As the feature sets of PC lifecycle management (PCLM) suites have increased, so has the complexity of their software. Organizations that don't allocate enough effort to properly manage the PCLM infrastructure are often unable to provide the desired level of service to their users.

For this and many other reasons, cloud-based solutions are emerging for a variety of systems management functions. Just as some companies are well-suited for cloud-based CRM, some companies are more well-suited than others for cloud-based PCLM. Is your company one of them? Dwain Kinghorn, Partner at SageCreek Partners and member of the Viewfinity Board, addresses this issue in greater detail on ebizQ: http://bit.ly/9acbxS.

You can download Dwain’s complete white paper from Viewfinity here: http://bit.ly/9HPNoh

Managing desktops and laptops in a distributed environment is a top challenge for IT departments.  Current industry research shows that the most urgent and pressing issues are clear: 

• Providing better support and management for your mobile workforce
• Securing your environment through desktop lockdown without simply causing a shift in the type of help desk calls
• Deploying software versions and patch updates easily and with extended reach to mobile workers
• Resolving help desk calls faster

Yet, many solutions that exist on the market today to help alleviate these issues become a burden themselves.  With some legacy systems, in 50% of the implementations, the time to roll the system out takes over six months.  And for every 5,000 desktops an organization must manage, they must have at least one full-time employee on staff to simple tend to the administration of the systems management servers. 

We'd like to hear from you - what are some of the  systems management challenges you are dealing with in your organization?  Are they the same issues as noted above, or do you have an entirely different set of challenges?

There is a fair amount of pressure to resolve desktop and laptop problems instantly, over the phone, as the end user waits anxiously on the other end. For example, I got a call from my boss, who was at the airport having problems trying to run Outlook. Outlook was taking a very long time to start and when it finally started, he got a message related to a corrupted file. I launched into my standard troubleshooting methodology:

1. Information Gathering — What changes were made to the computer recently? What new applications have been installed? When was the last time the application worked properly? Usually I get mixed responses, with more details coming from technical users and less from business users. Most end users won't always "recall" exactly what they did.
2. Error Analyzing — Use typical tools including application event log, log files, user groups and application knowledge bases.
3. Invoke Remote Terminal — Establish remote control session with problematic PC. Try to recreate the problem and then take corrective action.
4. Execute Fix — This depends on what information is available from steps 1-3. In some cases the problem can be fixed by applying the latest patch, modifying the registry or other settings. Sometimes it's faster to just reinstall the application, although all user settings need to be recorded and reset (location of all PST data files, account settings such as email signature, etc.).

Viewfinity offers a feature, Activity Recording, that shows me, step by step, exactly what events were executed on the PC. I then simply undo the event that caused the problem. How much time would be saved and aggravation avoided in a day? A month? How much in a year?!