RMM-systems: remote monitoring and corporate network management (with an example of quick implementation)

Not at all an idle question: how can you better and efficiently serve a corporate network, but at the same time spend much less time and resources on its management? Full-featured RMM systems can help with this.

Current situation in IT departments

In the current difficult economic situation, the creation of a larger volume of goods and services with less consumption of human resources is an obvious and obvious need of enterprises to overcome the crisis, increase their competitiveness and guarantee business continuity.

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It is no secret to anyone that, at present, enterprises depend on their IT infrastructure and related services and tools (hardware and software, licenses) as much as they have ever done before. Accordingly, the efficiency of the enterprise directly (and to a great extent!) Depends on the efficiency of its IT-system, and it, in turn, depends on the efficiency of the IT-department.



Therefore, it is not surprising that in recent years there has been an increase in investment in information technologies in the world aimed at optimizing production processes . Although at the same time, IT budgets, having reached their maximum values ​​in 2012-2014, gradually began to decline. Moreover, with an increase in the number of tasks that IT departments need to solve, the expansion of technical staff is not observed (or rather, we see a reduction in the number of IT department staff).



So “doing more, doing less” is not a rant, but a necessity for the IT department.

Where do IT budgets go?

If the main IT costs remain at about the same level, and the budget associated with human resources is reduced, the question arises: how is the IT budget distributed?



Most corporate budgets are aimed at purchasing PCs, servers, laptops and tablets, renewing and upgrading software and existing computers. You should also say about “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) - another trend that is gaining popularity, especially among small and medium enterprises. According to Juniper Research 's Mobile Security Strategies: Threats, Solutions and Market Forecasts study, the number of personal devices (laptops, tablets and mobile phones) used by employees at work will double in two years.

IT challenges

As a result, IT departments note that supported infrastructure is constantly becoming more diverse and complex. Gone are the days when PCs and servers were in the same office and were relatively easy to maintain and manage. Distributed environments, mobile workers, BYOD and mobile devices, a huge number and variety of applications used ... - this is the current reality of IT departments.



Oddly enough, IT departments are faced with the problem of reducing staff costs and maintaining quality of service, while the environment that needs to be managed is growing, and in such a way that it does not always become controllable.



The larger the IT infrastructure, the more heterogeneous and complex it becomes to manage it, and the more compatibility problems can arise between devices and software from different manufacturers. All this leads to an increase in the number of incidents and their diversity, which should be handled by reduced IT departments.



Nowadays, the reality is that IT departments often fail to cope with their tasks, undermining the company's efforts to improve the efficiency of its work and the competitiveness of its products and / or services provided. IT departments need to work more efficiently and efficiently, but at the same time faster, easier, cheaper. And best of all, play also ahead of the curve.

What are IT departments doing to solve this problem?

Nowadays, trying to improve the efficiency of available human resources, all IT departments use remote device management tools.



In general, they are not expensive, and in some cases free. These solutions are easy to implement and can be quickly adapted to the technical staff of the company.



Although these solutions are important in responding to user problems, they all have one major drawback: they are fragmented.



If we consider the tools that IT departments use in their daily work, we will see that each of them has certain tasks: audit of network devices, remote application of patches and software installation, remote access to devices, etc. In principle, they all seem to provide the required functionality and cover the needs of enterprises, so what’s the problem with using such a set of tools?

Fragmented solutions: not effective

First, because when it comes to individual tools, they often belong to different software manufacturers, therefore, each solution has its own data repository and individual settings.

Each solution in itself can be effective, but it is unlikely to be part of a wider system that contains the entire work site to solve the incident.



For example, imagine that a user has detected an error on his PC. As a rule, it ends up by calling the IT department or sending an email with a description of the problem. The technician will contact the user for clarification and warn him that he will connect to his PC using a remote control program to find the cause of the problem. After that, he will establish that it is necessary to update the set of system libraries, and for this he needs to connect to the PC again with the help of another utility for patch management or remote software installation. If everything is normal, then he will send the user a letter stating that the problem has been solved, and he will respond to him about closing the appeal.



Although such a scheme of work may seem effective, but in fact it is not effective, because you cannot get a global view of the whole process. As a result, the appeal is not registered in the central repository, it is not associated with a remote access session, diagnostics or corrective actions of a technical specialist (in this case, the use of utilities for remote software installation or patch management). Finally, the user's response and expert opinion are also not part of the central repository.



