Item: Chrome Remote Desktop
Rating: 7
Author: Maurice Samuels

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Chrome Remote Desktop is used to control and monitor Windows servers that initial long-running database-related jobs that require a stable, long-time connection. It is also used for copying large files that take more than 24 hours. It's only used within the database area and enterprise-wide distribution is under review.

Pros and Cons

The stability is excellent.
The speed is excellent.
It has very little performance overhead.

Security. there have been a large number of patches and applying patches in production environments requires significant planning and potential downtime.
Move to a quarterly patching cycle so that patching isn't so often.
Better auditing and transparency.

Return on Investment

Chrome licensing is better priced than MS, so this is positive.
Utilizing multiple desktops to submit and monitor long-running batch jobs reduces the need for only 1 desktop to submit and admin job scheduling, this is also a positive.
Patching is a negative, it is too often and too time-consuming.

Alternatives Considered

Symantec Endpoint Protection

Chrome Remote Desktop is much more user-friendly that Symantec Endpoint Protection. Support is marginally better with Chrome as well.
Symantec's solution is hard to set up and admin, it also uses a lot of memory that can only be freed with rebooting. The downside to memory usage I suppose can be offset by encryption gains.

Support Rating

Support is just using Google to find solutions. No official documentation has been provided. A lot of trail and error and retries before success which can be frustrating. Fortunately, there is a large user base so finding solutions online from other end users is helpful. Hopefully, future releases will be better supported by real-time assistance.

Key Insights

Do you think Chrome Remote Desktop delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Chrome Remote Desktop's feature set?

Yes

Did Chrome Remote Desktop live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Chrome Remote Desktop go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Chrome Remote Desktop again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Running a large database replication job from a central location, where multiple parties can monitor progress, is very well handled by Chrome Remote Desktop.
Moving data from public to private networks and vice versa is not well handled and is too risky for adoption at this time.
Chrome Remote Desktop's transportability is well done also since it works cross-platform.

Chrome Remote Desktop is better than most

Overall Satisfaction with Chrome Remote Desktop