Remote Desktop Services vs. Wayk Bastion (Discontinued)

Remote Desktop Services provides access to work environments from any device. This allows us to ensure business continuity in case of disaster. It provides admins more control over access and security. Remote Desktop Services simplifies software updates and compliance management by reducing the need to act on end users devices.

It is a product that is very small footprint that allows remote control.Can be used very efficiently and effectively in a small environment. That would be up to 50 computers. You can use this in a larger environment but it would require multiple techs to cover. Currently I am the only helpdesk tech in my company.

• 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

• Wayk Now has 3 authentication methods to use when connecting in to a remote Wayk Now instance - Secure Remote Password (the app password), Secure Remote Delegation (the OS credentials which is used to gain elevated rights should they be required) and finally Prompt for Permission which is very handy if your client isn't IT literate so they just get a prompt to click on to authenticate with the app that way. From what I've seen in other remote assist apps, this is fairly unique.
• Another new feature that I think gives Wayk a slight edge over the competition is a new graphics codec for the video feed from the client app called GFWX. Again its certainly a unique take on this problem of streaming the video to the client ends app. Basically it means that the image quality is a lot better for a lot less bandwidth because of the codec's compression.
• The last point that Wayk Now does well is its integration with the other Devolutions products such as Remote Desktop Manager in which you can create Wayk Now session entries so that you can build up a DB of your clients/your own unattended Wayk Now instances that you can open from within RDM.

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

• Requires an agent install on the remote computer (or a full Wayk install). Would like to see a tool that allowed someone to connect to my WAYK invite, and use the services remotely so that it is a true no-touch on the remote server.
• Limited feature set (by design, but if you are looking for a full featured remote support product, this probably isn't it). Of course since this is by design it could be considered a pro.

Considering that Wayk Now comes in a free edition that can be used commercially, even if I wasn't to renew Wayk Now for whatever reason, I would still use it, but I do actually require the unattended access feature which is available for free now with the new free business licence.

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

I feel Wayk Now is very useable as it's still a very simple concept packaged basically the same way that the competition does with their remote assist type apps

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

My experience with their support is for a related product, not Wayk Now; however Devolutions support has always been superior to most regardless of the product being used. I left it at a 9 instead of a 10 simply because I haven't used it, but I would expect nothing less than a 10 from my experiences with RDM - both free and paid versions.

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

I think they're great tools also. But. Skype for Business, it's only for 365 users or, with external users, be prepared to download a nice 50Mb PLUGIN.... And TeamViewer, I think it's great, but lots of companies around the world block it thinking it's a malware, more than a support tool.

• 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

• There is a no-cost version of the tool which has an immediate positive Return on Investment as it allows remote support users to efficiently assist users