Apple Remote Desktop vs. BeyondTrust Remote Support

ARD for me is based on a LAN, but can be used over WAN via VPN, but the latency makes ARD a less ideal tool. There are other cross platform tools that can do what ARD does which to me add value when managing a mixed environment

Incentivized

I've been working with BeyondTrust's teams, with multiple customers and environments, and they consistently offer top-shelf support whether your environment has 250 users or 25000. Their staff is always patient and friendly in answering questions, working to resolve technical issues (should they occur), and they provide the information to help you understand how to do it yourself rather than perpetually relying on their technical consultants or engineers. They support Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, and macOS, providing instructions on how to interface with each system and make it as simple as possible to help your users regardless of what system they are working on.

Incentivized

• Automator Actions: This is a very cool feature and cost saving as it reduces human effort by automating the workflow of tasks.
• Curtain Mode: This lets you block your local user's view of the desktop while performing administrative tasks.
• Spotlight Search: It can perform lightning fast searches on machines using the spotlight search feature of OS X and thus saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

• Probably top most on my list is the support from Bomgar - they use their own product and take their support very seriously. They have always been available when I've needed help. They even set up a temporary host on their server when my IT crew, mistakenly plugged into the wrong port.
• Talk about documenting a support session. We have the complete recording of what a tech will do to help a customer. There are no ambiguities as to what was done or not done. Not that any of our customers have complained about a support session - quite to the contrary all customers that give reviews after a support session rate the experience as either high or very high.
• Best of all...I can help my mother in law with her computer without having to go to her house.

• It's onsite only without setting up a VPN or some other form of remote network access.
• It can be a little slow sometimes when compared to local access.
• It seems to be a neglected product by Apple and not continually developed.

Incentivized

• I would like to see a voice chat capability added to the system.
• I would like to have access to canned scripts through a web interface. This would be useful those limited times I am actually working on a pc in person.
• I would like to be able to use files in the filestore for canned scripts rather than having to upload them a second time.

It is a fairly unique tool in the level of integration it has with Apple Desktop products. It definitely needs some engineering attention, and it should be expanded to the iOS arena. It is not perfect, but it is very useful and fills an otherwise fairly empty niche in the support toolkit realm. The built-in screen sharing app in macOS handles the direct screen control or viewing function fairly well, but it does not have all of the other mass control features that Apple Remote Desktop supplies.

Incentivized

Bomgar has improved the support we have given as an ICT department and improved the ICT department reputation within the organisation. We have had no issues with Bomgar as a product and it works well. The team at Bomgar are also a pleasure to work with, they follow up with us to see how they can help us use more of the features of the system and really take time to get to know their users and how they use the product.

Once it is set up, it is quite straightforward to use. However, currently, it requires both a script to run to set up permissions and controls, AND a command from the MDM to authorize it to be active. The MDM management command is manual. This is not conducive to an automated workflow, and sometimes gets forgotten. Then, the endpoint is not contactable until someone realizes that the MDM command was not sent or was not successful.

Incentivized

Just like any other remote support tool, BeyondTrust Remote Support is very easy to use, all you do is make sure the host machine has the bomgar agent active in it and then all you do is remote into the said host machine once that is out of the way you are able to do what you need to do in that host machine.

Incentivized

As far as uptime is concerned, Since Bomgar creates the Hardware and Software, they can make it the most reliable box in our datacenter, and they also have options for availability and redundancy that we didn't need to utilize, we have a manual fail-over process that we can invoke, but there are configurations that would allow for an automated failover as well.

There is no lag-time at all, no matter how many users we have on the box, it is always entirely dependant on the customers internet speed (as we have a very fast connection), that is the only issue I've EVER seen with Bomgar, no matter how many sessions we run the box is always up, always fast, always working.

I've never had to get support for ARD, so I can't give a real opinion.

Incentivized

We have been using this tool since March and it has enabled us to provide full support to our users while we are all working from home. Even after we return to the office it will allow us to provide better support to our users in other buildings. There are a number of features we haven't yet used, but it is good to know that we have a reliable tool to use to help us provide quality support.

Incentivized

we didn't have in-person training because their online training was so overwhelmingly well done. Start by looking at the docs: http://www.bomgar.com/docs/content/index.htm if that alone doesn't answer all your questions, there will be a window that pops up asking if you would like to chat with a sales representative, or a support engineer. Either of them can answer all of your questions as easily as if they were standing there with you, or talking to you on the phone, it is truly the power of Bomgar!

Since we have installed and been running Bomgar software for quite some time now, we have taken the opportunity to attend various web trainings, and they are always very prompt, informative and open to questions/discussions. We appreciate the work that Bomgar does to keep their customer community informed of new features and discussions of further product developments.

None, very easy to setup and install.

Incentivized

It was easy to get going. You have to pick your features to enable disable and then configure any customizations for the enabled features. It could not be easier to get started. The number of options can be a bit overwhelming at first

I would feel much more comfortable having one of these alternative solutions as our Remote Desktop management tools. Each has their drawbacks and expenses associated with them, but we simply have too large of a deployment to not be considering alternatives. If it is the only solution you can afford, it is OK to start here. I could see where this would have a return on investment, but it is really only suitable for a very small and localized scale. If employees are at all mobile, the duct taping of products necessary (VPN, distribution points, script repositories) would be very cumbersome.

Incentivized

We have used TeamViewer and LogMeIn Rescue in the past. Both products offer the abilities to make remote connections, but LogMeIns monitoring capabilities are minimal and TeamViewer is costly for what you get...or more of what you don't get. Also, there have been some weird cybersecurity malware detections on team viewer lately that was causing concern

Incentivized

Since the Bomgar Box is BOTH hardware and software, it can be purchased in any capacity deemed necessary, so scalability isn't an issue, Bomgar has the experience necessary to create a design that can support as many customer and agent sessions as you can throw at it. We have never had any issues with the Bomgar box and licenses that we have installed.

• Apple Remote Desktop has a positive return on investment because for the expense to the school, the value it brings to teachers is important. The return on improved student performance is very difficult to measure financially, but there is a definite return.
• The overall objective of education is to increase student learning, ARD does that phenomenally. Parents see the tool used and are impressed at what the capabilities of the tool can do and how it impacts how active their students are as well as how well they can learn.
• One negative impact is that teachers rely too much on this tool rather than on actually teaching sometimes.

Incentivized

• We've used Bomgar for 10 years. Our company was probably too small when we started using it but over the years we have grown. As our team has gotten bigger we rely more heavily on bomgar and it's become an indispensable tool.
• It saves us a tremendous amount of time / cost over having to go onsite as any remote screen sharing tool will do.
• The ability to easily and security manage remote access to hundreds of computers over dozens of different companies is a huge benefit to our company.

Incentivized