How does such a scheme of work affect the efficiency of the IT department?



First, it deprives him of the proactivity and reuse of the work performed: an incident can occur on another PC, but actions to solve the problem are not available in a centralized way, and therefore other specialists do not know who has already solved this problem, how, when and where. As a rule, the IT department will passively wait for the next call from another user describing the same problem, instead of taking steps to prevent such an incident in advance.



Secondly, because all of these tools are not integrated, it is impossible to know the status of each incident. It will be difficult to find out who is solving this problem, what steps have already been completed, how much time has been spent. One specialist does not look at the information about the incident, which was solved by another employee. It is possible that they will use different tools and approaches to solve the same problem depending on their preferences, which complicates the exchange of information and cooperation between the staff of the IT department.



Finally, it is very difficult to objectively evaluate the work of the IT department in numbers. How many incidents did they solve? How much time did it take? What are the main problem devices? What is the average time they were idle due to incidents? These questions are hard to get answers using separate tools. But the IT director has to answer these questions before his leadership! How else can we show the effectiveness of our work and justify the IT budget?



IT departments are trying to increase their efficiency by using a set of individual solutions that simultaneously added other hidden aspects of inefficiency. Lack of centralization and a clear view of the whole process from monitoring (it allows detecting an incident in the early stages) to solving a problem leads to the implementation of constantly recurring tasks, and all the knowledge of the department is concentrated among several key employees. For this reason, and given that IT infrastructures are becoming more complex, and the number of employees does not increase, problems begin to accumulate and fully load the IT department, adversely affecting the work of all company employees.

Evolution: Remote Management and Monitoring Tools

However, all is not lost. The evolution of remote management and monitoring (RMM) solutions towards fully centralized and unified platforms has created a new way to manage devices, which is simpler, much more efficient and combines a huge number of different tools (monitoring, scripts, patch management, and more) that allows you to achieve higher quality of service.



But what are remote management and monitoring (RMM) platforms / solutions ? As their name implies, this is a set of tools integrated on a single platform and designed to remotely monitor and control servers, workstations and other network devices. Using such solutions, IT departments can manage all user devices within a single platform and solve problems faster and more efficiently .



For example, in order not to wait for calls from users, technicians can set up alerts on various aspects of the operation of each device, in order to rule out cases where an abnormal situation becomes a real problem that adversely affects the performance of an employee.



Having all the device information centrally in a single platform means that technicians can now base their diagnostics on specific data from each device (change logs, etc.), and not on what the end user "thinks" about a possible problem.



The presence of a centralized platform means that technicians can automatically manage all the generated information and offer better service. Centralized systems for registering user requests simplify the process of solving incidents in a structured and organized manner. Moreover, any changes, such as additional structures, patches, etc., that technical specialists create on the platform, are made available to other specialists. This allows them to use them in their work to solve incidents with the company's employees assigned to them.



In addition to controlling certain device behavior, which the technicians inform about using automatic warnings and assigning calls to the platform, any problems found can be solved more efficiently, offering higher stability and reliability of the devices and automatically ensuring that they are updated on time. patches.



This, in turn, creates additional benefits for the client, because directly affects the level of its profits. In this regard, Gartner argues that effective management can reduce the total cost of ownership of computers by 42% . An IT director who in our difficult times will be able to significantly reduce the IT budget, but without prejudice to the efficiency of the IT system as a whole in accordance with the tasks set, it may be able to get a decent bonus from the management of the company.



In addition, problems can be automatically resolved by using scripts or a sequence of commands associated with specific monitoring tasks. For example, if a service is blocked, the platform can automatically restart it. Having created monitoring tasks and a set of required actions, they can be applied with a couple of mouse clicks to different situations, to specific users on certain devices, etc.

Systems Management: a cloud-based RMM solution

Various RMM solutions are available on the market, depending on the combination of functionality, features of the solution infrastructure, price, and other factors. But we will focus on Panda Security’s Systems Management solution, which is fundamentally different from other solutions in its architecture: this solution is a cloud service.

What is Panda Systems Management

Taking into account the numerous difficulties faced by IT departments, market trends and new opportunities created by new technologies, in 2012 Panda Systems Management introduced the platform for managing, monitoring and maintaining IT systems. This solution allows IT departments to easily and proactively manage their IT infrastructures, reducing costs and increasing their work efficiency. During this time, the solution has proven itself very well in the countries of Western Europe, Latin America and the USA.

