PC-Duo Enterprise is a powerful suite of desktop management modules that can help your business to reduce the time and cost spent maintaining its networks. Whilst its flexible modular architecture allows you to create your own customised systems management suite by selecting only the modules required by your organisation, PC-Duo Enterprise's strengthened feature set broadens the software's compatibility and further helps its to integrate with today's Windows-based networks. Whilst the software can very pricey if you add a lot of modules (six options from £168 ex. VAT each), it's definitely worth looking at if you want to gain more control and a better understanding of your network's inventory and assets.

Pros: Customisable modules; simple but powerful; intuitive UI
Cons: Best suited to large networks; can get very expensive


These days businesses are focusing on IT becoming more commercial than technical, with companies interested in not only supporting the users within the network more efficiently but maintaining a cost effective way of managing and monitoring resources as well. Vector Networks' PC-Duo Enterprise 3.0 offers a complete solution for small businesses and IT departments in large organisation to manage and maintain their networks.

PC-Duo Enterprise 3.0 contains a variety of modules all brought together into one location using Microsoft's Management Console (MMC). If you don't fancy using this method the product comes with a Web Interface, called Web portal, which allows you to control everything from a Web browser.

There are several modules on offer, each with a specific role and allowing you to customise the package to your own individual needs. The main advantage of the product being designed this way is that if you purchase any of the modules separately you can use the Enterprise control centre (which is the main users interface) to re-integrate them into the main software suite.

For instance, some allow you to gather information about the computers running on your network, bringing back information relating to the specification and types of products installed as well as building up a database of external assets such as printers, scanners and the like (Inventory Management). Others help you diagnose applications (such as Word) and repair them from a central location (Diagnostics).

Software distribution of applications and patches can be configured to be installed automatically using login scripts, which allows you to push software out to clients so that other users can install the software when they log onto their own computer. The software already running on user's computers can then be monitored to provide feedback of the usage of a particular software package (Software Metering). Finally, helpdesk and remote support tool help you to keep track of reported IT issues and allow your IT team to remotely control a computer to solve any problems.

The main strengths of the product come from its excellent gathering and reporting of data, as everything is stored either in an Access, SQL Server 7/2000 or Oracle 8.1.5 database. Even if you don't have one of these application installed, the supplied installation disc comes with Microsoft's Access 2000 run-time module, which is a free to use addition but does not contain the power and flexibility of the mainstream database package.

To gather information about computers on your network you need to either manually install client software on each PC, which takes time, or you can distribute the software using a login script. The latter of which eases the burden of manually installing the software if your company has more than a couple of PCs. Regardless of the way you install the client software, it's completely transparent to users so they will not be aware that it's running. In fact, only raw data is sent back to the main database, so there's little impact made upon your network's performance.

With the Inventory management module you can get the software to scan either groups or individual PCs and can gain up to 600 pieces of customisable information. Gathered data from the PC can contain memory, CPU, graphics card, serial numbers, PC vendor, network card or even software currently installed on the machine. The results are endless but are presented in clear to follow and understandable report, which can then be exported via e-mail or into Crystal Reports, an ODBC-compatible database, Access, Excel, or even as a CSV or HTML file.

External assets such as printers and scanners can be stored in the Assets database. By seeing what assets your company owns you can see where your stock is being utilised more effectively. Everything can be monitored with the software manually or automatically and you can track changes that have been made to a PC, such as memory or CPU, so you can see the history of how a PC has evolved.

The software distribution element of the package lets you configure applications and then distribute these to users on the network. This is done using the provided wizards, which again guide you through the process. You also have the ability to distribute software patches, which can be critical to the running of your software. The benefit of remote software installation speaks for itself - imagine having to install and configure the software on 20 systems!

The software metering module allows you to identify unused software licences, so you can monitor existing applications and make informed purchase decisions. All the information gathered by the software can be reported using the standard pre-built templates, or exported to other applications. Once created, all the reports can be drilled down to further levels, giving more detailed analysis of how an application is being utilised within your company. This allows management to make future decisions as to what software can be bought into the company.

The diagnostics module allows you to take manual or automatic critical snapshots of your applications running on desktops so you can restore them to fully working order in the event of a disaster. This is achieved from a central location, providing you with complete control over the restoration of software affected by user error, virus damage or corruption.

This module can also record changes made to a particular software program (change Analysis). You can also get the software to gather information automatically for specific application dependant files, including Active X controls and PC configurations.

The helpdesk feature relies on IIS services (Internet Information Services), which comes with Windows 2000, 2003 and XP. This Web-based solution offers workflow management from a central location so you can log IT related problems. Creating a helpdesk system is very easy thanks to the helpful setup wizards.

Once a collection of users has been created, they can then login to the helpdesk system via a Web browser to log calls - it couldn't be any simpler. The neat thing about the helpdesk is that if a user has a problem, you can use the helpdesk screen to initiate a remote control session to fix the problem remotely.

The remote control element has been upgraded and improvements include cosmetic changes to the interface, cutdown reports showing a snapshot of the user's computer setup and a cool feature which allows both the user and IT manager to use a white board to hammer out ideas to sort out any issues. The main upgrade includes support for Linux platforms (Red hat, SuSE, Fedora and Mandrake) and for PDAs running Windows Pocket PC 2003. All the normal protocols for communication are covered, including IP, NetBios, IPX, Dial-up ISDN and Capi.

For those worried about security, the remote software offers domain user authentication, separately configured gateways and port settings to prevent external access. In addition, all network traffic can be encoded using 56-bit DES, 64-bit (Blowfish), 128-bit (Twofish) or 256-bit (AES) encryption. Finally, the best new feature is the replay function, which you can use to record the actions carried out by the client, which can then be played back at later points for training and knowledge base purposes.

The suite maximises the benefit of having an Active Directory Organizational Unit (OU) structure by importing the OU Path for each PC as a new Property. The OU Path can then be combined with any other inventory characteristic to generate powerful and flexible Dynamic Groups. These Groups can simplify, modify and protect an AD structure with increased speed and efficiency thereby reducing systems management costs. For example, distribution of an update can be targeted at PCs in a particular OU that meet memory and disk space criteria.

The software suite bought as a whole is more suited to large corporate companies with 30 or more users, or for third-party companies who want to offer remote support. As a result, most small businesses will opt for a selection of the products included in the main suite. As your company grows the software can grow with you, and when the time comes to upgrade you can just add a module to the main suite of software without any disruption.

You may also be interested to know that Vector Networks will soon be introducing new products to merge with PC-Duo Enterprise, some of which include Mac support and enhanced reporting.

BIOS, Mar 14, 05 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Networking