Article

Remote management roundup, part 3

In the latest installment of our series on remote kiosk management, products manufactured by NetShift Software Ltd. and XcelleNet Inc. are profiled.

February 26, 2002

By its nature, the kiosk is a remote creature of technology - an island of information isolated by distance and application goals from other kiosks.

Kiosks are often isolated from managers and troubleshooters, especially in large deployments spread out among multiple locations. That isolation creates problems when kiosks begin performing erratically. As a result, companies invest in remote monitoring and management software.

This is the third installment in KIOSKmarketplace.com's series on remote management. The first installment explained the reasons behind remote management (See story: Remote management roundup, part 1). The second installment discussed products by Bluepoint Technologies Inc., Degasoft Ltd. (now known as Kudos Development Group), Netkey Inc. and NetNearU (See story: Remote management roundup, part 2).

This installment studies the remote management products of XcelleNet Inc. and NetShift Software Ltd.

A tale of two companies

NetShift, based in Berkshire, England, is a software developer and design and consulting service. Its products include NetShift Builder, a software development package for public access terminal applications.

The company released its first remote management software package, Enterprise Suite, in September of 2000. This past March it added a component for advertisement tracking and reporting.

Enterprise Suite is designed to manage kiosk deployments from NetShift's network operations center. Customers with their own servers can also purchased the product.

For 14 years, Alpharetta, Ga.-based XcelleNet has specialized in remote management and administration software with RemoteWare. The company also makes Afaria, an enterprise system for managing mobile computers such as laptops, PDAs and pagers.

XcelleNet became involved in the kiosk industry three years ago, when bill-exchange kiosk manufacturer Coinstar Inc. became a client. Coinstar uses RemoteWare to track 11,000 kiosks.

Different Strokes

RemoteWare includes powerful deployment and software healing services that work on remote devices that require management, including personal computers, POS machines and unstaffed kiosks.

"When we're talking about kiosks, we're talking about an extension of what a company might have to expand their enterprise," said Marian Raynes, XcelleNet Product Manager.

But this approach does leave out some kiosk functions, including the ability to run and track ads, display up-to-date kiosk screens, and alert staff to peripheral problems.

Some of these issues are already being addressed. An alarm manager will be added in its next version, which the company plans to release in the spring of 2002. XcelleNet also plans to develop a Web-based management console, though a release date has not been set. The console will allow people on the road to run the application from any computer connected to the Internet.

In contrast, Enterprise Suite currently provides reporting and alarm features. It can also manage software at the kiosk and has some options for fine-tuning bandwidth usage, though they are not as extensive as RemoteWare's.

In general, Enterprise Suite works best with applications NetShift designs, unlike RemoteWare, which can be applied to any kiosk application. Also in contrast to XcelleNet, NetShift signs on customers to use its servers.

"We don't have any customers managing the kiosks themselves, we use an (Application Service Provider) model whereby we provide a hosted service," said John Purcell, NetShift vice president of marketing.

Managing clients (kiosks) that run non-NetShift applications is a new venture for the company and requires some customization. But Purcell said the company can handle any management needs.

"NetShift can monitor any public access device that generates an event," he said. "What I mean by an event would be anything from the pressing of a button right through to the processing of a transaction."

Kiosk friendly software

NetShift's Enterprise Suite consists of three parts: remote monitoring, content management and report generation.

The remote monitoring application shows the status of kiosks or kiosk groups through color coding. Colors can show five states: kiosk in use, playing an attract loop, offline, no data available and a warning.

If a kiosk's status changes, it is reflected in the timeline. Users can also set how often a kiosk is polled for data.

By assigning rules for individual kiosks or groups of kiosks, users can choose which events are critical and how they should be monitored. For example, when a kiosk printer runs out of paper, several alerts can be sent, such as a visual alert to a manager or an e-mail to an administrator. Enterprise Suite comes preset with events, but custom rules can be created.

NetShift's Enterprise Suite features a remote monitoring application that color codes the status of each kiosk.