Main functions

Network inventory: find out what you have and in what status

Detailed information, constantly updated and available in real time, about all the computers and devices on your network.



If you are the IT department manager or system administrator, can you tell from your height what computers are on your network and what software is installed on each of them? How much time do you need to collect this information? With remote offices and an ever-growing number of mobile workers, it is very difficult to control all the computers and devices in the company. Think about how much time you could save if you had all the information on all the computers on the network at hand.



The inventory function allows the IT department head to get up-to-date information about the status of their network. With Panda Systems Management, this information is constantly updated and always available. The solution offers you a complete overview of your entire network, because includes automatic inventory of all hardware and software, including mobile devices, network devices, printers, etc.



As part of a complete inventory, the solution also allows you to manage software licenses installed on each computer in the company, and changes in hardware and software made on each computer, preventing the theft of devices or their components, as well as the use of unlicensed software.

Monitoring and control: find out if something happened or could happen

Continuous monitoring of the most important aspects of your network in order to anticipate the occurrence of problems and keep the situation under control.



How many times did it happen that you realized too late that there was a problem that could be minimized if it were detected in a timely manner? How many times has the IT department been forced to solve these problems?



Monitoring functions and comprehensive work reports allow the IT department to receive a constantly updated “snapshot” of your company's network status. In addition, the solution is able to anticipate user problems before they occur, allowing technicians to work based on device data and change logs, rather than on user assumptions, reducing long and often useless conversations with them during problem diagnosis.



Although the technical specialists in your company can always approach the required employee to resolve the problem, with the help of Panda Systems Management they can perform their tasks remotely regardless of their location, control the situation and not run from one employee to another to “extinguish fires”.



As a result, the IT department is able to offer users full and better support.



In particular, the solution offers:

• Monitoring processes and services
• Performance graphs
• The event log
• Activity graphs (globally, by profile or device)
• Notifications
• Real-time control panels
• Notification history for incident detection

Centralized management of the entire IT economy

Manage computers and devices, including mobile devices: manage all devices and proactively and automatically increase the stability and reliability of their work.



Automating maintenance and maintenance tasks is the best way to save money. Cloud Centralized Management Console Panda Systems Management allows IT departments to deploy any type of applications, scripts or critical patches, as well as monitor anti-virus and firewall protection for all users.



In addition to this, the solution provides relevant information to optimize the bandwidth of the communication channel and control devices during scheduled maintenance and to solve optimization problems.



The console simplifies management by implementing a single agent on all devices, and provides data on the licenses of all software installed and used by all employees.



The solution significantly reduces the amount of manual labor and the number of repetitive tasks, optimizing the time and efficiency of the IT department and increasing its value.

Remote user support (enterprise employees)

Remote support and help: connect to each device centrally and seamlessly. When a problem arises, its solution often affects employees (work stoppages, incident resolution checks, etc.).



Using Panda Systems Management, IT department technicians can remotely diagnose and solve incidents regardless of their location, unnoticed by end users.



The console contains built-in remote access utilities that provide access to user resources in the background. In addition, the console allows you to perform the required commands, view and manage change logs, start processes and services, edit the registry and perform other required actions without disturbing users. If necessary, you can use the built-in chat service to discuss the incident with the desired user (employee of the enterprise).



The solution also allows you to remotely manage Windows services and take screenshots for troubleshooting purposes.



Finally, the solution offers automation and centralization functions for support services, which allows you to automatically register incidents with users, assign them to an appropriate support staff member, and integrate all the necessary information within a recorded incident.

Reporting: show management why everything works fine

Comprehensive reports tailored to your needs and available to show the value of the work of the IT department for the entire company.



As noted earlier, very often users (especially the management) do not know how much work the IT department does. To eliminate this gap, Panda Systems Management offers activity reports that allow you to demonstrate the value and significance of the work of IT specialists in the company.



Technicians can customize the solution to create different types of reports (global, by profiles and devices), adapted to their needs. This allows them to show the success of their work and the effectiveness of the implementation of improvements in the network.



