Apple Remote Desktop (ARD), from Apple, is a remote administration tool for managing Apple computers running OS X across a network.
$79.99
one-time fee
BeyondTrust Remote Support
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar) helps support teams of all sizes improve business performance by enabling secure, controlled remote support to nearly any device or system, anywhere in the world. BeyondTrust offers deployment options that can fit a company’s business needs. The vendor says their on-premises physical and virtual appliances have helped enterprises satisfy regulatory requirements for years. Additionally, the vendor says the unique segmentation capabilities of…
Apple Remote Desktop is very Apple specific, which as both good and bad aspects. We actually use both Bomgar/BeyondTrust and Apple Remote Desktop because each is good at certain aspects and bad at certain aspects. For instance, BeyondTrust is very good at ad hoc sessions with …
I think that the one feature that sets ARD apart is the UI when in a remote session. There have been times where I've used Zoom, TeamViewer, etc. and couldn't access a part of the menu bar or accidentally closed a session due to the third-party UI that's been applied on the …
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 …
I would rate this higher if I was confident that Apple is continuing to develop this utility. It has only received minor updates for quite a long time, and is not featured much in any of Apple's online material. It really is a useful utility, but it is starting to show its age and is fraying a bit around the edges in some respects. It could be very useful when integrated with the various MDM solutions (in our case, Jamf Pro) especially when an engineer needs to force something immediately and can't wait for a check-in, and also can't depend on the end user being able to (for instance) do a sudo jamf policy or sudo jamf recon.
In our line of work, the ability to provide a seamless and fast forward approach to support is important. It reflects positively on our support staff and teams when we can resolve issues quickly and effectively whether that's on servers, workstations, mobile devices etc. We have found the software to not be as beneficial on Linux Servers.
Remote access for macOS computers. We support primarily businesses that use Macs and good macOS support is very important.
Maintains logs and screen sharing videos of all sessions. It's peace of mind for us and also helps meet compliance standards that we can tell exactly what happened, every time we access a machine remotely.
Allows for easy management of hundreds of computers in a single app. We support hundreds of computers for dozens of companies. Finding the right computer to access is very easy and able to be done with just a few clicks.
I would like to see more included Unix scrips that can be pushed to clients.
Inclusion of a way to remote control or screen share with Windows machines would be useful, as I manage a handful of Windows machines. While this would be possible using VNC on the Windows machines, including the ability to connect using Windows terminal connections would be awesome, for me.
Only issue I really have is the jump client goes to queu when our remote vendors shut down their machine. Works in our favor if we lose our connection but that never happens. And this is such a small issue but had to put something in here.
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.
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.
RemoteSupport has the most modern-looking interface I have seen. Its number of features, both nice to have and necessary, is better than any other competing solution on the market. They also prioritize security, so you can be confident that only the people you want accessing a given endpoint have access because their security can be configured to be role-based or as granular as you want.
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.
The support team at Bomgar always goes beyond the call of duty. No question seems to little or big for them to handle. They are there with you from the time you initiate a session or call with them until there is a resolution. You get awesome service. Their reps are always friendly and knowledgeable
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.
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.
When we used Webex our customers often had issues because staff in medical offices don't always have easy access to browse the internet. We could send them an invitation but we would often go round and round with them. With BeyondTrust Remote [Support (Legacy)] we don't have that problem as it allows easy access for these customers.
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.
