If anyone is interested in checking out our new integration with Tivoli Remote Control (a fully featured remote assistance/remote control tool that can be used by helpdesk teams), please email
Ben, is this the same or similar to the remote control feature in IBM Director? If so, is there a version requirement for Director? Are they compatible? Is a Tivoli/Director or some other agent required to facilitate this or is there an add-in to the BES agent?
This is using the standalone mode of TRC (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/remote-control/), which is also used by several other Tivoli products. Because it doesn’t come with the OS, it does require an additional installation, which we’re providing fixlets to take care of. TRC also has a brokered mode, which would require an additional installation if/when we are able to support integration of that feature.
How does it compare in terms of bandwidth efficiency versus RDP? We abandoned an earlier version of TRC over bandwidth considerations across the WAN. Does it offer bandwidth controls?
If there is an existing Director agent, can that be leveraged? If so, what versions are supported?
Is it included in our Bigfix license or is a separate TRC license required?
Off the IBM web …
Client license
USD $37.00
or
Processor Value Unit (PVU) license
USD $370.00
$37.00 for 10 PVUs
x 10 = 100 PVUs
… are there any special considerations for IBM hardware customers? Usually stuff like this (Director, TPM lite, etc.) IBM gives us (huge IBM HW customer) along with hardware purchases.
To jspanitz’s point, it looks like at least the console is Java-based. What about the agent? Hopefully not …
For pricing, this is always the full retail price, which I doubt anyone actually pays.
I am very curious to see if BigFix will use TRC or Remote Diagnostics, which is what IBM was looking to include (for free) with their comparable BigFix product. In many ways they provided the same functionality, but full TRC allowed for more configuration.
The Java was used for the Java Web Start functionality, which IBM uses quite a bit for client interfaces. The agent is not java based (unless something changed). I think that IBM got the message about Java agents previously (at least I hope they did)
Java is used for the TRC Console (but not the client).
I asked the TRC team and they said their tests and experiences show that it works fine on low bandwidth (I don’t have any experience myself in this area). Maybe you can try it out?
My understanding is that our TRC integration is not related to IBM Director.
We have it working correctly, but it’s using hostname to connect to. We don’t have DNS resolution for all systems, is it possible to hand TRC the IP instead?
It looks like we would just modify the registry key for ShellCommandRelevance, which I’ve tried, but have not found the right relevance yet.
yea… You can modify the ShellCommandRelevance like you said, but instead of:
"%22C:\Program Files\IBM\Tivoli\Remote Control\Controller\jre\bin\javaw.exe%22 -jar %22C:\Program Files\IBM\Tivoli\Remote Control\Controller\TRCConsole.jar%22 --host " & ( value of property result whose (name of property of it = “Computer Name” ) of current computer )
Use:
"%22C:\Program Files\IBM\Tivoli\Remote Control\Controller\jre\bin\javaw.exe%22 -jar %22C:\Program Files\IBM\Tivoli\Remote Control\Controller\TRCConsole.jar%22 --host " & ( value of property result whose (name of property of it = “IP Address” ) of current computer
The problem is that a computer can have multiple IP addresses and so in my relevance, I just use the first one… You can try to find a more clever way if you want…
I’m rookie in the world of bigfix and I have installed the TEM 8.1 in first time and I would like to try the TRC function, but I don’t find the fixlet which can grant this function.
We upgraded our infrastructure from 7.2 to 8.1 last night. I also do not see the Tivoli Remote Control listed under the remote control configuration. I looked at the documentation and it looks like it should be under System Lifecycle > Remote Control Configuration. I only have Microsoft listed there.
I was told by our vendor that sold us BigFix/TEM that we are going to get the Tivoli Remote Control and the OS Deployment. Are these going to be seperate mastheads that need to be added or are these suppose to be features that should be available after the upgrade?
EDIT: when looking at the licensing overview I see BigFix Remote Desktop for Windows but nothing for Tivoli Remote Control. The only Tivoli branded site is the Endpoint Manager for Software Usage Analysis.
You might need to check with licensing; it should be there if you’re using the 8.1 Lifecycle Management license. It is a separate masthead called Tivoli Remote Control.
I sent an email to licensing@bigfix.com, is this still a valid email address? I did not get a bounceback but I wasnt sure if the email changed to an @ibm address.