IBM Tivoli Remote Control
Robust remote desktop management across the enterprise
Highlights
■ Enables organizations to remotely manage thousands of PCs and servers from a central location
■ Allows PC problems to be resolved remotely, helping to reduce expensive onsite visits by IT staff
■ Offers new session modes, including Guidance, File Transfer, Chat and facilitates collaboration and escalation processes, for improved prob-lem resolution
■ Supports Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) and also supports the U.S. Federal Government FIPs 140-2 stan-dard for data encryption
■ Enhances security with centralized logging and video recordings—you can now trans-form and share recordings between various applications and organizations.
A large cost component in enterprise support operations is the need to sup-port end customers who use desktop/ laptops and who may even be in remote locations. Employee productivity is highly affected if desktop support issues are not solved in a timely manner. Having the ability to remotely login and support desktops is a great time and cost saver for enterprises. Innovative features such as the ability to record, a guidance mode and policy-based management greatly improve support and customer experience.
2 and mouse, from anywhere on your
network. You can also chat, transfer files, remotely guide the user, administer the policies to be applied to different users and target groups, and much more. These features can help provide more efficient and effective analysis of user problems from the administrator’s desktop, without the added cost of dis-patching a technician or relying on user descriptions over the phone. Tivoli Remote Control can help deliver better support, more flexibility, and richer security, with robust features that include enhanced central logging and video capture of the sessions.
Tivoli Remote Control is easy to deploy and maintain. It also includes several search facilities for locating targets, users. It audits and records information for a given session, providing a quick connection to the target workstation or the audit information relevant to any given session.
The Java™-based console of Tivoli Remote Control allows an administrator to access and take over any remote system that has the IBM Tivoli Remote Control agent installed, from any sys-tem that can access the Tivoli Remote Control server. This improved console helps speed up quality service delivery with easy-to-use menus, direct short-cuts to system options, recording and auditing capabilities, remote system information at the click of a button.
Tivoli Remote Control also features a Web-based user interface that provides the ability to start a remote control session from a Web browser, allowing a virtual help desk to access any remote session from any location, with 24x7 remote control capability. This Web interface for Tivoli Remote Control management and administration also enables administrators to centrally administer users and targets, associate them to groups, and establish the poli-cies that should apply to sessions between them.
Firewall support
Tivoli Remote Control supports firewall security practices. It also works over firewalls with the least amount of intrusion—without requiring the installation or configuration of any other components.
Enhanced security
Tivoli Remote Control provides several security features, including:
● Full datastream encryption for all communications and file transfers between controllers and targets ● Enhanced central logging to track
ses-sion information including controller ID, target host name, session policies, and auditable events such as user acceptance, file transfer operations, ses-sion mode changes and chat transcripts ● Automatic session logoffs due to
admin-istrative inactivity
● A configurable option that allows users to grant remote takeover sessions ● The capability to capture a video
3 Tivoli Remote Control includes, but is
not limited to, the following session modes:
Monitor—Allows you to view the display of the remote workstation and monitor activities.
Guidance—Allows you to guide the end user by providing several graphical tools such as drawing and highlighting that can be used to draw in the remote target and provide specific instructions to the user without any real intrusion.
System configuration collection—Allows you to collect important information about the configuration of the remote system at the click of a button.
File transfer—Allows you to transfer files and directories from the controller to the target. This feature is available as a session mode by itself, or as an in-session feature.
Chat—Allows you to establish a direct communication channel between administrators and end users, helping to simplify operations. This feature is available as a session mode by itself, or as an in-session feature.
Collaboration—Allows you to invite other participants to an existing session in order to obtain further support or to train another administrator.
Reporting—Allows you to create and customize existing reports to monitor Tivoli Remote Control usage and gener-ate other statistics relevant to your organization.
A session mode switch allows you to change from one session mode to another without having to restart the session, as long as the policies allow it. Users can change session status or ter-minate a session at any time.
