Has the pandemic come to an end? Are we back to a full-fledged, in-office work style? The answer is absolutely not. What we proposed as the "new normal" (working from home) back in 2020 is now just normal in 2023. Gartner research predicted that "almost 50% of employees will will continue to work remotely post-pandemic," which is the reality now! With this shifting trend towards a flexible work culture, it's essential for front line IT workers, aka sysadmins, to stay equipped with a supercharged remote troubleshooting toolkit to rescue endpoints in trouble.

As a sysadmin, the most challenging task is to troubleshoot remote devices that are in a shutdown state. Is that going to stop you? Of course not—continue reading to find out how to effectively rescue remote endpoints in powerless states!

The art of rescuing endpoints in S5 (or) Rescue powerless endpoints

The power of Wake-on-LAN is often underestimated in the eyes of IT admins. Too many myths and suspicions about its failure and complicated requirements have hidden its potential. To bring its effects to the limelight, we need to figure out the perfect time and place to use it.

• Safeguard unattended endpoints from threats and attacks:

To stay away from ransomware, malware attacks, and threats, it's essential to patch your endpoints regularly and instantly. But we never know when a vulnerability will be out in the wild. What if it happens on a weekend or at midnight while your endpoints are offline and out of physical reach? How will you patch your devices without any delay?

This is where Wake-on-LAN comes to your rescue. At once, wake up all the devices in your network and deploy critical patches instantly. This way, you can react in minutes and protect your endpoints with minimal effort.

• Improve end users' performance:

The most time-consuming sysadmin tasks include software and OS updates, and deploying not-so-critical patches. End users', aka employees', performance will plummet if these updates keep interrupting their daily routines. So how do you perform these actions without disturbing end users?

It's recommended to update or patch endpoints during off-working hours. To do so, IT admins can wake up the devices when the end user is away, take care of all the updates, and leave without making a noise.

• Manage time more efficiently:

Time lost can never be redeemed. Switching on a laptop or desktop and setting it up might take around 10 to 15 minutes every morning. This approximately means a total of five hours per month are entirely wasted on just powering on a device by a single user in your organization. How do you ensure that essential working hours are not lost?

Automation comes into play here. Schedule tasks to wake up endpoints regularly every single morning or based on work shifts before the end user reaches the device. This will help them to pick up were they left off and dive into work instantly.

Now that we know when and where to use Wake-on-LAN, the next step is to find out how to implement it! Remote Access Plus is an advanced IT troubleshooting tool with exclusive Wake-on-LAN capabilities. 

Advanced Wake-on-LAN with Remote Access Plus

After analyzing various business use cases and scenarios, ManageEngine created Remote Access Plus to have tailor-made Wake-on-LAN with advanced settings and an easy workflow. Here are a few reasons why it stands out:

• Not just one, but select multiple endpoints in one shot and initiate Wake-on-LAN from the dashboard.
• Enable Wake-on-LAN settings on remote devices in one click with customized settings.
• Wake up computers running on Windows and Linux OSs.
• Schedule the action to happen at regular intervals for any number of devices automatically.
• Improve the success rate of Wake-on-LAN by modifying an endpoint's broadcast address to match your MAC address.
• Customize the waiting time for Wake-on-LAN to succeed, and get results instantly.
• Get a complete list of devices in a powered-down state.
• Wake your devices in one tap right from your smart phone.

With these exclusively catered features, save, improve, and manage your endpoints with minimal power consumption in the most efficient way. Checkout Wake-on-LAN and other advanced troubleshooting tools for free with ManageEngine Remote Access Plus!

Author Bio: Nivetha T - Content Writer

Nivetha is a budding marketer exploring the world of technology and cybersecurity. When she is away from work, you might find her watching Korean dramas.