Remote Troubleshooting: Save Time, Save Money

Troubles are quite a common in our hasty modern world where everything depends so much on automated systems where computers play the lead role. And machines, whatever purpose they are built and programmed for, are indeed susceptible to failure. The more complex machines are being created, the more risks are there of breakdown. But in business you cannot let your customers sit idly in front of their screens calling the Christ for help! There must be a way-out to handle a machinery failure quickly and efficiently. In this context, we recall the vast use of the internet. Now there are thousands of remote troubleshooting techniques available outside. If someone can be contacted online and he/she can detect and solve the problem in a remote fashion, it would something of a pleasant surprise for the organization concerned.

Almost every operating system these days offers some built-in features allowing the users to connect more than one computer using RDP protocol. To troubleshoot a computer from remote location, such a remote session needs to be established first. Once the troubleshooter gets access to the host system, he can determine the actual problem behind the catastrophe. This process can also be done with the help of preventive maintenance software.

Preventive maintenance schedules on the other hand: Repair tasks can now be made easier with preventive maintenance software also known as work-order software. It follows a different approach, which is to check a system in schedule and look for possible conditions of a breakdown gathering within. When it is placed on a network or even a stand-alone computer, it works as a powerful tool to manage repairs and problems coming up on a daily basis. Reducing the time in data-entry phase of a system is the primary target of typical preventive maintenance software. The producers of this type of products emphasize on making the software close to fun as possible with the use of simple ‘point and click’ mechanism.

Role of device management software in this context:  Device management software is an essential part of a system that enables the users as well as the troubleshooters to access, manipulate, activate, control and secure a specific device.

So whatever policy you choose to take as a maintenance measure, be it remote troubleshooting or using preventive maintenance software, you must have a thorough idea of what kind of devices are currently being used and the required device management software.

Support Automation System

Support automation or the proactive support automation system and one of the remote diagnostic tools, which is useful for self healing and problem avoidance. It helps the common problems in the remote service such as the slow movement of the system or problem in the print queue, which are generally addressed by the customers.

The best feature of the support automation system is that it increases the value of the consumers while decreasing the business cost. In today’s era, this system is necessary in every field including the Call centers, multi channel consumer service, and many more. This system offers various information, tools, products and services to support the resource.

The common features of a support automation system are mentioned below:

• It helps to eliminate exposed security troubles through aimed software updates
• This system uses automate trouble resolution for printing problems, connectivity issues, system clock and many more
• This support system also helps in mechanize remediation of cleaning up the temporary files, disk space, and automatic system maintenance
• he hold up calls through trouble avoidance by mechanizing the support process
• Escalates channels of support for those issues, which can be healed by one.
• The support automation system also resolves the customer’s problem mechanically by creating some rules which join the recurring issues without any intervention

The benefits of using the support automation system are:

• It is reliable and automatic- The support automation system is unobtrusive as well as very easy to install. The agent of this remote service runs automatically and very silently and it is difficult to deliberately or accidentally delete this system.
• Determine the problem locally- The remote service system moves from place to place onto the devices which are being supported
• The user can get support all the time- The support automation service always provide support to the users regardless whether they are connected or not with any network.
• Low bandwidth and small footprint- The agent of the support automation system supports the devices automatically and locally and also engages a lesser memory
• Network support- The network supported devices through the remote diagnostic tools of this system communicate with one another to increase the device availability as well as to resolve the complex symptoms related to the networks.

So, with the help of the support automation system, you can sustain and improve the customer retention and loyalty while diminishing the business expenditures.

Device Management System + Application Management Platform = Less Mean Time to Repair

In a dog-eat-dog world of competition, businesses cannot afford to slow down even for a moment. It is a 24x7 operational environment and operating devices and programming applications powering the IT infrastructure have to be in top-notch working condition always. For this, it is imperative that they are backed by a powerful device management system or an application management platform. This ensures that the mean time to repair (MTTR) is at a minimum and productive time is not lost due to downtime.

