Magazine Article | December 12, 2012
Remote Monitoring And Management RMM Product Reviews - Table Of Contents
By Jay McCall, networking and managed services editor,
Testing by Eric Brown, CEO, Remote Technology Management
Based on the feedback of our loyal readers, we’re proud to bring you product reviews as a new editorial inclusion this year.
Because of the growing interest in the managed services business model, we kicked off our testing with RMM software. Remote Technology Management (RTM), an MSP based in the Boston area and headed up by CEO Eric Brown, performed the testing over a four-week period. Brown, along with his team of technology consultants, tested seven RMM tools and shared feedback on the highlights and lowlights of each one. The seven RMM tools tested were from the following vendors: Continuum, GFI, Kaseya, LabTech, Level Platforms, N-able, and Dell packetTrap.
Click Here To Read The Testing Methodology...
Click Here To Read The Side By Side Product Comparsion...
Individual RMM Product Reviews
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The tester's overall assessment of this product is that it is a comprehensive solution especially suited for small to medium-size MSPs. Besides a valuable NOC combined with solid RMM software, he got the feeling that Continuum really has the success of your business in mind. |
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GFI offered the fastest onboarding time of any vendor (2 hours). For a VAR/MSP that already understands RMM software, this is a nice convenience. |
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Kaseya uses agents for remote monitoring and management. It has agents available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It can also manage Unix machines via SSH (no agent). The agent runs a hardware/software audit as soon as installed. The software audit includes license keys. It can report in HTML, Excel, and PDF formats and supports custom audit fields (e.g. building, room #, etc.). |
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Fast install. Management console to agent communication was fast. Commands executed from the management console were reflected on the agent almost instantly. Client Management, Data Entry, and Information Storage were really good. The ability to quickly reference a service or device passwords for all admins to see was also very useful. The network discovery worked really well. |
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Level Platforms has the most thorough onboarding process, which is a must-have if you're just getting into RMM. They spent 1.5 hrs. walking the reviewers through the server set up process and an additional 3.5 hours with the rest of the onboarding process. Unlike some vendors that assign you an account rep, Level Platforms assigns a client engagement manager that even helps you find new prospects. |
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N-Able can most definitely be a valuable asset to the MSP that has the need and can take advantage of all the additional features they offer. Overall, the tester found them lacking in the customer service department, as several of their attempts to contact N-able went unanswered. Their web interface was extremely easy to use, as were most of their feature products and tools, as the tester almost never had to watch a tutorial to figure out a setup or use a feature. |
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Quest, which was acquired by Dell in September 2012, partners with Live Virtual Help Desk (livevhd.com) to offer NOC services, which are based in North America and India. Currently, an on-premise server is required for the VAR/MSP, but an on-premise server is optional at the client's site. |
