MSPs
and IT professionals use N-able™ N-central® to monitor and manage devices and complex
networks remotely. N-central provides
visibility and efficiency as the user's needs scale. N-central can help users:
1. Proactively monitor everything on a customer network—not just servers
and workstations—and troubleshoot.
2. Stay on top of threats with features like MFA, antivirus, integrated endpoint
detection and response, data backup, disk encryption, email protection,…
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OpenText Network Node Manager i (NNMi)
Score 8.1 out of 10
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OpenText Network Node Manager i is a network management platform acquired by Micro Focus from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and now supported by OpenText.
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TeamViewer
Score 8.6 out of 10
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TeamViewer provides software for both remote management and online collaborations. With TeamViewer, users have access to fully integrated online conference solutions for audio and video communication, including interactive screen sharing and remote access features.
I selected N-able N-central as I liked the idea of easy-to-work with pricing that integrates with other PSAs (specifically ConnectWise PSA aka Connectwise Manage). I did not succeed with that. I'd use any of the other tools instead. The integration is problematic as the default …
Verified User
Administrator
Chose N-able N-central
It's much pricier than other remote support fools.
N-Able is perfect for an MSP environment. It gives all the standard functionality an IT professional needs out of the box and can be configured to show almost anything required. For example, we have configured a dashboard to show when our backups need attention for each customer. This is achieved by running a small script on repeat via N-Central everyday/evening, and the result gives us information on the dashboard to help us identify exactly what is working and what needs looking into.
Well-suited for large-scale deployment without needing more servers. Linux installation is quite stable, and Polling of a large number of devices is well managed. Less suited to Network Observability scenarios or cloud network monitoring.
I think it works well for IT management and help desk support of end users. I find it very useful to help users and send files to their desktop. Remote Workers still run into some problems with MFA and updates, both to the TV Host app and OS updates. However, it does give us secure direct access without the need of a VPN.
Remote tasks - entry-level techs can run basic tasks without physically touching a piece of equipment.
Remote support - remote controlling user devices is easy and saves a lot of time with having to initiate a remote session.
Management of devices, particularly patch management and anti-virus management - you can automatically approve and deploy patches and schedule automatic AV scans.
Customer support just points to online guides and I feel they aren't helpful.
During the trial they turn on a lot of features. In my experience, if you play around with the features, they charge you for them. Keep this in mind if you move forward with N-Able - they will charge for "trialed" services.
In my experience, some services that you're being charged for can't be disabled or monitored by you or your team. You only see them on the monthly invoice.
In my opinion, the "Scripting Automation" doesn't provide value. You're either going to be writing your own batch or Powershell to make scripting work.
In my opinion, monitoring software deployments is painful.
The default monitoring template can't be duplicated, edited, or referenced. You'll find that the default monitors in an unusual way and will throw needless recurring alerts into your ticketing system. To avoid this, you need to create a template from scratch which takes many hours to set up.
In my opinion, they're more concerned about a quick buck than customer service. "Buyer beware" company.
With an iPad, you can't take control of the device, so you have to tell someone what to do. Which can be a challenge because the end user doesn't know what to do
With the free version of TeamViewer you cant enter Admin credentials because TeamViewer blocks the windows to fill in the credentials
The free version can be really limited which can be putting off people because they don't see the full potential of TeamViewer
Overall we have liked our solar winds experience, however, as our company has grown to support larger enterprises, this product does not have the functionality that our teams need in order to fully support them. The lack of granularity with backups and lack of ability to support nutanix environments is slowly drawing us into the use of other tools.
We need this tool in our day to day business. It is what we do all day remoting into clients devices. In this day and age we can access devices all over the world as long as we have secure internet connection. It certainly saves money in gas, and even if you are away you can help.
The user interface is fairly straight forward, with logic groupings for objects. I did not deploy this software, but am one of the daily administrators. Once you get the correct agent package (Which can be a challenge) the integration into AD is not bad. The UI could be more customized, but that may have been a design choice.
NNMi's user interface is described as well-designed and intuitive, making it easy for users to navigate and perform tasks quickly, thereby enhancing the overall user experience. The system offers a powerful network discovery mechanism that maps out your network's physical and virtual topology, enabling you to visualize connections between devices and identify potential issues. Fault monitoring is at its best. NNMi provides a unified environment for viewing faults, availability, and performance data, consolidating essential information into a single platform.
TeamViewer is a reliable and really strong tool for accessing remote IT platforms secure and fast. We don't know any product that provide us such strong functionality to make our life as a internationally recognized MES provider with DIAMES with an international clientele so easy. We look forward for any new TeamViewer functionality that supports us even more.
Every time we have reached out to SolarWinds they are quick to respond, even offering support chat 24/7. Their support team is great and works with you to find solutions to issues. They have taken items we had issues with before and used those to create updates so that the issue is handled better in the future.
Support is long and arduous and often are unable to help resolve the issue. We often have to do escalations or duty manager to get things moved. Even with a technical account manager, we do not see much improvement from a support point of view. This is an area where Micro Focus has a lot of improvement to do.
the few times i have had to contact teamviewer support, they were very responsive and give me quick answers and seemed to understand my problems quickly and easily. I did not have to sit on the phone for hours on hold or get passed around to multiple phone support techs before finding a solution to my issues, so i would rate their support very highly.
As expected without any problem! Alternate in-person training is another efficient way to learn how a product works. There are many third party supporters for TeamViewer courses available that can give additional ideas how to use TeamViewer for specific functions and features as we did require in respect of our usage.
I have never used the online training either. I have watched a few informational videos that were helpful when learning how to do a specific procedure within TeamViewer and get the most out of the software by utilizing one of the many features that are available with the software. Again, 5 if for neutral.
TeamViewer installation and deployment to other devices is pretty straightforward and does not require much technical know-how. This makes ease of use attractive when supporting both new and existing clients with limited technical knowledge. I think ease of use is a huge factor in getting new clients. TeamViewer handles that extremely well.
Our version of SolarWinds was old and running on old hardware, but it was way easier to setup and do things with. It did not do everything N-able does such as patch management, or at least we didn't have a module to do so if one existed. However it definitely seemed easier to use and possibly more stable.
Even though there are many products in the market such as from Solarwinds, CA Spectrum (no DX Spectrum), PRTG that offers similar or even with more flexibility the fault and performance monitoring still Micro Focus is a very nice tool when it comes to Scalability and Stability with all necessary monitoring coverage. There is no external database required and hence less issues with integration.
TeamViewer's cost is much lower than that of other solutions, and its security is far superior to RemotePC's. TeamViewer is also a request-based remote session manager, unlike other software that allows indefinite connection time. TeamViewer's free version makes it even better for one end of the group to find support, while the other end has the paid version.
