Bomgar: Easing Remote PC Management?
Bomgar, with an assist from Intel’s Remote PC Assist Technology (RPAT), hopes to help VARs and MSPs improve remote PC support. Here are the details, along with perspectives from adopter PlumChoice, which specializes in remote services for homes and small businesses.
First, for the uninitiated, you might want to know what Intel’s RPAT is. Craig Weinstock, VP for Bomgar says: “It’s OnStar for your computer.” Basically, you hit Control+Alt+F1 and get presented with a BIOS like screen. Your computer gets connected to a remote data center where the support session can start.
What’s Different
So what? People have been doing that for ages. But Bomgar claims to be different. Unlike your traditional remote software that pokes holes in firewalls or leaves ports open, Bomgar’s solution is fully encrypted, and can only happen if the user installs the remote client AND if the connection goes through Bomgar’s appliance.
Plus, the software goes away when you don’t need it. Joel Bomgar, CEO and founder of Bomgar Corp., feels like it’s a real step up from what he affectionately calls the era of ‘Trojan horse’ remote solutions.
There’s more: using RPAT with Bomgar, VARs and MSPs can actually make BIOS level changes, boot a clean image to that computer, and clean out spyware gunk and viruses, then switch back to the local image and user-control.
How does the magic happen? Simple; if you’re the lucky owner of an Intel vPro computer, the on-board chip runs a tiny little operating system that activates when you press the said keystroke. That means it’s OS independent, and more importantly, it can connect to the ‘net when your Windows or Ubuntu configuration can’t initialize the Ethernet device. That means VARs and MSPs can remote fix Ethernet connections, so long as the plug is still in.
“It’s smart enough to find a path to the Internet on it’s own [and vPro is] baked into the chip, so the user can’t mess up…” said Weinstock.
The entirety of this situation is made possible because of the relationship Intel has made with Bomgar. Weinstock said “[Intel approached us and said] ‘hey, we need your technology to overlay this,” and they did.
PlumChoice Remote Services
True believers in Bomgar include PlumChoice, which specializes in remote services for home and SMBs. Naturally, vPro and Bomgar were a fit.
Using Bomgar’s platform, PlumChoice can now “securely connect to multiple computers and devices for on-demand, remote desktop troubleshooting [with improved] support [and] productivity.”
According to a PlumChoice statement:
“Bomgar’s deep level of customization has been a tremendous asset for us and the new integration between Bomgar and Intel RPAT allows us to unify our remote capabilities to more efficiently support nearly 99 percent of all technical issues.”
Expect to see this partnership proliferate and flourish as PlumChoice gives the solution some real world use. Could this usher in a new era of remote help and end the long phone-calls to tech support?
