Desktop Management and Remote Monitoring Tools
Network visibility refers to the challenge of ensuring that every host communicating on the network is authorized to be there and is running in a secure configuration.
- impractical for a technician to regularly locate and visit each device
- so visibility depends on remote monitoring and management technologies
2 General Classes of Enterprise Monitoring and Remote Access
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools are principally designed for use by managed service providers (MSPs).
- RMM tool will be able to distinguish client accounts and provide support for recording and reporting billable support activity
Desktop management unified endpoint management (UEM)/mobile-device management (MDM)
Desktop management unified endpoint management (UEM) is enterprise software for controlling device settings, apps, and corporate data storage on all types of fixed, mobile, and IoT computing devices.
- designed for deployment by a single organization and focus primarily on access control and authorization
Key Features and Functionality
These tools have many features in common. any given suite might offer a mix of the following functionality:
- Locally installed agent to report status, log, and inventory information to a management server and provide integration with support ticket/help desk systems.
- Most suites support both desktop (Windows/Linux/macOS) and mobile (iOS/Android) hosts
- Agent that also performs endpoint detection and response (EDR) security scanning
- Automated “push” deployment of upgrades, updates, security-scanner definitions, apps, and scripts plus management of license compliance
- Remote network boot capability, often referred to as wake on LAN (WOL), plus ability to enter system firmware setup and deploy firmware updates and OS installs
- Access control to prevent hosts that do not meet OS version/update or other health policies from connecting to the network
- Live chat and remote desktop and/or remote shell connection to hosts
A software agent depends on the OS to be running to communicate with the management server. The management suite can also be configured to take advantage of a hardware controller, such as Intel vPro or AMD PRO, to implement out-of-band (OOB) management and power on a machine remotely.