The content manager is the software package's watchdog; it provides detailed information about the kiosk. It stores log entries so kiosk problems can be diagnosed, and includes an interface viewer showing which applications are currently running.

"We refer to it as big brother," joked Damien Shaw, a member of NetShift's technical services division.

Report and generation tools evaluate the kiosk's performance. Standard reports are included, but new ones can be added.

Taking charge of data

RemoteWare allows administrators to set up and assign permissions for authorized users of the program. There is a great deal of control, important when staff have specific functions on the network. Checkboxes assign rights to applications and drill down to more detailed levels. For example, a store manager can be restricted to view-only rights to a scheduler.

The server profile is used to configure general information and options such as how many sessions per server are allowed.

RemoteWare provides a lot of versatility when dealing with data connections, which is useful when there are many network connections to contend with, such as dial-up, ISDN, Async and Ethernet. The software can segment IP port resources based on client type or port usage.

"It's a way to throttle the available bandwidth for TCP/IP connections," Raynes said.

The inventory manager on XcelleNet's RemoteWare program reveals client hardware information and can be compared to other machines.

RemoteWare allows administrators to fine tune connection specifications, including packet size, time outs, and other high-tech settings. The software also utilizes file compression to make file transfers more efficient.

Another feature is electronic software distribution, which can fix clients with software problems.

"It's the ability to go out to the client and inventory the software running at the client. Anything that's missing, it can actually replace," Raynes said.

RemoteWare has other management features, including inventory management and technology from partner PCAnywhere. The inventory manager is useful for cataloging hardware, operating system software and directories on each machine. The scan is useful when multiples types of computer hardware and applications are on the network, and when companies need to keep track of software licenses.

PCAnywhere's software permits remote administrators to run the kiosk from their desktops, which is helpful for diagnosing problems.

Operating Systems and Browsers

RemoteWare requires Windows NT 4.0 or 2000 servers or workstations and the Microsoft SQL database server. RemoteWare client software connects to Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000 and Me. There are also versions for 16 bit OS/2, the 4690 IBM POS system, Linux, UNIX flavors, DOS and AIX.

However, not all features work with all operating systems. Many of the advanced features work with Windows, but not with Linux. That may be changing, according to Raynes.

"Linux is a fairly new operating system for us on the client side," she said. "As we understand the trend of our customers moving to Linux we are looking closely at moving a lot of the stuff to the Linux platform."

Enterprise Suite also requires a Windows NT or 2000 server and a database. The server can be a Microsoft SQL, Oracle or any containing a database compliant with ActiveX Data Objects, a Microsoft programming interface used to access databases.

The cost factor

XcelleNet charges a server-client license fee for RemoteWare. The one-time server fee is based on how many kiosks will be connected to the server at one time (concurrent sessions). A fee of $5,000 would allow up to eight concurrent sessions and up to 250 machines on the network. Licenses are available for a 16-session, 500-machine server, all the way up to a 64-session, unlimited client machine.

The company charges $200 per client, with volume discounts available at certain qualities.

NetShift licenses Enterprise Suite as part of a hosted solution. Purcell said companies should expect to pay between $70 and $75 per month for each kiosk provided the deployer uses all the functionality of Enterprise Suite. NetShift will sell the product to companies with their own servers, although it has not done so yet.

When it comes to one-time license fees, Purcell said $500 per kiosk was a good rule of thumb for non-hosted purchases. In addition, there could be setup and yearly maintenance costs.

What to take away

Shaw said the tricky part for companies is often deciding how many kiosks make remote management cost efficient.

A store chain with 20 information kiosks in one city and a tech-savvy store staff may not need expensive software for updates and maintenance. On the other hand, a chain with 20 transactional kiosks in a widely dispersed area and staff unfamiliar with computers may decide to invest in remote management.

"I think the lower limit comes at where you decide there's a cost advantage," he said. "It's more advantageous for you to have an enterprise solution because potentially the money you will save by monitoring will in essence increase your revenue on your kiosks. That's the point in time that you say, `OK that's when I go with the solutions.' "