Remote Desktop Services vs. N-able N-sight RMM

This is well-suited if you need to log in to a remote machine on occasion to make updates or change configurations. It is also good for a production environment or for environments where people need to log in to use common applications, so you don't need to install the application on each individual client.

Incentivized

It's great for the basics of device management for Windows PCs, I wouldn't recommend it for Mac other than asset management. The patch management and monitoring templates are helpful for the day-to-day, and the "Take Control" feature for remote assistance allows us to provide fast service to clients - we often are on a machine within 5 minutes of receiving a ticket.

Incentivized

• When you connect with RDS, everything looks and feels (and is) exactly like you're sitting at that desktop. This is great for us and for users.
• You can sign in with RDS and the desktop will be the same as when you left it (if you choose to set it up that way).
• Although they take some setup, RemoteApps are a very handy way to let users access a program without requiring them to actually connect to a remote desktop on the server.

Incentivized

• It provides fantastic remote access capabilities. The Take Control tool gives us a robust platform that is capable of remote controlling almost any endpoint we need to and the chat, file transfer, and screen recording tools are all exceptionally useful.
• SolarWinds RMM is particularly useful as a single pane of glass solution that allows us to monitor and manage thousands of endpoints across dozens of different clients. It does a solid job of allowing us to sort, organize, and filter based off of who and what we want to see at any given time.
• Due to its client based nature, the platform excels at in-depth monitoring of services, event logs, and the functionality of systems with custom script checks.

Incentivized

• Remote Desktop Services currently does not support multiple monitors on the terminal server. Unlike other applications such as Teamviewer, there's no feature to toggle between multiple screens even if they were connected to the terminal server.
• Remote Desktop Services should provide an option to scale up or down the screen size after a connection is established. Currently you can only adjust the screen size prior to a connection is established. So you'll have to take a best guess at what display screen resolution will fit best on your screen.
• Remote Desktop Services should offer some kind of menu to send special key strokes like Ctrl+Alt+Del to the terminal server. Currently the substitute for that particular combination is Ctrl+Alt+End. But I have yet to discover a replacement for other combination keystrokes such as Alt+PrintScrn.

Incentivized

• UI speed and threading across multiple windows (1 window refreshing, causes all refreshes to hang).
• Load times in certain menus, regardless of server specs.
• Integration with 3rd party applications.
• Speed of dev team response in regards to existing features malfunctioning, or major bugs that Solarwinds does not consider major.

Incentivized

The initial setup for Remote Desktop Services is complex, and licensing is costly. Each user connects to their virtual desktop hosted by a single server or group of servers, so a change or issue with servers quickly impacts every single user at the same time. Aside from that, users appreciate seeing their same personal desktop from any device or geographical location.

Incentivized

The interface is easy to navigate. Setting up policies is straight forward. The antivirus and web filter are simple and exceptions are easy to make. Upgrading the agent is made simple and creating scripts is made fool proof. (Well, almost)

Incentivized

There are some third party tools available that allow you to manage multiple connections.

Incentivized

As with any Microsoft Server product, support for Remote Desktop Services requires a paid support package. These are license-based and very costly, on top of the already costly product licensing. Microsoft's licensing is complicated to begin with, so setting up licensing alone essentially requires a licensing expert's counsel. There is community documentation and support available on Microsoft websites, as well as community websites.

Incentivized

The ease of use, full functionality, reliability and excellent support.[N-able RMM (formerly Solarwinds RMM)] gives users a full suite of tools with a single installable file. Unlike standard tools, you don't have to install several different executables to be able to have fully protected end points.

Incentivized

We selected Remote Desktop Services based upon price alone. Other solutions on the market are significantly more expensive, but if your company can foot the bill you should seriously consider products that have been on the market for longer. The lack of an ability to easily upgrade farm servers has been a challenge for us - although it is still faster than updating an application on 2000+ machines. The lack of a centralized management console in 2008 R2 is also challenging, but you get by with the tools available to you. If you don't have the money to spend on Citrix or VMWare Horizon, Remote Desktop Services is a decent replacement.

Incentivized

Ultimately, we chose to stay with N-able N-sight due to their competitive pricing and billing system that we integrated into our accounting. The other competitors do offer better-made modules/new technology, but we were not ready to make this big move because of the cost. In the future, perhaps, we will still consider NinjaOne.

Incentivized

• Allowed remote users access from home
• Shared file access for multipolar users from a centralized location
• Cost to add additional users when maxed out
• Purchase multiple licenses for programs to run in virtual machines. Or unable to run on a virtual machine

Incentivized

• The ROI is immediate for us. The advanced alerting alone makes this product an ace in our bag. The confidence you have in your network is wonderful.
• Another big ROI we get from the advanced alerting is the peace of mind that our engineers feel. We are a 24/7 shop, so being on-call goes from being hectic to extremely manageable.
• The only negative I can honestly say is when the time comes to patch the product. Micro-patches are easy enough, but jumping versions can be a bit taxing.

Incentivized