Gric Communications has unveiled its Universal Remote
Control (URC), a web-based portal to monitor, configure,
troubleshoot, and manage remote users over wireless or wired
connections.
The Gric brand has more than 350 different service providers of
remote network access over dialup, WiFi, DSL and cable among others
worldwide.
The full feature set of URC includes adding and deleting users
and changing passwords and service plans in real time. It can be
customised for hierarchal administration to deliver different
levels of service to different levels of management.
However, the portal is independent of the enterprise directory.
A future version, out next year, will include an API to link the
portal to the corporate directory.
URC's real-time visibility feature can also alert managers of
breaches in security by detecting simultaneous multiple sessions
from the same user. "If the system sees the same user connected
from New York and Paris, there is a good chance the network is
being compromised by an intruder," said Niteen Bhat, director of
product management at Gric.
The benefit to IT, according to one industry analyst, is the
aggregation of that feature set inside of a single portal. "Gric
has the relationship with all the service providers so that IT can
now have a one-stop management platform," said Bob Egan, a senior
analyst at Mobile Competency.
Future upgrades include the ability to send alerts in real time
to users while online, and alerts to the IT administrator when it
detects a failed connection and, in some cases, determine the cause
such as an incorrect password.
The present version of URC can deliver custom billing and
settlement reports that integrate into internal finance systems via
Comma Separated Value format. Future versions will include more
web-based APIs.
URC is shipping now.
Ephraim Schwartz writes for InfoWorld
