JoeAustin wrote:
We are getting off-track here but I have to say there are a couple flaws in your theories about the use of WOL. Many large organizations have embraced WOL, more so since the "green" movement to conserve energy and reduce operating costs. You need to think WAY back and remember that the feature was born from requests by administrators for more cost effective ways to remotely power on computers. Any patch management system worth using has the ability to wake systems for updates. Having started out in a corporation that had over 40,000 computers in one office building and nearly triple that spread out across the country, I know full well how valuable and useful the WOL feature can be. I also know how easy it is to increase an IT budget by showing how to conserve costs by shutting down computers overnight.
Since you mentioned "large" organizations, let's stick to the real facts. It is NOT a common practice to leave workstations on in larger companies. Any network with thousands or just hundreds of computers (and any administrator with decent training) don't recommend leaving workstations on 24/7 and they wouldn't use automated workstation based requests for OS/software/antivirus updates. That is what patch management systems are for, to manage and push the updates to the workstations. Good administrators have to concentrate on company-wide benefits, not just what is convenient to their little corner of the organization.
Actually JoeAustin, I am not trying to bash you at all, but leaving workstations up 24/7 is a very common practice in large institutions like universities and hospitals. :) On the majority of the workstations deployed at major universities and hospitals its mandated even. The reasons being obvious (they are used 24/7). For purposes of "Green" computing, when we spec out, we are much more interested in the idle power and active power utilization than WOL. I'm not in any way bashing you, but I have to very firmly disagree with you that a significant number of large organizations have embraced WOL on a widespread basis. It is a fallacy that users are willing to tolerate WOL on a remote system anyway. Most often, when a doctor, researcher, or a student needs remote access, they need it NOW. They will not tolerate waiting for a computer to boot up. It only takes a couple of sessions of having to wait for a bootup for a frequent Remote user to give up on WOL and just leave their office computers on 24/7. And I'll bet a dollar to a donut that is the case in other institutions as well. So no offense intended, but your analysis I do not believe jives with industry practice.
Now for the casual remote access at the small office like maybe a local insurance company or stereo shop, the WOL may seem an attractive feature. But small organizations like that don't generally need any of the other stuff like groups, user management, and search. And since it is apparently now available in logmeinFree, the $300 for Central is an unnecessary expense.
The fact is that the vast majority of SMB's that deploy a product like logmein - most especially in the healthcare and research fields, only allow a very few employees to have remote access. It's deployed on the basis of need. Which is a best practice. It makes absolutely no sense (not to mention the security and management headaches) to give 300 lab techs or 500 floor nurses remote access to the computers they use at the facility every day. In any given institution that you administer, how many employees are actually authorized to utilize remote access? I think that if you look at the situation in real-world terms, the "savings" are just not there. I think that is true even in large clerical or manufacturing organizations as well. There is no overriding need for 95% of the employees to have remote access. So if the policy is for those line-staff's computers to go off during non-business hours, they darn well better stay off. And even then, in large organizations, data is generally stored on the servers and remote access is through a centrally managed and secured VPN connection (in our case Cisco's).
Most of the logmein accounts with 50+ logmein installations are sysadmins or support techs. Generally, they are the only personnel that ever remote in to the vast majority of those workstations.
If LogMeIn believed that WOL was such a valuable feature, they would have been more prudent to make it a paid option (like say a Pro+) rather than give it away while taking away the most valuable features (groups, search and user management) of logmein for sysadmins.
Again, I am not in any way "bashing" you. I am just trying to make the point that in the real world WOL in the context of user remote access (versus sysadmins) is not, and never will be, a significantly used feature. "Always On" and "Instant On" are what users have become accustomed to and expect. The power user most likely to use remote access are not inclined to have the patience to wait for a bootup to log in and say finish an op report or look up a patient lab report. When the time it takes to boot up and log in with WOL takes longer than the time you need to actually use the remote computer, it becomes more burdensome than helpful. In that respect, most large organizations that I am aware of don't significantly consider WOL when spec'ing new workstations. In as far as energy savings go, its the idle power and active power specs that are significant. I'll try to give you a more concrete example: When you see advertisements from Dell or HP about their "Green" computers, do you ever see them mention WOL? What they do point out is the idle and active power consumption of the workstations.
Computers have become so ubiquitous in business and in homes that they are more like an appliance. They are generally useful 24/7 whether it's foreground or background tasks. Do you turn your refrigerator off when you go to bed? In fact, I'll bet that if you are a heavy computer user at home, you leave you home computer on 24/7 too! Most of us that depend on our computers and information do not have the patience to wait in the morning for the computer to boot up, then relog back into our email and other programs and wait for the updates. Not to mention that increasingly the computer is the primary source of alerts and even voice communications (Skype for instance) for many.
Again, I'm not bashing you, I'm just saying that in the real world, WOL is not a widely accepted feature. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that in the coming years, WOL will go the way of the serial port, the parallel printer port and PS2 ports. It's becoming more of an anachronism than a useful feature.
While I do understand your point, hopefully you understand why I don't believe your point holds much water in the real world :)
Message Edited by chuckjuhl on 09-11-2009 07:58 PM
Message Edited by chuckjuhl on 09-11-2009 08:01 PM
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