Remote Desktop Services from Microsoft is virtual desktop and remote user session technology.
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SecureLink Enterprise Access
Score 9.0 out of 10
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SecureLink is a platform for remote support in regulated industries. Enterprise software vendors use SecureLink to deliver remote support and services. Hospitals, banks, casinos and other regulated entities use SecureLink to authenticate, control and audit remote access for their vendors, business associates and other 3rd parties.
Remote Desktop services are well suited for people looking to connect to Local computers/Servers after connecting to VPN or Local Area Network. It is easy to use and performs superbly without any issues. However, it does not have support for connecting to Non-Windows-based Devices and Applications like Teamviewer beat RDP when it comes to connecting to machines outside one's network.
It does exactly what it needs to. The only times I've had serious issues with rolling out to a vendor is when they have a "contractual agreement" to only use their solution. Almost every vendor that I've worked with and shown this product to has been skeptical for the first 5 minutes and fully converted to liking the ease of use of the product by 10 minutes
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.
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.
Java based. Always an issue. I know they are working on this and it will be Javaless if we need it. I know that Java can cause issues across the board and I understand the need of it, but it does not make it any better when there are Java issues.
Stronger integration with the Active Directory. Currently its only read-only, which is good and bad.
I would love to see an App. I know they are working on this as well.
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.
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.
The employees at Securelink have always been responsive and seem to be invested in the success of my company. They truly understand what their product means to us so if there is a problem, they are always willing to help. In the rare event that something is found on their end, they will be proactive and reach out to someone to help and get something on calendar for a fix
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.
Securelink seems to work better than LogMein for a large enterprise group. Our company has over 10,000 different connections and securelink manages them well.
I've found that Securelink allows me to get a vendor access to an application for support purposes much faster than a provisioned VPN account and the red tape around this. I can set up a vendor to access an application suite in a half hour and it will be more secure than regular provisioning.
The ROI is yet to be seen on this, but it certainly makes Compliance, Internal Audit, and Legal very happy, which helps everybody.
Internally, there is much more push back and it has been problematic. For a tech, to have to log in to a server and navigate to a system is considered cumbersome, when before all they had to do was open up Putty or RDP to a server to get in. The only way to combat this is to force them to use Securelink by removing rights. Near impossible for the domain admins.
