End of a consultancy army

Improved endpoint monitoring and management can help reduce cost, says Christian Nagele

An IT service desk requires real-time visibility and control of every endpoint for which it is responsible, preferably via product that is fully integrated with its existing service-desk and ticketing technology.

The reality, however, is that few appear to enjoy this real-time visibility of all their endpoints. The dream of having improved management and proactive monitoring of these devices is a distant one.

Granted, there are integrated enterprise "solutions" for service-desk and endpoint management. But for most businesses these technologies may not be viable, either from a commercial or a technical standpoint.

They leave most service desk managers bereft of any credible view of what they are actually supporting.

Yet when a service desk has the right endpoint management technology, you can enjoy increased first-line fix rates, shorter support calls, fewer support tickets, less user downtime, and improved user productivity.

The service desk manager has seen little value from the implementation of enterprise endpoint management, going by what they have told me.

The service desk manager has had to make do with user-unfriendly, agentless "discovery" tools that in the mobile workplace seem unfit for purpose, and that provide only patchy information.
Of course, they are usually furnished with remote support technology, which is occasionally integrated with the helpdesk, but this is reactionary and short-acting in terms of the users' problems.

We need to move on from expensive, complex, agentless discovery tools, and start thinking about cloud-based endpoint management with real-time visibility of the service desk through a single interface, regardless of device type, network, location or domain.

We need it to be SaaS, and to scale seamlessly across all devices, without breaking the bank and without having to beg IT for new servers.

Technology that is easy to use by anyone will help maximise ROI. Technology that is light on the device and light on the network, and overlays the core inventory capability of traditional discovery tools with proactive monitoring and some device management.

Technology that integrates with the incumbent service desk technology without having to get an army of over-paid consultants on site for two weeks.

As the number of devices used in business increases, and as mobility becomes ubiquitous, service desks need to adapt and change the technology they use.

Christian Nagele is founder and chief executive of CentraStage