In particular, the console offers the following functions:

• Different types of reports (global, by profiles and devices)
• Automatic Report Scheduler
• Log changes on the device
• Reports on remote work by users
• Reports hardware and software assets

Thus, using the comprehensive and detailed reports offered by the Panda Systems Management solution, you can explain to the company’s management how the time of the IT department is used and how much the work of its specialists costs, because The solution collects data on all completed work, solved problems and, of course, controlled user requests.

Cloud benefits

Cloud service significantly reduces the cost of maintaining your network.



In our difficult from an economic point of view, time, of course, often had to hear that the operating costs of the IT department should be reduced.



Because of the avalanche of new projects in the IT department, in order to adapt the company's structure to changes in the market and new economic conditions, it is necessary to use solutions that are easier, more flexible and easier to use and implement.



Panda Systems Management is a cloud-based solution offering all the benefits associated with it: it does not require additional infrastructure within the network (the local agent weighs only 3 MB ), involves very low operating costs, and no associated initial costs are required for its use. and / or fixed costs.



In addition, the solution allows you to automate and centralize the work of the IT department, which significantly saves time and reduces operating costs.



Cloud solutions allow you to significantly reduce the cost of infrastructure and its maintenance, and network management to make a simple process.



Moreover, cloud-based RMM solutions are ideally “sharpened” to the needs of outsourcing companies that serve their customers' corporate networks , because they can be easily and remotely without any additional infrastructure to be introduced into the network of any client located anywhere in the country, which allows you to significantly expand the geography of your services. In addition, cloud solutions are easier to manage and maintain.

Panda Systems Management implementation example

This chapter will be of interest to those who are interested in the Panda Systems Management solution, and would like to see with a concrete example how easy it is to implement and use. Despite the fact that the capabilities of the service are very wide, due to its cloud architecture, it takes very little time to implement the solution and get the benefits of using it from the first minutes.



Below is, in essence, a brief guide on how to implement a service in an enterprise of any size. You can register a trial version of Panda Systems Management on the website for free and test this service in your IT environment with this guide.

Connecting to the management console

So, to get started with Panda Systems Management, you need to log into the management console. This can be done in two ways:



From the invitation letter: When registering the Panda Systems Management licenses, an invitation letter should arrive at your e-mail address, in which your registration data were specified: link to go to the management console, login and password.



Directly open the management console:

• Open www.pandacloudsecurity.com
• Enter your username and password
• Click Login
• In the My Services section, click the Systems Management button.

Current startup status of Systems Management

You can check the current status of the service launch and its completion in the management console, where the status of the service implementation on the user's network is shown graphically.



To view, in the main menu, click Sites . At the bottom of the screen is a wizard with three steps, which also shows the progress of each step:

• Step 1: Deploy the agent to devices
• Step 2: Creating a Monitor
• Step 3: Perform auditing, patch management, setting policies

All these three steps are described in detail below.

Create and configure the first site

First, you need to decide whether you want to create a new site or use an existing one, depending on the management criteria. The new user account corresponds to the new site.



In the main Sites menu, click New site and fill out the form. Note that the Description field can be used by filters that you add later, and therefore they will pay attention to the contents of this field.





Add site



If the devices in this site require additional information about the HTTP proxy used to access the Internet, then you can specify this information in this form of adding a site or you can do it later.



After creating the site it is recommended to configure it on the Settings tab. This configuration will be included in the Agent installed on each managed device.

Implementing Systems Management Agent

The agent installed on the user's devices requires certain basic information for its work:

• The site to which it belongs.
• The minimum information required to connect to the Internet and connect to the Server.

The site to which the Agent belongs is automatically installed if the download or sending of the download link is carried out through the site.



The Internet connection data was indicated at the previous step when creating the site, or it is indicated on the Settings tab, therefore the Agent being downloaded already contains this information.



The agent can be downloaded in three ways:

• Email Agent
• Sending an Agent Download Link by Email
• Downloading the Agent directly to this computer

To deploy the Agent in the main Sites menu, click the New Device button .





Adding a new device



After that, in the drop-down box, select the type of operating system on the device (for example, Windows):





Select the type of operating system



In the next window, select the Agent deployment method:





Downloading Agent on a new device

• If you need to install the Agent on this computer, then click on the top of the window on the logo of the operating system.
• If you need to deploy the Agent to other machines, then you can specify email addresses, who should send the link to download the Agent. To separate addresses, use the symbol ";" (semicolon). Click the Send button. . , (, Outloook), Send from your email client instead .

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