Review Detail

Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) C claimme 4225
jack of all traits, master of none.
Rating: 
 
1.0
Maitaining DM's (Device Managers) on each device is a huge hassle. Agent monitoring is a sign that monitoring is the least of your problems. While you can install an OM (Onsite Manager) to a workgroup it really doesnt help much since your security policies will need to be configured at every device directly anyway.

Maintaining OM's (Onsite Managers, i.e. "almost agent-less") is much easier but the OM has its own nuances. First is that you should not install the OM to a domain controller because the OM uses an SQL Express install for its own local database. SQL on a DC is a no-no, and will not pass the MBSA scan available for reporting within Managed Workplace. So you need two servers to run this product in a domain because the OM should be installed to an application server.

Next issue, which really is the first issue for any implementation, is that I frequently see offices have a single network for their managed and unmanaged (personal) and guest devices. The OM will go bananas as staff and guests connect up on the network, recognizing new devices and wasting all your day chasing down these alerts. On the other hand, sometimes clients may add a new device without mention so you cannot just ignore these alerts.

SNMP monitoring is not that bad in Managed Workplace, especially if you can easily locate the MIB's from the vendor for download, but this is not the kind of monitoring that a novice can configure reliably. Note that SNMP is a well-known security risk among the IT community, chiefly because it lacked encryption until SNMPv3, and not all devices have adopted v3. Community strings (the equivalent of a password) in v1 and v2 are transmitted in plain text! Depending on the level of access given to the community string, devices could literally be hijacked.

So with a proper network broken out into vLANS with isolation on your monitored network, a domain controller and an application server, this product might work well. At that amount of money, there are a lot of options for monitoring, some quite a bit more advanced. In an Isolated network I could name a few you could buy outright for substantially less with much better dashboards, default monitoring packs and control overall.

My overall opinion is this product is like a odd sized shoe. Its not sufficient for large operations but too much for small ones. Dollar for dollar not a great value, IMO.





DB
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