8 Factors that Influence Enterprises in Choosing the Right Desktop Management Solution

Featured article by Giridhara Raam.M, Product analyst, ManageEngine

Enterprises deal with complexities related to desktop management everyday. Desktop management has changed a lot from what it was few years back, with respect to innovation and cost effectiveness. System administrators face lot of issues being raised on a daily basis, having the right solution to take care of all your desktop management activities is going to be rewarding.

Desktop Management stands as the base for stable productivity and there are eight pillars that decides the quality and performance of your desktop management capabilities.

1. Managing software in your network

System administrators are bombarded with request for new software daily, user raise requests periodically for new software. Handling all these software requests is not so easy when they flow in numbers. Identifying the users, their OS compatibility, version that is requested is complicated. Identify the software request and distributing the requested software to the right user with the help of a software deployment feature will delegate system administration at first level, reducing the burden for system administrators

2. Automatic deployment of patches

Updating the software periodically to avoid unneccessary vulnerabilities in your network is mandatory need to keep your network stable. But identifying the missing patches in each and every user machine manually is time consuming, system administrator will need a solution that can scan the user systems for missing patches, download them from vendor site and deploy them to the user machines automatically. This automatic patch deployment has to be done for Microsoft patches, Non-Microsoft patches and Anti-Virus updates. After dealing with deployment, report generation will help you in auditing. So the desktop management solution should help you in managing your patches completely.

3. Dealing with increasing number of users

New employees will join your organization periodically, but dealing with increasing number of users will become challenging. Organizations must find a trade-off between employee freedom and managing its assets effectively. A proper asset management has to be practised to keep a check of devices that are connected to your network and to avoid unwanted security breaches into your corporate network. Devices like laptops, desktops, printers, modems, USB devices,etc., has to be monitored and managed with record for audit purposes.

4. Remote support capabilities

System administrators should not keep switching between various solutions for managing their network, one solution should provide assistance for all desktop management needs. Remote troubleshooting is one basic requirement for desktop management, fixing issues at user computers right from your desk is going to save lot of time and effort. Accessing registry of users, checking the programs and services with task manager, initiating a chat session with the user, making an announcement, remote disk fragmentation, record remote sessions for audit purpose, remote disk cleanup.,etc has to be made possible with one solution that will turn it cst effective for the organization.

5. Always be the playmaker 

Having an upper hand is what everybody would prefer, deciding what software and hardware should prevail in your network is always mandatory. Restrict unwanted software and keep your network safe, limit the use of devices by approving them and denying them based upon your corporate policies, measure usage of your software to know whether the licenses are fully utilized, experience zero time with the help of failover service, so that there is no room allowed for any intruders to breakthrough your network. Managing mobile devices is another separate domain of administration which also needs to be taken care, but choosing one solution that can support desktop management and MDM management will be wise choice.

6. Support must be precise and quick

Analyzing support capabilities and quality of that particular vendor before you make a decision to choose one, will decide how quick your issues will be resolved with precise support. Most of the organization provide 24*5 support and weekends supports are not that productive. This can be analyzed community forums and general third party review sites to know how good the solution is with respect to support. Most vendor’s provide quality product but not quality support, so drilling down to know more about their support is always going to be look before you leap approach.

7. Option to integrate with other solutions

The desktop management solution must be flexible enough to integrate with other solutions, because each client may prefer different solution for different purposes. For example: A organization may use A as help desk solution and B as desktop management solution, both of these solution must be capable of integrating with each other to increase overall efficiency of network management.

8. Flexible and affordable price

Solution must excel in three main aspects Quality, Price and Support.  As we have discussed enough about quality and support earlier, lets discuss about optimum pricing for desktop management solution. Market leaders definitely will be costlier and won’t be flexible as they do have quality and performance, while nichers may be at affordable price range but without lot of features that we expect, while you can look for market challengers because they will have features and also offer reasonable price range. Market challengers are always keen to tap into market leaders audience and convert them, because of this attitude they will be ready to offer flexibility in price and will assist you out of box. Depending upon your resources and needs you can decide to go between a market leader or a challenger.

Choices are not always wise, but when you do some research before choosing the right desktop management solution for your enterprise, you are very close of being wise.

About the Author

Giridhara Raam.M is a product analyst for ManageEngine Desktop Central with Master’s in Business from Anna University. MangeEngine is the real-time IT management company and division of Zoho Corporation. Follow the company blog at https://blogs.manageengine.com/ on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ManageEngine/ , on Twitter https://twitter.com/manageengine, on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/790880/. Official website www.manageengine.com.