Remote Desktop Services vs. Wayk Bastion (Discontinued)

Remote Desktop Services provides access to work environments from any device. This allows us to ensure business continuity in case of disaster. It provides admins more control over access and security. Remote Desktop Services simplifies software updates and compliance management by reducing the need to act on end users devices.

If you need a low-cost solution, that just works, Wayk Now is a great option. There are other options in the market, but most came with a huge install package or update every time it connects. Less appropriate I think, is when you already use some solution. If only because of the budget, maybe you need to make a better analysis of other products too.

• Relative ease of setup: in comparison to some of the other solutions on the market (Citrix, etc.), Remote Desktop Services is rather easy to set up and get configured in your environment.
• Feature set: Microsoft offers a good deal of the same features many competitors offer in the same space including a mobile app and the ability to have a "native" app feel for a remote application.
• Inexpensive Licensing: in comparison to other solutions on the market Remote Desktop Services is inexpensive.
• Move LOB applications closer to their server counterparts: this goes for all remote solutions, but if you have a line of business application that makes a great deal of calls across the network to your data center, your remote office users will likely benefit from the performance and stability side by moving those client side applications into the data center.

Incentivized

• Wayk Now makes it really easy to use by having only a few items in view.
• It is fairly easy to configure and even allows connectivity through firewalls.
• It maintains the connection, even over a relatively low bandwidth connection.

• Advanced configuration is required.
• Off-site access from a different network is very insecure unless a VPN can be used.
• It's complicated and relatively costly for multi-user environments, as each user or device requires a CAL on top of the server licensing.
• Incredibly complicated licensing strategy from Microsoft.

Incentivized

• They don't have unattended access yet.
• We don't like the feature where they can share their "number" and have someone not from the company access their computers.

Considering that Wayk Now comes in a free edition that can be used commercially, even if I wasn't to renew Wayk Now for whatever reason, I would still use it, but I do actually require the unattended access feature which is available for free now with the new free business licence.

Incentivized

Once set up it works well and is extremely easy for users. Getting it right can be difficult, it is easy to setup insecurely. Maintenance can be difficult with only a single broker and with manual switchover required for redundant gateways. Troubleshooting access issues can also be difficult

Incentivized

I feel Wayk Now is very useable as it's still a very simple concept packaged basically the same way that the competition does with their remote assist type apps

Incentivized

There are some third party tools available that allow you to manage multiple connections.

Incentivized

As with any Microsoft Server product, support for Remote Desktop Services requires a paid support package. These are license-based and very costly, on top of the already costly product licensing. Microsoft's licensing is complicated to begin with, so setting up licensing alone essentially requires a licensing expert's counsel. There is community documentation and support available on Microsoft websites, as well as community websites.

Incentivized

My experience with their support is for a related product, not Wayk Now; however Devolutions support has always been superior to most regardless of the product being used. I left it at a 9 instead of a 10 simply because I haven't used it, but I would expect nothing less than a 10 from my experiences with RDM - both free and paid versions.

We used RDS on-site primarily because of how easy it is for users to transition from their own desktop to a remote desktop. However, from off-site, there are VPN and other security considerations to take into account, and the process gets a little more complex. In this situation, especially if you're trying to support a user who is outside the local network, it can be easier to use something like Chrome Remote Desktop or TeamViewer. However, the Windows functionality of RDS is totally unmatched.

Incentivized

Acts the same, small footprints so it does not hog resources. Personally I like Wayk since I love the Devolutions products. I also like how you can share resources, such as files and executables through the sessions. This makes troubleshooting and installing programs easier. This also allows techs to look at issues while having potential to have troubleshooting tips open on a second window.

• Remote Desktop Services has had a major positive ROI impact at our firm. There were a number of times when our staff was traveling abroad to business meetings with a laptop that had missing presentations. But once they had internet access, a Remote Desktop Services connection is established, and presentation data can now be shown directly from their laptops as if theyr'e sitting in our office.
• Remote Desktop Services has made it possible for Mac staff users to use their computing devices to access our network system to run Windows applications and access all our network data.
• Remote Desktop Services has made it possible for our staff to successfully work remotely from outside the office. There were many occasions when emergencies came up which prevented staff from coming into the office to work. But as long as they have a computer with an internet connection, they used Remote Desktop Services to connect to our terminal server and successfully ran the programs to modify data files on the network without losing a beat.

Incentivized

• There is a no-cost version of the tool which has an immediate positive Return on Investment as it allows remote support users to efficiently assist users