Questions & Answers from the Webcast: Your Mac Users Deserve Quality Support Too. Sponsors: Atempo. Centrify. Group Logic. LANrev.

Transcription

1 Questions & Answers from the Webcast: Your Mac Users Deserve Quality Support Too Sponsors: Atempo Centrify Group Logic LANrev Parallels November 10, 2009 Web Help Desk Contents Compilation of the questions asked by attendees of the webcast and answered by the panelists. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of EDA.

2 The webcast: Your Mac Users Deserve Quality Support Too The presentation was webcast on October 8, An on-demand version of the webcast is available at ar-mac-users-support.html This document includes questions that were submitted by the attendees during the webcast and the answers provided by the panelists at the time or subsequent to the webcast. Comments on the Q & A Session Many members of the audience were adept at dealing with sophisticated environments and their questions reflected that depth of skill. Others were relatively new to the possibilities. Regardless of your skill set, we urge you to visit the Enterprise Desktop Alliance Resource Center. It contains many documents, videos and information sources, as well links to documents and resources on the members home sites. If your questions are not answered through those means we would be glad to talk to you about your challenges integrating the Mac. Contact us Atempo Enterprise Data Protection - info.us@atempo.com Centrify - Identity & Access Managementinfo@centrify.com Group Logic - File & Print Services - info@grouplogic.com LANrev - Systems Lifecycle Management - info@lanrev.com Parallels Virtualization Web Help Desk Technical Support & Knowledge Base - sales@webhelpdesk.com EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 2

3 Questions and Answers: Responses by company: Some of the questions were specific to a particular presenter, others were answered by both. We indicate who the responding companies are under the question. Q: Does Web Help Desk offer concurrent licensing? Web Help Desk: Yes, Web Help Desk offers both named/fixed and concurrent licensing with both our hosting SaaS help desk service and perpetual on-premise server deployment. Named and concurrent seats can be combined to match your specific usage needs. Q: How about licensing on the LANrev? How does that work? LANrev: LANrev is licensed on a per seat basis for clients to be managed. The server and admin consoles are free. There are both volume and educational discounts available. Q: Do you support parent child relationships for tickets? Web Help Desk: Yes, parent child relationships are support. You can have multiple Incident tickets related to individual Problem tickets following ITIL standards. Child tickets will be automatically closed and updates sent to their creators when Parent tickets are resolved and closed. Q: Can we use the built-in MySQL server in the OS X Server? LANrev: Yes, the LANrev ODBC export will work fine with the MySQL server included with Mac OS X Server. You do not have to install a separate MySQL server unless you want to use a different version for some reason. Web Help Desk: Yes, the built-in MySQL server included with Mac OS X Server is fully supported. We also support MS SQL Server 2000 or later, OpenBase SQL, Oracle 8i or later, and PostreSQL 8 or later. Web Help Desk also comes bundled with a FrontBase 4 db for out of the box functionality with OS X and Windows. Q: What are the limitations on the number of end users? LANrev: LANrev will only display as many client Machines as you have client licenses for. There is no limit or cost for the number of admin users you can create for accessing LANrev. They are essentially free. Web Help Desk: There is no limitation imposed on the number of end users supported by Web Help Desk. There is also no associated fee for these Ticket Submitters. The total number of Tickets and Assets within Web Help Desk is also unlimited EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 3

4 Q: Do you support SMS text messaging? Web Help Desk: Yes, SMS is fully supported for Technician notifications. We also have settings for minimum priority and alert level before sending out an SMS message. The SMS message content template is also fully customizable, including dynamic variables. Q: Does LANrev need to be on the same machine as the MySQL server? LANrev: No. While it s simpler to host the MySQL server on the same system as the LANrev server itself, you can have the MySQL server hosted physically on a different system. Just remember to configure the MySQL server so that the LANrev server is able to access it remotely over the network. Web Help Desk: Q: Does Web Help Desk support SLAs and notifications? Web Help Desk: Yes, SLAs are support in Web Help Desk and may be defined by the priority and service type. Alerts can be sent to Technicians dependant on various conditions and time intervals. Escalation alerts may also be configured. Alert conditions will also be displayed in each Ticket with graphical indicators. Q: Which operating systems does LANrev run on? LANrev: The server supports Mac OS 10.4 and higher and Windows 2000 and higher. The current version of the client supports back to Mac OS and Windows 2000 Professional. The current system requirements are listed at Q: How much of LANrev's asset information is imported into Web Help Desk? LANrev / Web Help Desk: 20 information items are synced natively plus an unlimited number of custom information items as defined by you. Q: In an all-mac environment, what does LANrev bring to the table that Apple Remote Desktop doesn't provide? LANrev: Better scalability for distributed environments, better remote management for Macs outside the network, twice as many information items, ability to define manual and dynamic custom information items, many more options for controlling when/how packages install, distributed staging server architecture to minimize bandwidth usage during package deployment, automated patch management that also takes advantage of the distributed staging server architecture, live disk imaging, software license usage monitoring/reconciliation/enforcement, power management, computer theft tracking, and iphone/ipod Touch inventory EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 4

