SolarWinds Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) is a cloud-based system monitoring offering for Managed Service Providers. It provides a full monitoring and management suite, including automation and threat detection capabilities, and can integrate with other SolarWinds products.
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TeamViewer DEX
Score 8.8 out of 10
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The TeamViewer DEX platform is a cloud-native, real-time, autonomous DEX solution that fixes digital worker experience issues before they impact users. It aims to remove friction from IT operations, improve compliance, and help IT deliver personalized digital experiences by bringing the user front and centre in the decision-making process.
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.
When we are needing to patch workstations for zero-day vulnerabilities or security risks, Explorer is our go-to tool to push out those settings quickly. We have a TeamViewer DEX server stood up in our DMZ to communicate with the workstations outside of our VPN, so we can push those settings or patches to devices without needing them to attach to our network. It's really nice to be able to communicate with the computers that rarely connect to our corporate network and ensure that they are still protected. We do have the TeamViewer Client installed on all of our internal servers in order to get inventory and licensing information, but we don't typically utilize the TeamViewer software on the servers for much else. A different team handles those computers and often requires change management, so expedited changes don't happen often there. Standard deployment and patching tools do the job.
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.
They currently don't have all of their products incorporated into the web interface, meaning that we need a separate administration console for using their Shopping product.
The TeamViewer DEX Exchange is an online repository for common or useful instructions, but it is still a bit lacking. New instructions aren't published very often.
Writing your own custom instructions for Explorer has a bit of a learning curve if you aren't already familiar with SQL queries or their SCALE language. There is published documentation for SCALE, but I'd like to see them add a basic functionality course to their online training portal.
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)
TeamViewer DEX has plenty of features and functionality right out of the box. They offer an Exchange web portal where you can go to download new product packs as they become available through consulting engagements and customer requests. Sometimes you might need to do something more specific or customized than what is available to everyone, and that's when your own knowledge is put to the test. Being able to write your own SCALE code would be invaluable, but takes a while to learn if you aren't already familiar with SQL, PowerShell, or a few other popular languages. Making it your own can definitely take some work, but it's worth it in the end.
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.
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.
Microsoft has good intentions, but they are often late to the table. On more than one occasion, we have seen Microsoft incorporate a new feature into their own products, but it's something that TeamViewer had already been offering for a year or more. By the time Microsoft adds a new feature, it has already been in our toolbox and even then doesn't seem to have all of the additional functionality that we get from the TeamViewer software. Currently, we're starting to see Microsoft's push for endpoint performance analytics, which TeamViewer DEX has already done impressively for some time now.
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.
Being able to deploy configuration changes while devices are off-network was a real-life-saver for us during the sudden work-from-home scenarios we faced during the pandemic.
Reclaiming unused software licenses has provided some additional budget to use towards other products, and helps us to justify the cost of what we already have.
Using Experience to proactively troubleshoot performance issues not only reduces the number of help desk tickets but also provides a better work environment for our employees.