Policy-based authorization
To protect access to a workstation ses-sion, Tivoli Remote Control provides policy-based functionality that lets you establish policies that are centrally defined, managed and stored. Policies are applied to a user/target group relationship.
Centralized session tracking
Tivoli Remote Control provides central-ized session tracking, which can help you create statistical, service-level agreement or security reports. You also can customize the target to log events into Microsoft®Windows®Event Logger or into Linux®system logs, including the date and time of connection and dis-connection, controller and target user names, policies applied to the session, type of session established (and any changes made to it during the session), the network addresses of the target and controller computers, chat tran-scripts, and video recording for the ses-sion, if available.
Quick system connectivity
4 group and the target group, along with
the policies that will apply to the ses-sion specified for this relationship. Only an administrator can modify the policies that apply to a given relationship.
Multiple-language support
Tivoli Remote Control supports Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This multiple-language support includes instances where the administrator and the end user have different keyboards. For example, an administrator using a Japanese key-board can support an end user with an English keyboard.
Tivoli Remote Control in action
In addition to providing robust remote control functionality, Tivoli Remote Control has advanced features that enhance your security and compliance efforts, support your training program and help reduce your service delivery costs. The following scenarios show how Tivoli Remote Control can address these business needs.
Creating an audit trail of access to sensitive information
End users who call in to the help desk may have sensitive data on their com-puters, such as financial data, human resources records, or medical files. It is important for an organization to be able to prove that sensitive data has not been compromised—that unauthorized help desk personnel have not had access to restricted data during a sup-port session where the remote control feature was used to access a user’s computer. Tivoli Remote Control sup-ports compliance efforts and helps keep access to sensitive data secure.
● Security policies can be set to ensure that all sessions are recorded automati-cally for audit purposes, or that sessions on specific end user machines are recorded. As a result, an audit trail is readily available for compliance or security checks.
● Policies can also be set to limit the actions that can be taken on an end user machine, so that machines with sensitive data can be protected. ● Audit logs are kept both centrally and
locally to help prevent tampering, adding another degree of audit strength.
Facilitating the training of help desk personnel
Proper training of new help desk agents is critical in order to prevent mistakes that cause compliance problems or business interruptions. On-the-job experience is often an important part of the training program. During this period, it may be necessary to limit an agent’s authorization rights until he or she is fully trained. It can also be valuable to capture the actions an agent takes dur-ing a help session, so that the actions can be evaluated later. Tivoli Remote Control provides the capabilities to sup-port these training needs.
● Authorizations can be differentiated depending on the individual agent’s skill level, reducing the risk of mistakes and business interruptions.
● Help desk sessions can be recorded and replayed for training purposes, helping organizations provide a training experi-ence that is customized for the individ-ual. Targeted feedback helps reduce training time and costs.
Reducing service delivery costs through efficient problem solving
5 cause of a problem. After an initial
assessment by a help desk agent, it may be necessary to collaborate with peers or experts, or to escalate prob-lem resolution to another agent. Tivoli Remote Control enables enhanced col-laboration, facilitating problem solving processes and helping reduce service delivery costs.
● Help desk agents can give control of a problem to another agent, or revoke control as necessary. This hand-over can be done without reopening the ses-sion, expediting problem resolution. ● Multiple help desk agents can use
built-in collaboration capabilities to resolve complex problems that require input from multiple sources, providing the user with a seamless problem resolution experience.
Access Request Feature
The new Access Request feature allows users to request access to target machines for which they may not have access or the level of access is insuffi-cient through a Web interface, for a defined period of time. The administra-tor can then authorize or reject the request or modify it before accepting. The extended access will be automati-cally removed when the schedule for which access was granted expires.
FIPS & FDCC Support
Tivoli Remote Control supports the U.S. Federal Government FIPs 140-2 stan-dard for data encryption. The Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) on 32-bit Windows XP Professional edition SP2 and 32-bit Windows Vista SP1 is also supported.
