almost 20 miles apart. Goverlan has not only helped us overcome this challenge but it has changed our model of response, saving us money and time. When possible, we now respond virtually first, cutting down the number of tickets that we have to physically respond to. Responding physically in our district is a challenge in itself, but it also costs money. Not only do we spend money on gas and vehicle wear and tear, but we also spend time behind the wheel,” explained John McMillen, Chief Information Officer for Graves County School District.

 

“Our budgets have been shrinking in public education for years; with Goverlan, we can provide a higher quality of service while operating on a smaller budget.”

 

 

Despite declining operating funds, the Graves County IT department can continue to provide on-the-spot support.  “Our budgets have been shrinking in public education for years; with Goverlan, we can provide a higher quality of service while operating on a smaller budget. Also, by cutting the lead times on our responses, we gain good will with our end users by allowing them to get back to normal operation faster,” noted McMillen.

 When Java 7 Update 10 exposed a zero-day vulnerability that could be exploited by attackers to run remote code and command, McMillen and his team had to move fast to patch their systems to Java 1.7u11, and later to 1.7u13 (a series of ad-hoc fixes released by Oracle to address the vulnerability).

“Goverlan saved our hide and gave us the quick access and agility we needed. With Goverlan’s Scope Actions, I was able to create a remote console command to detect and isolate machines with Java 7 Update 10, and then patch Java without having to drive into or RDP the users’ machines,” explained John Wilkins, District Network Technician.

“The most powerful part of Goverlan’s Scope Actions is being able to create a fully customized action in less than five minutes, save it as a template, and then simply click to run school wide. I can also share these actions with the team, saving them a great deal of time,” added Wilkins.

“The most powerful part of Goverlan’s Scope Actions is being able to create a fully customized action in less than five minutes, save it as a template, and then simply click to run school wide. I can also share these actions with the team, saving them a great deal of time.”

As part of a recent Green IT initiative to reduce the schools’ power consumption and operating costs, the team began using Goverlan to automate the shutting off and turning on of computers.

In addition, with Goverlan’s broad set of background processes, the Graves County Schools IT team can execute troubleshooting & support tasks without user interaction. “A teacher can continue a PowerPoint lecture while I perform my tasks unobtrusively in the background; they usually don’t know that I’m doing anything until I notify them they’re fixed!” exclaimed Wilkins.

“[Goverlan’s] ‘invisible hand’ at the keyboard offers so many options to get things accomplished that any network is bound to benefit – be it one with 10 or nearly 2,000 machines. Goverlan has proven invaluable for instant issue resolving and machine updating; if I can see the machine in Goverlan, I can make changes to it in real time,” he added.

With Goverlan, McMillen and the IT team at Graves County Schools can successfully meet the challenges of today’s complex IT environment – whether patching security gaps at a moment’s notice district wide or slashing the schools’ energy costs – and can continue to offer Graves County schools real time, effective support despite declining public education budgets.

   

About Graves County Schools

The Graves County School district, consisting of 14 schools spread across 556 square miles in Graves County, Kentucky, including Elementary, Middle, and High schools, is guided by a student-centered philosophy with teachers at its core, and fosters an educational environment where schools, parents, and communities work together to help students reach their highest potential. To learn more, visit http://www.wkatc.kyschools.us/

 

“Goverlan’s invisible hand at the keyboard offers so many options to get things accomplished that any network is bound to benefit – be it one with 10 or nearly 2,000 machines. Goverlan has proven invaluable for instant issue resolving and machine updating; if I can see the machine in Goverlan, I can make changes to it in real time.”