Netvision hosts local remote support gateway

Date: 08 November 2004	Issue: 8 Nov (Computing S.A.)
Category: SA News	Theo Boshoff

Netvision, a local company specialising in networking and Internet access solutions, has brought a new solution - NetworkStreaming - to the SA market.
The product is designed for network administrators to remotely manage utilities and maintain systems over the Internet without having to travel to a customer’s site, or having to worry about public and private IP addresses.
Netvision MD, Jonathan Atkinson, says the application allows access to a remote user’s desktop, displayed on a screen, with full control through almost any firewall or router.
According to Atkinson the benefits of the solution are that it vastly reduces help desks’ average response times to resolve logged calls, because the support representative is given control of the end-user’s desktop, without moving out of his or her seat.
“It works on demand, which means that you can give remote support to any system, anywhere in the world, saving time and money, as travel costs are not incurred,” he adds.
“Due to SA’s limited international bandwidth we have decided to install a local gateway, rather than using existing international gateways,” he says. This allows customers to log on to the portal - supportmypc.co.za - and download the small footprint client of 0,5MB to get immediate assistance.
Atkinson says this offering is the first such hosted platform solution in the country. The platform, he says, can also be made available to companies wishing to run their own remotely managed environment.
Atkinson notes that all traffic passing through the gateway is 128-bit secure socket layer (SSL) encrypted, and gateway administration and support representative pages are also password-protected, so the solution is very secure, he says.
Atkinson believes the solution is perfect for companies that require direct support from anywhere in the world.