For more information
To learn more about IBM Tivoli Remote Control, please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following Web site:
ibm.com/tivoli/products/
remote-control
About Tivoli software from IBM
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IBM Tivoli Remote Control at a glance
Remote Control Server
IBM Tivoli Remote Control V5.1.2 server with embedded software components (WebSphere®Application Server V7.0 and Derby 10.3) is supported on the following platforms:
● Windows®Server 2003 R2 Standard, Enterprise, Datacentre (32 bit and 64 bit) ● Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter R2 (32 bit and 64 bit) ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux®4.0 for Intel®x86 (32 bit and 64 bit)
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 for Intel x86 (32 bit and 64 bit) ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 for AMD/eMT 64 bit
● SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 for Intel x86, AMD/eMT 64 bit ● SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for Intel x86, AMD/eMT 64 bit
Manual server installation would require WebSphere Application Server V7 on these additional platforms: ● IBM AIX®V5.3
● IBM AIX V6.1 ● Sun Solaris 9 SPARC ● Sun Solaris 10 ● HP-UX 11i
● SUSE (SLES) 10.0 - zSeries®/System z®
● SUSE Linux (SLES) 11.0 Enterprise Server System i®- System i, System p® ● SUSE Linux (SLES) 11.0 Enterprise Server System z - System z
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.0 AS System i/System p ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.0 AS System z ● RHEL 5 - System p POWER6®
● RHEL 5 - System z
The following database systems are supported: ● IBM DB2®Universal Database™ V8.2 Fixpack 3 ● IBM DB2 Universal Database V9.1 Fixpack 2 ● IBM DB2 Database V9.5
● IBM DB2 Database V9.7
● IBM Websphere Application Server V7.0 (bundled) ● Oracle 9i Database Release 2: 9.2.0.7 - 9.2.0.8 ● Oracle 10g Database Release 2
● Oracle 11g Database Release 2 ● Microsoft®SQL Server Enterprise 2005 ● Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition 2008
The Tivoli Remote Control V5.1.2 controller is Java™ based. The following are supported: Sun Java Runtime Environment V1.5.0 and V1.6.0
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IBM Tivoli Remote Control at a glance
Microsoft Internet Explorer support:
● Internet Explorer 6 for Windows XP SP2 6.00.2900.2180
● Internet Explorer 6 for Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows XP x64 6.00.3790.1830 ● Internet Explorer 6 SP2 for Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows XP x64 6.00.3790.3959 ● Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 7.00.5730.1100
● Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista 7.00.6000.16386 ● Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista 7.00.6000.16512
● Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 7.00.6000.16441 ● Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 x64 7.00.6000.16441 ● Mozilla Firefox 3, 2.0.0.7, and 1.5.0.12
Remote Control Target
The following platforms are supported by the IBM Tivoli Remote Control V5.1.2 target component: ● Windows XP SP3 Pro x86
● Windows XP SP3 Pro x64
● Windows Server 2003 Standard R2 x86
● Windows Server 2003 Standard R2 (32 bit and 64 bit) ● Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 (32 bit and 64 bit) ● Windows Server 2003 Datacentre R2 (32 bit and 64 bit)
● Windows Server 2008 Enterprise R2 x86 (Enterprise, Standard, Datacenter edition) ● Windows Server 2008 Enterprise R2 x64 (Enterprise, Standard, Datacenter edition) ● Windows Vista x86
● Windows Vista x64
● Windows 7 Enterprise x86-64 ● Windows 7 Enterprise x86-32
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 for Intel x86 ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 for Intel x86-32 ● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 for Intel x86-64
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 for Intel x86, and AMD/eMT 64 bit ● SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 for Intel x86, and AMD/eMT 64 bit ● SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for Intel x86, and AMD/eMT 64 bit ● Red Hat Desktop 4.0 x86-32
● Red Hat Desktop 4.0 x86-64 ● Red Hat Desktop 5.0 x86-32 ● Red Hat Desktop 5.0 x86-64 ● SLED 10 - x86-32
● SLED 10 - x86-64
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Produced in the United States of America December 2009
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