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Published: Friday, 06 February 2009

Introduction

Currently one of the latest trends in the IT infrastructure arena is to look for a central management tool to help with all of the different platform choices out there like, Terminal Services, Workstations, Laptops and VDI. Besides the central management from the IT perspective there is big user demand to have the same configuration independent on which platform the users is connected to. For example the user would like to have the same setting in his Word application as configured on his fat client, while working at home at the SBC infrastructure. For Terminal Services such management tools are already available for some years and these products are appearing nowadays for other platforms such as VDI and workstations. I always call such products Desktop Management Products, because they are managing mainly the desktop user environment. The products which can be labeled into this category are all comparable with each other, but all have their own unique features, and characteristics. The Tricerat Simplify Suite is a good example of such a product, and really stands out with features that are pretty unique for this category.

According triCerat their uniqueness is how they determine their feature set. triCerat first and foremost is in close touch with their primary users, the System Administrators and end users who are the users of the various in application delivery strategies. By listening and paying attention to their clients, they have learned there was a need for products that not only prevent known system limitations but maintain and improve the end users experience.  In targeting everyday problems that exist within any application delivery strategy, triCerat has been able to develop software that eradicates these problems. Now in its fifth version, triCerat calls this software the Simplify Suite V5.

Read more: Tricerat Simplify Suite V5

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Published: Thursday, 03 July 2008

One of the most awaited features in Server Based Computing products was session recording. Because of legal regulations or in high confidential departments, all actions carried out by end users should be recorded so they can be reviewed at a later time. Another major advantage of session recording is its usage as a root cause analysis and troubleshooting mechanism. Imagine the ability to reply any action performed by privileged users or external vendors, and imagine the power you will gain by just looking at who did what on the servers. 

A product that offers both functionalities is ObserveIT. ObserveIT is a visual auditing tool that enables the administrator to get a visual audit trail of what has been done on the servers, who did it, and where else the same action was performed.  Since the product is agnostic to protocol and software, it captures and records ALL methods of remote access to the server, including RDP, VNC, TS, Citrix, Netop, Damware and others. In this review I'm going to take a look at this product from both perspectives.  

Read more: ObserveIT