So how does an application management platform or a device management system reduce the mean time to repair? Here’s how:

• By detecting technical glitches early. A device management system keeps tab on the operations of all the devices embedded within a particular network. It carries out regular checks on the functions of the devices and this constant scrutiny ensures that technical snags get detected early and fixed before they burgeon to crippling proportions. This in turn, ensures that the MTTR is less and business operations are least affected by downtime.

• By increasing productive efficiency. Advances in digital and wireless technology have empowered application management platforms and device management systems with the capability to carry out remote monitoring. This ensures that support service providers can immediately detect less-than-optimum levels of performance in systems or devices, investigate the causes behind it, and adopt measures to correct it. Under-performance of a device is almost always a precursor to a deep-seated glitch and so this prompt remedial action ensures that not only the mean time to repair is reduced but also productive efficiency of the business is not hampered.

The above-mentioned benefits of deploying a device management system or an application management platform trigger some more advantages for a business. Reduced mean time to repair decreases operational costs, while increased productivity leads to added revenues for the business. Thus it is not surprising to note that businesses these days are increasingly employing device management systems or application management platforms to monitor their IT infrastructure.

Proactive Support – The best IT support system

For any industry nowadays it is important to have a strong and active support system. It’s only a strong system that can ensure a smooth and faultless operation. As any other industries, the Information technology industry or better known as the IT industry requires a technologically advanced support system for their products and systems. Whether it is a remote access support or a direct one, it is quite a vital part of today’s IT industries.

While we can say that support is one of the defining characteristics of an IT company, the most important factor that rules and runs the system is a strong support system. This is where we need proactive support. The proactive support is a kind of service which provides support as well as options to a client or a customer well in advance of a decision.

The main and most important feature of a proactive support is to provide any essential information to the clients instead of drawing a conclusion for them. Thus, proactive services can prove to be really empowering for the users in the current market scenario.      

In an IT industry the proactive support includes:

• Fax Notes  or email Broadcast
• Proactive newsletters
• Year End closure assistance
• Client check ups

Keep in mind that all of these services or support may differ from one industry to another. However, software industry requires a strong proactive service than any other industries. The main objective of a proactive support is to identify and solve issues of the remote access manufacturing even before they occur and create any sort of hindrances to the customers or clients. There are some really great remote access support systems available with the software vendors in the market these days. Such a support system can be well utilized to solve diverse issues or problems even before the client realize that there could have been a problem. 

Besides, the regular newsletters and emails that are sent to the customers, some proactive support adds a little personal touch to their overall services. It should be noted that the amount of proactive services generally depends on how regularly the customer support reaches out to their customers and their remote access manufacturing. Sometimes customers are sent personal emails or even visit them for a personal testimonial. However the customers are mostly dealt over the phone where the customers support straight get down to the feedback.

Device Management System - The Basic Facts

The Device Management System or DMS is a reliable and scalable management system which provides efficient and consistent device management for the big amount of service consumptions of video and voice over “IP CPE” devices. The system is provided with qualities of an “Element Management System” or EMS for the configuration of MIB, device monitoring, alarm, fault and event management.

Additionally, this device management system complements the initiated provisioning of the devices for real time firmware upgrade and device configuration through providing asynchronous system. This system is even capable of managing those devices which are deployed behind firewall or NAT routers. Generally, proactive monitoring system is used by the companies to manage the client’s device management system. This proactive monitoring system plays a great role to tune the database server of the device management system.

Areas that can be monitored by the device management system are:

• SNMP monitoring
• Server monitoring
• Monitoring of the storage system
• Application and database monitoring
• Features of a device management system:

Redundant architecture and highly scalable- The DMS system is developed on a couple of redundant, dual servers with joint RAID storage. This load balancing architecture of the device management system has made it highly scalable.

Access of remote devices- The device management system creates efficient and reliable tunnels to permit accessing, controlling, remote device monitoring and configuring remote devices by using SNMP or native interfaces of devices such as Web and Telnet.

