Gric launches Universal Remote Control

Gric Communications announced this week Universal Remote Control (URC), a Web-based portal to monitor, configure, troubleshoot, and manage remote users over wireless or wired connections.

Under its brand, Gric aggregates 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 customized 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, next year, will include an API to link the portal to the corporate directory, said Niteen Bhat, director of product management at Gric.

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 Bhat.

Beyond its current features, 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 current version of URC can deliver custom billing and settlement reports that integrate into internal finance systems via CSV (Comma Separated Value) format. Future versions will include more Web-based APIs, said Bhat.

URC is shipping now.