Our test machine specifications:

• Pentium 4 3.16GHz
• 1024Mb PC-3200 DDR in dual channel mode
• 160Gb 7200RPM HDD
• ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
• 300W Power Supply
• 17" Multisync Monitor

This machine uses, in idle mode, about 132 Watts per hour. Based on an 8 hour workday and an average of 21 work days per month (168 work hours), this machine consumes 22,176 Watts or 22.17 Kilowatts per work month in idle mode. At a base rate of 15c per Kilowatt, this machine will cost $3.32 per month to run.

Current US Environmental Protection Agency statistics dictate that corporate computers are inactive 58% of the time. Running the power saving package we can force this machine to go into standby mode when not in use. If our test machine is placed into standby mode, it consumes 67 Watts per hour. So for 58% of the 168 work hours per month (97 hours) our machine will consume 67 Watts per hour versus 132 Watts. That's a saving of 65 Watts per hour over 97 hours per work month. At 15c per Kilowatt that will save $0.97 per work month.

You could visit each of the computers in turn and manually set up a new printer. The time involved would be quite considerable, and what if some of the users are logged off? Factor in some follow up trips, and thats a lot of support time being spent on a routine job, not to mention the disruption caused to the user.

You could make changes to the Global Policy settings and assign a new printer, but your users will need to stop what they are doing, log off, log on and then get back to what they were doing. Lets say this takes 5 minutes of each users time. Thats 500 minutes of productive time being wasted. Thats 8 hours of productive time!

If this network had Remote Control installed on the computers, you would be able to alert the users that the printer has changed, install a new printer and set it as default using standard packages! For the user, the changes are seamless - they need to do absolutely nothing! For the support staff, this can be done in about 2 minutes from the Remote Control Editor.

The packages can be executed immediately or be scheduled to run the next time a user logs on, ensuring the solution is delivered in a timely fashion without taking time.

In a secure network environment, firewalls are enabled on computers. This inhibits remote desktop applications from functioning as the firewall prohibits contact to the remote machine. One solution is to create an exception in the firewall, allowing external access to the remote desktop application. While this allows access from authorised remote desktop applications, it also allows unauthorised attempts to connect i.e. hacking.

The Remote Desktop solution provided by Remote Control offers the following advantages:

• The remote desktop application is only installed on the remote machine when initiated by Remote Control
• Connections to the remote machine are via encrypted passwords exchanged automatically
• After authentication the remote computer contacts the initialising computer to begin the remote desktop session
• Only authenticated computers will be "called back". This callback process will pass through the remote conmputer's firewall
• On termination of the remote desktop session, the remote desktop application is uninstalled thereby preventing any unauthorised attempts to access the remote computer

This solution effectively allows external IT service providers secure remote desktop access to client computers. It removes the need to compromise firewall security and by uninstalling, removes potential security flaws.