Convenient device searching and sorting- The device management system offers an efficient and a convenient device searching and sorting mechanism using the device status, region information of the device, user ID, the firmware versions and the event severity of the device. 

    

So, in case if you are having lock waits for a long time while managing the device, that would be reasonable to monitor it by proactive monitoring under a device management system in order to detach the problem and to define the mean time to repair it. 

Service Automation - an Overview

Service automation is the base for constructing an active data center which accelerates the response time of business as well as ensures that an organization recognizes the cloud computing promise. The main goals of using service automation technology are to increase the business agility, to improve the service delivery and to reduce the risk and cost of business. Service Automation method also helps the service representatives to manage, capture, and resolve the requests of customer support without losing the sight on cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

The key features of a service automation technology:

• This technology offers various information to the customers in a controllable and secure manner
• Ability to update the information automatically
• Ability for the consumers to log request or service requests for searching articles or information in the knowledge base

The work of the service automation

Various kinds of works are performed in an organization by using the service automation. Go through the article to know about them:

• Understanding the customers - Service automation technology can help companies to get information volumes like purchase history of the customer, customer needs, dropped calls, performance levels of the staffs on interactions with the customers. Therefore it helps in the identification of the priority customers and their requirements.

• Automate resources - Managing support and customer service become a heavy task when the businesses grow. In this time a company can create, queue, route, track and response by using service automation technology and can increase the level of productivity enormously.

Benefits of using service automation:

• This technology allows the users to save cost and implement rapidly irrespective of the unique complexities and service processes.
•  This technology helps to improve the process of communication between a business and its customers
• It permits the users to determine the customer investigations in a repeatable and personalized manner to accelerate incident resolution by satisfying the customers.
• It allows full support to its external and internal users to find better solutions and information
• Remote service automation reduces the operational and communication costs of the organizations
• The service automation technology also provides a complete view to the customer service groups of organizations on every customer interactions to offer proactive support and anticipated service.
• This service also reduces the helpdesk load by minimizing the service and sales costs

So, no more waiting! Start using service automation technology to increase the consumer value while dropping the business cost.

Remote Device Management—An ever increasing necessity

Gone are the days when computers and devices functioned as a 'stand alone' island. Today we see innumerable complex devices all interconnected to perform in sync. It all started when computers were linked to each other via a network, making it easy for the users to share, store and distribute information. The use of internet grew at an amazing rate and devices like automated teller machines, digital kiosks and vending machines came into existence. At this juncture, Remote Device Monitoring (RDM) also known as Intelligent Device Management has a major role to play. Such applications allow equipment manufacturers to manage and monitor remote systems, products and equipment over the internet.

If we take the manufacturing industry into consideration, modern plants have hundreds of devices. Each of these machines or equipment needs to be monitored. Before, a machine was left unattended until it broke down and a technician had to be sent to repair it. Today, with technological advancement, a remote diagnostics management software does it all for you.

We will now try to identify the benefits that can be derived by implementing remote diagnostics management. The first and the foremost is to lower the maintenance cost and improve the performance of networked system and devices. Enterprise application in combination with embedded integration allows predictive behaviors to be monitored and supervised. Remote monitoring of devices also maximizes customer satisfaction minimizing the total cost of ownership. RDM also helps in recognizing the ROI or the Return On Investment. By remotely monitoring devices, it can cut down the cost and frequency of customer visits.

Successful implementation or remote device management can help the vendors predict well in advance when their customers would need their service and replenishment. These data can be stored and later on compiled and used for future business planning and customer service management. Remote device or intelligent device management is usually scalable. At first it is device centric and as it develops incorporates the enterprise point of view.

If properly implemented remote device management can turn any business into a proactive one by increasing operational efficiency and a cheaper price. It streamlines the data control and assists in easy data retrieval with compromising on security. It gives a dashboard view of performance, thus leveraging enterprise management. ROI can be realized within months of implementing remote device management. Remote diagnostics management is used across multiple industries like healthcare, automation, machinery, instrumentation and security.

Read more about proactive service.