5 Q: Can LANrev work with Microsoft's SCCM, which is what we using for Windows workstation management. If yes, how does that work? LANrev: The LANrev SCCM integration module installs on a Windows LANrev server and allows you to export Mac client information to SCCM using the native formats used by other Windows PCs. At set intervals the export module will generate DDR and MIF files for each Mac computer entry. You can see what the integration looks like at Q: Are dual boot Macs counted as 2 assets or 1 for licensing, since only one can be booted at time? LANrev: Boot Camp Macs show up as separate entities in LANrev and are managed separately. This is also the case for virtual Machines. You would pay a discounted price for both virtual Machines and Boot Camp systems. Please contact LANrev Sales at (214) for a customized quote. Q: Where are the integration instructions located? LANrev: There are instructions located in the Web Help Desk Admin Guide. There are also instructions posted at A new version of this document will be posted in the new future as well as on the EDA web site at Web Help Desk: Web Help Desk/LANrev integration documentation is included in Chapter 7 of the Web Help Desk Admin Guide available for download from Q: Does LANrev or WHD provide the MySQL binaries and server specs needed to run the integration? LANrev: LANrev does not redistribute the MySQL binaries so you must download them directly from the MySQL web site - downloads/ - depending on your OS. In general we recommend MySQL 5.1 and the MyODBC 3.51 drivers as they appear to be the most stable combination. Web Help Desk: Full installation instructions are provided in Chapter 1 of the Web Help Desk Admin Guide. MySQL is not installed by the Web Help Desk installer. We generally recommend 512MB RAM for every 5 Technician Seats using Web Help Desk. Disk space would need to be determined by your specific use including anticipated ticket counts and attachment file sizes. 10GB of disk space should allow for plenty of future storage needs. Q: is there an import utility to get data into LANrev from legacy database LANrev: If you are able to export that data from your database as a CSV or TSV file then you can import that information into LANrev via manual custom information fields. There is an import utility to help you map columns from the text file to LANrev s custom info fields EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 5

6 Q: What happens when the inventory is already in WHD and we are looking to sync LANrev for the first time. To make things more real world. Our Laptops have two Mac addresses and use the internal asset numbering system for the asset number and not the serial number. How do you know how to sync the item. Web Help Desk: (1) If the primary key value of the inventory already in Web Help Desk does not match the corresponding value in LANrev, there are options to delete that inventory from Web Help Desk or updated the Assets status to a predefined value or simply ignore any updates to that asset in Web Help Desk. (2) Web Help Desk allows configuration to use Web Help Desk s current next-up Asset Number as the unique Asset Number from assets imported from LANrev. The serial number does not have to be the Asset Number within Web Help Desk. Virtually any LANrev Asset attribute can be used for the Asset Number in Web Help Desk, as long as that LANrev attribute is a unique value. Q: Also how do you insure the information in LANrev is being updated into the MYSQL? LANrev: There's a LANrevODBCExport.log file that LANrev writes to with a date/time stamp each time an export occurs. If there's a problem and the export fails for any reason, the error message will appear there. Q: Also remember the inventory in WHD was entered by a person which means you will have incorrect data, example S instead of 5, Z instead of 2, I instead of 1 Web Help Desk: If Web Help Desk matches a LANrev discovered asset with a Web Help Desk asset, Web Help Desk will update the asset with the LANrev data, replacing the human errors. Q: Does this LANrev integration work with the hosted WHD? LANrev: You would need to make your MySQL server Internet accessible to the WHD server. Web Help Desk: Yes, the hosted SaaS Web Help Desk can connect to an external LANrev database regardless of its location, provided that the appropriate port and security accessibility is available on the LANrev and organization s side. Simplistically speaking, the Web Help Desk SaaS hosted option can virtually be thought of as on-premise deployment, where the server is simply located off site. Q: Do either WHD or LANrev require a server OS, or will they work well with just a client OS? LANrev: LANrev will run just fine on a client OS such as Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7 Professional. You ll get better performance from a serverclass OS though. LANrev will also run fine on client versions of Mac OS X. There is no performance difference on client and server versions of Mac OS X. Web Help Desk: Web Help Desk can be installed on a Client OS. Server OS is not required EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 6

7 Q: How are the asset attributes associated to the User? LANrev: All asset attributes are linked to Machine entries in LANrev and not users. Web Help Desk: Asset-Client relationships can be facilitated through the Web Help Desk/LANrev sync. You will have the option for Web Help Desk to Add new Client associations found in LANrev, Replace new Client associations found in LANrev, or Ignore any new Client associations found in LANrev. If you opt to allow LANrev to associate a user to an Asset, the user who last logged into the Asset, as discovered by LANrev, will be assigned to the Asset in Web Help Desk. Q: Don't you have to have LANrev on Mac to be admin for Macs, and on PC to admin PCs? Mac staging server for Macs, right LANrev: No, you can administrate both Macs and PCs from a single admin console. The only exception to this is that Mac payloads for software distribution must be uploaded from a Mac admin due to resource fork and Unix permissions, which a Windows admin console would not understand. Q: Will this configuration work with Legacy Mac systems such as OS 9 as well? LANrev: LANrev currently does not support Mac Classic (OS X only). I don't believe there's a problem in WHD with having an OS 9 system as an asset though. Web Help Desk: Asset details imported from a discovery solution such as LANrev or manually entered into Web Help Desk have no dependency on OS version or platform. The Web Help Desk server-side application is supported on, from a Mac perspective, OS X 10.4 or higher. All end users can access Web Help Desk from virtually any modern web-browser, regardless of the end user s operating system EDA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE 7