EL DORADO, Ark. -- Murphy Oil USA Inc. is using Bomgar, a provider of secure remote support solutions, to provide secure remote support to thousands of retail and point-of-sale (POS) systems.
Murphy USA Marketing Co. operates nearly 1,200 retail gasoline stations under the Murphy USA brand across 23 states. These are high-volume, low-cost retail gasoline stations and convenience stores, primarily in the parking areas of Wal-Mart Supercenters.
Murphy Oil USA's national support center operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The approximately 75 support representatives field 6,000 to 9,000 calls per week. In addition to supporting the computer systems, the national support center handles any issue the local store may have, including electrical, plumbing and other maintenance problems.
Prior to Bomgar, the support team used a number of different remote support tools. The IT team wanted to standardize on a single remote support solution that could be used to troubleshoot all of its retail systems. Also, once the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was formalized, a PCI compliant remote support solution became a requirement.
"There are three core systems at our retail locations that we support remotely," said Bryan Ogle, manager of retail infrastructure for El Dorado, Ark.-based Murphy Oil USA. "These are the [POS] computers that also control the fuel outside at the pumps, backoffice computers for accounting and paperwork, and security machines that control the store video cameras. We used to use a number of different remote support tools, depending on which type of system we were working on. When the need for credit-card PCI compliance arose several years ago, we began looking for a way to consolidate on a single remote support tool that could meet all of our needs, including compliance."
He added, "Our priority is to ensure the POS device is working so that we are not losing sales. One of the features that we find most valuable about Bomgar is that we do a lot of diagnostics behind the scenes using Bomgar's Command Shell without having to interrupt the use of the POS device by the local cashier."
Canned Scripts is another feature that has reduced resolution time for the remote support team.
"The Scripts allow us to execute numerous routine commands with a touch of a button, which helps us ensure that the commands are executed accurately by our representatives and allows them to be performed much more quickly than if keyed-in manually. And Bomgar organizes all of our Scripts in a convenient, single repository," Ogle said.
He can now control which systems a representative can access.
"For example, we are able to restrict our loss prevention personnel so that they can only view the security camera systems. We also limit who has access to the POS machines," said Ogle. "That gives us an added level of control and security."
Ogle and his team also have the ability to review each session, which is recorded and logged, to audit any action that took place for security and PCI compliance.
"If we have a question about a POS device in the field, we can watch the videos recorded for any Bomgar session at that store and make a determination about what happened with respect to that device," he said.
Jackson, Miss.-based Bomgar provides remote support solutions for supporting computing systems and mobile devices. The company's appliance-based products help organizations improve tech support efficiency and performance by enabling them to securely support nearly any device or system, anywhere in the world, including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, BlackBerry and more. More than 7,500 organizations across 65 countries have deployed Bomgar.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.