In this round of testing desktop-management software, we decided to analyze how well the tools performed from the perspective of five different roles, or sets of users. For example, looking at these products from the perspective of the help desk, we evaluated how well the products help diagnose and fix problems on remote desktops, and we looked at the deployment of software, imaging, personality transfer and upgrades.

We analyzed the products from the perspective of security in terms of patch management, anti-virus updates, and software application monitoring and metering. We also looked at the products' support for Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) and the protection they offered for mobile workers away from corporate networks.

We looked at these tools from the perspective of users - how well the products let them find and restore lost files, fix applications or reset their passwords. We took the perspective of IT executives in terms of how the offerings produced accurate and informative software and hardware inventories and useful reports for CIOs, and how they addressed day-to-day management issues at the operational level.

We invited several top desktop-management vendors to participate, as well as Altiris, LANDesk, Microsoft and Novell. CA had a new release of its Desktop Management Suite in beta, but it wasn't ready for release before we finished our testing. Numara Software (formerly Intuit) submitted its Track-It Enterprise product, which we reviewed separately, because it doesn't match up well with the other products tested.

Our Clear Choice Award goes to LANDesk for having a broad range of features that covered our five sets of users well, and had superior security features.

LANDesk

LANDesk has provided the broadest-possible level of platform support in all its products since we've been testing its gear. Version 8.6 of the LANDesk Management Suite is no exception: It supports multiple versions of Linux, Macintosh and Windows. The inclusion of the LANDesk Management Gateway makes it possible to manage a laptop or desktop system over the Internet. This release of Management Suite makes significant strides in its reporting capabilities. Previous versions delivered a set of canned reports and a simple report generator, but we found a more complete (although complex) capability in this release.

LANDesk really shines in the deployment arena. With Management Suite's support for Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) (see a related story), LANDesk has made deployment even more effective. We really liked being able to boot a remote PC from a local Integrated Drive Electronics device, such as an external USB drive or a CD or DVD. After booting, you can turn around and image the machine remotely if needed.

The LANDesk OS Deployment Wizard guides you through the entire operating-system deployment and migration process. Alternatively, LANDesk provides a software developers kit to let you develop customized deployments. LANDesk also can deploy images created with its tools or by other products, such as Symantec's Norton Ghost. A peer-download capability makes it possible to deliver, for example, large software updates faster at the local subnet level.

On the help-desk front, LANDesk management console adds several new user-interface features that make finding information and accomplishing specific tasks a snap. We loved its tabs for quick access to functions and its ability to define a custom console layout to fit our needs. We did this easily by dragging windows around, closing or opening new windows, and clicking a button to save the layout. Getting information about specific workstations was quick and easy from the management console. A remote-control session is initiated by right-clicking the option for "any system" listed under "devices." Remote control worked smoothly and gave us the ability to execute a program remotely, transfer a file, initiate a chat session or reboot the computer. We also could draw things on the screen to point things out, lock out the remote keyboard and blank the screen.

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