What to use to allow remote support on servers?

ajf

ajf

ajf

Soldato
Joined
30 Oct 2006
Posts
3,053
Location
Worcestershire, UK
A general question really to see what you all use to allow third party companies access to servers when required to resolve issues etc.

Most is done internally but we have two systems where we need to start getting the vendor to support us.

We use Logmein to support our remote workers but they appear to have nothing that allows support the other way.

Had thought of GoToMeeting which does do the job but is there better stuff?

It needs to be something we can run on various servers as required and under our control.
 
(Another LogMeIn push!)
I have a few clients with software vendors that need to provide support just in the same way that you mention. In these cases, I just ask the software vendor for an email address used by their support team and I 'invite' them to become a sub-user of my LogMeIn account. When you're setting up the invite, you can assign them one (or more) specific servers that they can access, and grant them the full Pro features if you have it, so they can use file transfer and drag-drop etc.

The invite will allow them to create a new LogMeIn account if they don't already have one; if they do, a dropdown will appear at the top of their dashboard for 'secondary user of ajf' which they can select and will show your servers that you've assigned to them.

You are in control of their access because it's easy to revoke access as a sub-user if required. The only thing which might be an issue for you is that unlike RDP, two people can't be LogMeInning to a server at the one time, it will tell you someone else is using it alright but it will kick them out if you log in during their session. Not really been an issue for me to date though.
 
5tephen said:
(Another LogMeIn push!)
I have a few clients with software vendors that need to provide support just in the same way that you mention. In these cases, I just ask the software vendor for an email address used by their support team and I 'invite' them to become a sub-user of my LogMeIn account. When you're setting up the invite, you can assign them one (or more) specific servers that they can access, and grant them the full Pro features if you have it, so they can use file transfer and drag-drop etc.

The invite will allow them to create a new LogMeIn account if they don't already have one; if they do, a dropdown will appear at the top of their dashboard for 'secondary user of ajf' which they can select and will show your servers that you've assigned to them.

You are in control of their access because it's easy to revoke access as a sub-user if required. The only thing which might be an issue for you is that unlike RDP, two people can't be LogMeInning to a server at the one time, it will tell you someone else is using it alright but it will kick them out if you log in during their session. Not really been an issue for me to date though.
Click to expand...

You can only use secondary users within LogMeIn if you are paying for it. LMI Free does not support secondaries :)
 
NealR said:
You can only use secondary users within LogMeIn if you are paying for it. LMI Free does not support secondaries :)
Click to expand...

You do have to pay for LMI Central (I wasn't happy at doing so because the Alerts and Users features was a free feature for years), but once done, you can add as many users as you like, and each of them can access as many Pro and Free clients as you care to assign. A host machine doesn't have to be running the Pro version to be able to be assigned to a sub-user of your account.
 
We use TeamViewer for supporting our customers.

The QuickSupport application is good for PCs (or perhaps servers in your case) as each time it is launched, the session password changes so it's effectively one-shot. Providing access is a specific decision of the user, so no privacy worries.

Pretty much all the servers we look after have TeamViewer Host installed so we can connect for out-of-hours work.
 
Thanks.
I will look again at the LMI option.
I did consider Teamviewer but as we are supplying it price is a consideration. From what I could see we need to get a licence for each server we want to allow access to.

LMI and GoTo both work on an account rather machine basis which is considerably cheaper as we can use the account on whichever server needs the support.
 
TeamViewer isn't licensed on a per device basis - we've got the Host client installed on 100s of servers/machines.
 
Ah, I've had another look at the Teamviewer licencing. Hadn't realised there is an 'unlimited' version also.
Might actually be more cost effective as it seems to be a one off cost, rather than annual like logmein/GoTo etc.
 
Aye - we started with LMI Rescue but moved to TeamViewer for the unlimited host installs and one off costs (though we have bought a number of additional control "channels" since)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom