Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department
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Small business IT is often unfamiliar with the style of remote access tools that are generally used by MSPs and consultants, but in many cases these tools can be very beneficial in modern businesses to speed, and help secure, even a single company environment. Sorry for the abrupt ending on this one
@Ylian
Google Generated Transcript
today we're going to talk about remote access and support tools for the SMB now this is one that a little bit different than most of my videos but I want to talk about this category of tooling that people who work in the MSP space have a tendency to use all the time and people who work in traditional IT often never even look at or think about but it's actually really important and I think a lot more people should be looking at it now of course a lot of people do look at it who working so if you're in regular IT and you use these tools all the time and you think I'm an idiot for thinking no one does just move on by right there a lot of people don't think about this so trust me but we're talking about tools like connect wise screen connect log me in Splashtop mesh central this category of tools can be super beneficial and the reason that they're super cool compared to what we traditionally use for support things like Remote Desktop Protocol RDP in Windows or VNC or X Windows in the UNIX world NX from no machine things like that those are all direct connected technologies they all allow us to remote into a desktop see the desktop from a distance and work on it that's great but they all require a direct connection between our machine and the machine we're talking to of course we can create brokers we can do it over VPN we can do lots of things for security we can do lots of things for access under you know disparate conditions you may notice that some people use a Software Defined Networking like zero tear to allow them to be kind of mobile and access those kinds of things from anywhere while still maintaining good security there's ways to make them work and I don't want to belittle them they're great technologies but they're designed around a land-based architecture or a high-performance remote desktop use architecture right they have they have great places but in a modern world where we are often working outside of the land what were in Al Andalus environment see my videos on landless or we're simply not on the land at the time that we're working because we work from home we're in a hotel we're traveling whatever we want something that's a little bit different and these remote accesstechnologies which don't really have a title at this time like there's no industry accepted term that I'm aware of that refers to all these in general these allow you to work from anywhere and they do so because they have a hosted component no in the case of someone like connect wise that is a cloud component that you're connecting to your team of your same thing in the case of something like mesh central they may someday have a hosted component of their own but right now it is something that you would host your own same with screenconnect quite often you host your own there they're changing that model but it still exists in that way so the nice thing about these types of technologies is that you have a central server or group of servers somewhere that you can access from anywhere or you can control the access to it right you have a point of access and that's a really useful thing when we're working on security right now we have a single point of securing our access to different things so if you need to cut someone off because they've left the company you have a security breach of us you have a choke point that you can work with it's similar to working with a firewall or with a jump box or proxy and in some ways it is kind of a jump rocks and it is kind of a proxy so it really fits into those roles and we're talking about graphical user interfaces in these cases or mostly right you could do the same thing with like SSH but if you're gonna work with SSH through something like this a jump box is so practical deaded kind of negates the need for something like this simply because they fit the same role but in a different way the neat thing about these technologies is that because you have this hosted server you can have any number of clients anywhere and as long as they can reach the Internet they can talk to that central server and connect by reaching out to it you don't have to have portsopen into those servers or into those desktops or our laptops or whatever they simply need to be able to reach out andthis has two big advantages one issecurity you don't have to open port severywhere pointed to all these machines that would be very risky the second is that you don't need to have them in a static environment that you know how to reach they can be anywhere so while the server with a static IP address can used to work either way just fine the person with the laptop who takes it to a hotel and assembly on a completely different network is still able to bereached and supported exactly the same as if they're in the office or in a case I had to deal with recently supporting someone on an airplane while they were in flight it's easy to do these things because of the way the networking works because of the brokered connection through the the hosted proxy so security and ease of use really big deals the product that I really want to spend a little bit of time talking about because I've used it quite a bit recently and I think it's super exciting and it's up and coming is the free open source mesh central I've been using this every day for the last several months there's certainly a lot of things about it that are not as production-ready as some of its competitors but what's really good about it is it's completely free of course you'd have to host it yourself if you're going to not use a hosted version it has to be hosted somewhere so there is cost involved but you may easily have the capacity to just simply put it on your existing infrastructure but because it's completely free and it's the first enterprise product of this category to exist that's open source and free the opportunity has changed and that's why I want to talk about it today previously this would be a very expensive set of technologies under normal conditions you may be able to afford it for a single tech by having it for a team or a company or just a normal business what's often a bit much considering things like RDP and VNC and whenever were free and you simply had to figure out how to live with their limitations but now because mesh central is completely free and open-source we have access to it too whether it's a company that's simply budget constrained or a company that didn't want to couldn't justify spending the money on another approach or you're a company that's really passionate about using open source technologies all of those barriers have been knocked down and now we have this really great tool that anybody can go out and use just for the effort of setting it up they also have had really great online support new features are coming out all the time really excited about where they are today and where they're going in the future and the pace at which they're getting there I've seen no product in recent times that is being developed as quickly and steadily as Mesh Central and it really covers the module of the basis that people need whether it's remote access to windows remote access to Linux remote access to Mac you know need a relatively complex security model with different people in different groups with different levels of access it's just a really cool tool that you can use and of course it's worth mentioning with all of these technologies you can host them someplace public so you can access from absolutely anywhere you can also also host them inside your land if you have policies that say you have to be hosted inside a dedicated land and you can't go to a cloud hosting or anything like that that's fine they still work that way they're going to be more limited but you're still able to use those technologies.
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Great video @scottalanmiller. I want to know more about it, it seems like your video got cut short? Was that on purpose?
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@Obsolesce said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
Great video @scottalanmiller. I want to know more about it, it seems like your video got cut short? Was that on purpose?
No, but I had run out of points so that the battery died then just... kind of made sense. lol
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@scottalanmiller said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@Obsolesce said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
Great video @scottalanmiller. I want to know more about it, it seems like your video got cut short? Was that on purpose?
No, but I had run out of points so that the battery died then just... kind of made sense. lol
Why are you using a battery operated camera?
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@DustinB3403 said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@scottalanmiller said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@Obsolesce said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
Great video @scottalanmiller. I want to know more about it, it seems like your video got cut short? Was that on purpose?
No, but I had run out of points so that the battery died then just... kind of made sense. lol
Why are you using a battery operated camera?
Because he uses his cell phone and Is mentally locked in to 1990’s battery behavior.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
1990’s battery behavior
What's that?
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@Obsolesce said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
1990’s battery behavior
What's that?
The need for a full discharge and charge.
I fact with modern battery technology fully discharging a battery is worse for it.
The best thing is to run in a cycle from ~80% to ~20% for best life of the battery itself.
But then life of the device also matters, as well as how much a degrading battery affects you day to day.
For most people, it is better to charge the device fully and then run it to ~10% and then charge it again. Slightly more wear on the battery, but the most active life out of the device without being tethered to a charger.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
The need for a full discharge and charge.
I fact with modern battery technology fully discharging a battery is worse for it.
The best thing is to run in a cycle from ~80% to ~20% for best life of the battery itselfThat's what people selling batteries tell you. But you can easily test this with a modern battery and see that it isn't true. Takes no effort and is super obvious after just a couple times.
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I charge my phone whenever for however long. After 2 and a half years on my S8+, I didn't notice any decline in capacity. Previously, I had phone with removable batteries and had some bulge/go bad, so I spent the $18 on amazon and bought a replacement. For me, the cost is low enough to not even care if charge cycles were still a thing.
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@wrx7m said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
I charge my phone whenever for however long. After 2 and a half years on my S8+, I didn't notice any decline in capacity. Previously, I had phone with removable batteries and had some bulge/go bad, so I spent the $18 on amazon and bought a replacement. For me, the cost is low enough to not even care if charge cycles were still a thing.
Charge cycles are definitely the thing. They are the largest thing.
Batteries are rated by charge cycle.
But what Scott is trying to sell is a load of shit.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@wrx7m said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
I charge my phone whenever for however long. After 2 and a half years on my S8+, I didn't notice any decline in capacity. Previously, I had phone with removable batteries and had some bulge/go bad, so I spent the $18 on amazon and bought a replacement. For me, the cost is low enough to not even care if charge cycles were still a thing.
Charge cycles are definitely the thing. They are the largest thing.
Batteries are rated by charge cycle.
But what Scott is trying to sell is a load of shit.
I meant in terms of full charge to empty. I understand that batteries age and degrade.
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@wrx7m said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
I charge my phone whenever for however long. After 2 and a half years on my S8+, I didn't notice any decline in capacity.
If you do that from the beginning, you won't likely notice. If you did that to a phone with a better training, I bet you would, really quickly.
It's both from talking to an electrical engineer and real world testing, it's consistent across pretty much all modern devices that the traditional cycles still work best.
The only places that state otherwise are consistently companies that make their money from batteries needing to be replaced.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
But what Scott is trying to sell is a load of shit.
Other than being both logical and observable.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
The best thing is to run in a cycle from ~80% to ~20% for best life of the battery itself.
Define "best life"? That creates 200% more recharge cycles at least, and takes batteries that would last two days only last for twelve hours. It adds cycles, and adds them fast.
What I'm looking for is batteries that outlast the usefulness of the device without shortening their cycle spans more than necessary. I've not had a batter die on me in forever, and most last for years after most people's devices are useless, and still get nearly their original battery life.
You can claim anything you want, but observation says my way is absolutely correct. And I can take someone crappy battery and generally within a week or two show dramatic improvement. NEver gets back to 100% once you start the bad recharge cycles, but I can train it back from nearly useless to nearly full pretty quickly.
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@scottalanmiller said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
The best thing is to run in a cycle from ~80% to ~20% for best life of the battery itself.
Define "best life"? That creates 200% more recharge cycles at least, and takes batteries that would last two days only last for twelve hours. It adds cycles, and adds them fast.
Uhm, no, it doesn't create more "recharge cycles". That's not how modern Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries work. You're degrading the battery faster by fully discharging it.
My Sony phone is the first phone I've had that's actually intelligent about charge/discharge cycles. We'll see how it goes, but I can already tell you it's doing better after 6 months of constant usage.
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I avoid at all costs allowing my phone to completely discharge (Pixel 3) it lasts (if I only use it for text and calls) more than a 24 hour period.
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@travisdh1 said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
Uhm, no, it doesn't create more "recharge cycles". That's not how modern Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries work. You're degrading the battery faster by fully discharging it.
Actually, yes it creates "cycles" more quickly. That is basic math. 80% to 20% and back is always more often than 100% to 0% and back.
But the point is that full discharge is more damaging.
I personally also feel, but have no science for, that charging to 100% with modern devices is also ok, as the devices are smarter about not overcharging, as long as you unplug as soon as you hit 100%. Not because of overcharging, but because what you need to avoid the most, even more than 0%, is leaving a device plugged in at 100%. Trickle charging to maintain 100% is a cycle every time it happens.
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@JaredBusch said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
I personally also feel, but have no science for, that charging to 100% with modern devices is also ok, as the devices are smarter about not overcharging, as long as you unplug as soon as you hit 100%. Not because of overcharging, but because what you need to avoid the most, even more than 0%, is leaving a device plugged in at 100%. Trickle charging to maintain 100% is a cycle every time it happens.
Right, going to 100% without immediately, manually disengaging the charge was a problem in the past, but that's been a long time now (many years.) Now it goes into a long no-charge phase to avoid both overcharging (very bad) and extra cycles (bad.) If you leave it plugged in indefinitely, that's definitely not the way to go, but that's a different issue.
My phone goes to 100%, then still has a few minutes, then it signals that it is fully topped up to the max and kills the charging. At that time it turns green and flashes the full screen to get my attention. That's when I try to unplug.
I don't always hit zero (power down) but try to get really, really close. Sometimes it is just too much of a pain to reboot at the time when it gets there.
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@travisdh1 said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
Uhm, no, it doesn't create more "recharge cycles". That's not how modern Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries work. You're degrading the battery faster by fully discharging it.
I've not seen any science or neutral party make this claim. People who sell batteries make this claim, but no one else. It doesn't need to fully discharge the way that old batteries did, that's for sure. But all the original wording on these batteries was "doesn't need to", it slowly slipped over time quietly into "not recommending what we used to do", but without anything that I've seen behind it. Just marketing has changed over time, and often with careful language like "to avoid the phone turning off" and not directly saying what is best for the battery.
It absolutely has more cycles. 80% to 20% is roughly half the battery life. So if that was all that you did, that means two charges for every one of mine. That's doubling. But once you do that, after 3-4 times, you should notice a significant drop in how long it takes to go from 80% to 20% causing yet another increase in charge cycles. My way gets the most per individual charge, and from my own measurements across many devices and many years, gets more from the cycles over time as they get longer.
Example: My watch is rates at a maximum of four days of charge. I get seven after conditioning it. If I recharged it when they recommend, I'd be literally around 400% of the charging cycles!
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@scottalanmiller said in Introducing MeshCentral on SAMIT as a Remote Access and Support Tool for the SMB IT Department:
es for every one of mine. That's doubling. But once you do that, after 3-4 times, you should notice a significant drop in how long it
I don't think that's how charging cycles work. At least that's what I've read - granted - not in a science journal - if your battery is at 100 - down to 50, and you recharge it - that's 1/2 a cycle, if it's at 100 and down to 75, and you recharge it - that's 1/4 cycle.
At least this is what I read.
