What Makes R-HUB Remote Support Servers Secure?

As technology continues to evolve and improve, remote access and control technologies now provide the ability to significantly improve productivity and efficiency. Even so, the potentially destructive impact of remote access and control technologies must also be recognized.

How Hackers Gain Access
In a Data Breach Investigations Report, the Verizon Business Risk Team named “remote access and control” the most common attack pathway used by hackers. The team concluded that, “in over 40 percent of the breaches investigated during this study, an attacker gained unauthorized access to the victim via one of the many types of remote access and control software.”

Why R-HUB Is Secure
Given the hacker climate in which we live today, you might wonder “What makes R-HUB secure?”

That is certainly a legitimate question, considering the potential risk. First, it is important to know that R-HUB recognizes both the risk and the importance of protection and has taken a number of measures to ensure the security of the data transferred during support sessions. Below are a few of those measures that outline the major areas that support R-HUB being a secure, remote access and control technology:

• Architecture: Encrypting data is a good start, but the reality is that it is simply not enough. A remote access and control system must provide support organizations with control over sensitive data as well as visibility into remote support activity. R-HUB’s appliance-based architecture works to unify support activity and collects all the data surrounding support in a central repository.
• Authentication: One layer of authentication is not sufficient. Support reps should pass through multiple authentication layers or directory authentication prior to being given access to or control of a remote system. R-HUB provides administrators with complete control over the way in which individuals, teams, and customers are authenticated without sacrificing or slowing down support.
• Access: Access should be tiered as well as permission-based at each level. R-HUB ensures this by focusing on each end of the support session and offering granular user management to administrators and reassuring controls to customers.
• Reporting: The ability to review support activity is vital to security. R-HUB offers robust logging and recording capabilities to capture exhaustive details regarding support sessions. Administrators are provided with critical visibility into support activity.

Inadequate remote working policies can result in serious potential problems, including placing a business or organization at risk for a data breach. Data protection is now a massive concern for businesses in all sectors and industries. As the number of people working remotely continues to increase, the need to ensure that employees are able to work securely without compromising sensitive data has become of paramount importance. Ensuring the correct procedures and tools are in place can help to reduce the risks associated with inadequate remote access and control technologies, while still providing all of the benefits.

Secure your remote support sessions using our on premise R-HUB remote support servers. To obtain more information about R-HUB remote support products, contact us on 1-866-758-0984 or email us at sales@collaboration-technologies.co.uk

What are the differences between Telepresence and Ordinary Video Conferences?

Telepresence has become a trendy word. But how does it differ from ordinary video conferences? The immersive experience that only telepresence can ensure is the key to learn to use the two terms correctly. What is telepresence about? Isn’t it anything else than a new word that stands for video conference? No, the answer is wrong. Telepresence cannot be considered as a mere synonym of video conference, as the difference between the two media is real and substantial. In order to have an idea of what telepresence looks like, simply have a quick look at the web site of R-hub (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/) a provider of solutions for video and audio conferencing, particularly at the page where there is the introduction to their products for HD Video conferencing  (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/video-conferencing.html).  The photo in foreground will give you immediately the idea of what telepresence is. What makes the difference with an ordinary conference is: You feel as the remote user was actually sitting right in front of you, even though he or she is in another continent. It is necessary to utilize a great amount of technology to reach this goal: a special conference room with big HD screens is usually arranged for the specific purpose; the image of the remote person is reproduced in several monitors (R-HUB TurboMeeting supports up to 8 monitors) set around the observer; last point is video quality, as flat images or – even worse -black and white images will break the magic and disrupt your conference. According to some people, the term telepresence includes also telerobotics, or robotic telepresence. This is a technology to control a robot via wireless networks and perform remote operations. What does it have to do with the first acceptation of the term? In my opinion, nothing; but this is it. But there are some people that use the term in this way. Video streaming quality. It must be seamless and in high definition. Therefore, teleconference requires to be supported by reliable and well-built systems, like on-premise server based solutions. Web app could show issues and should be avoided. In conclusion, telepresence assures users the experience of immersion which is not possible to get during an ordinary video conference via Skype on your iPhone. It needs many more resources, from a dedicated room with HD giant monitors to reliable web conferencing solutions. Being it expensive, it is limited to some specific uses, as lessons for virtual learners, surgical operations, and the meetings of the board of administration of a company. If you are interested in telepresence and web conferencing, please visit R-HUB web site (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/), where you are going to find additional resources and information about this interesting topic.

Make your Virtual Conferences look like real life Meetings through Telepresence

Telepresence assures conference attendants  a fully immersive, totally interactive and absolutely distraction-free experience . That really makes the difference with traditional video conferences. For these reasons, this technology is gaining ground in global companies environment. 

Imagine to be sitting at your desk and to be speaking to a customer at the opposite side.  His voice, appearance and size are absolutely like in the reality, despite the fact that he is remote and speaking through a monitor. This perfectly describes telepresence, one of the emerging trends envisaged by Frost & Sullivan in their latest survey on the web conferencing market.

The name speaks by itself, being it a combination of the suffix “tele” – far – with the substantive “presence”. So, it means literally:“Being present from distance”. Now, an objection rises immediately: what makes the difference with traditional video conferences? Have not they the same function as telepresence, after all?

The trick is the so-called telepresence effect, the ability of rendering voices and faces exactly like in the reality. This is obtained through the utilization of huge HD monitors and appropriate conferencing services and products, like, for example, R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.collaboration-technologies.co.uk/video-conferencing.html) , a suite of high quality on-premise servers purposely designed  to assure users the best possible experience with their virtual conferences.

Through an ordinary video conference,  it is impossible to get the same level of realism of telepresence: one problem is the size of PC screens, that is too small; other problems  are connected to the needs  to have high quality HD colour images and sounds, without which the telepresence effect is immediately lost.

The second important keyword to catch is the immersive experience that is possible to get through telepresence. Watching an icon-sized image of somebody talking to you through a small screen is much different from the stunning sensation of having a remote speaker standing right in front of you like in the reality.

In other words, telepresence immerses you so much in your virtual conference that the barrier between what is real and what is virtual becomes so thin that we may consider it as being not existing.  Do you feel perplexed? Simply pay a short visit to the above-linked page and have a look at the images to get persuaded.

Why shall we use telepresence? The main benefit is the end of distractions, one of the most annoying problems of traditional video conferences. Another benefit is an increased level of interaction, which is obtained through the high level of visual and audio clarity that only telepresence ensures. This goes far beyond even the best traditional HD video conferencing service, as not only does it rely on the quality of the web conferencing software that is being used, but also on the utilization of  big monitors and some other technological equipment.

These are the two reasons why telepresence has become popular in many enterprises.  In a global world, meetings are fatally destined to go virtual, with subsequent urgent need for technologies that can ensure a level of interactions as close to the reality as possible. Telepresence does exactly that, and it does it better than ordinary video conferencing.

What about its costs? This much is true, that it is not exactly what they call an inexpensive technology. LifeSize, for example, offers systems starting from £64,000, Cisco from £290,000. R-HUB TurboMeeting is probably the most affordable solution, as you can buy a R-HUB server with less than £1,200.

With TurboMeeting, you will have then to add the prices of monitors and other pieces of equipment to the bill. But you will bring a high-quality telepresence system home without spending an arm and a leg. Plus, you will have a level of security that only on-premise server based web conferencing solutions ensure.


In conclusion, telepresence is one of the most interesting technologies for global companies. It assures users highly interactive and fully immersive meetings that are not as far from those that they have in the real world.