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IT Staffs respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic

RightStar TeamApril 9, 2020

IT departments around the globe have been asked to ramp up the ability to have their employees work at home in response to government mandates to “Social Distance”! I am so proud of the way IT has risen to the challenge to keep businesses operational. This has been no easy task as IT professionals have been working tirelessly to do the following:
• Procure and configure equipment/licenses to allow employees the ability to connect from home
• Distribute this equipment to essential personnel
• Educate users on the process to access corporate infrastructure
• Provide support to users unable to navigate the process to access infrastructure
• Work schedule no longer limited to normal business hours
• IT staff have their issues to deal with in addition to supporting users (another group of unsung heroes)

Those items that may not be obvious are dealing with the “information highway”. This is an old term but very appropriate when discussing bandwidth issues. For those that like visuals to better understand what is meant by “Bandwidth Limitations” imagine if you would a Hurricane evacuation order given to coastal communities where a Cat 4 hurricane is projected to make landfall in 48 hours. Only one major highway is out of harm’s way. Typically, this highway is busy but never any delays with “normal” traffic. However, with a major evacuation order, EVERYONE needs to use this same highway. All vehicles on the same road or trying to get on the same road all at once. Total Gridlock!
The illustration above is the same issue where all students now need access to the internet as they are schooled via “Distant Learning”. All employees, normally working from the LAN now need access over the internet to access the LAN. All the streaming entertainment provided to those folks not able to work from home or are now unemployed is consuming bandwidth. I am very impressed that the nation’s ISPs can provide connectivity with very little interruption. I would assume there has never been a “load” test that simulated the scenario we are facing today. IT has stood tall to provide continuity of service above and beyond anyone’s worst-case scenario.

RightStar and BMC have offered BMC Client Management, ITAM Solution, to allow IT staff to support those users that need assistance whether customers are directly connected on the Corporate LAN/WAN or just connected to the internet. Client Management was the very first product that easily made it possible to Remote Control devices over the internet long before other vendors introduced that feature. To my knowledge, Client Management is still the easiest product to configure to allow this functionality as a full ITAM solution.

If you own Client Management and have not configured the product to support “internet only” connected devices and would like to enable this feature, please let us know so we can help. Client Management even allows the IT staff to initiate a “Remote Control” session to those devices with no agent installed or not previously configured. We are here to provide support for all those in need of a solution to make it easier to support your user base.

Please be safe and understand that our customers are important to us! We are your solution partner in both the good times and times like the one we are facing now. Our thoughts and prayers go out to every one. We are here for you!

Steven R. Gibbs
Sr. Systems Consultant
[email protected]
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RightStar Systems
1951 Kidwell Drive, Suite 110
Vienna, VA 22182
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