Improved Operations and business productivity through IT Automation

When it comes to automation, it may seem as though IT departments are like the barefooted cobbler’s children.  Much time and effort has been spent automating Finance, HR, Manufacturing and services.  But little has been spent on automating IT.  Many IT departments still use manual processes and point solutions that do not ensure consistent, automated and repeatable processes for even the most basic remediation.

With the constantly shifting landscape of business change and the rapid acceleration of technology, small to med sized businesses (SMBs) continue to face challenges in maintaining a competitive edge. Organizations rely heavily on IT departments to supply systems and resources that provide accurate and accessible customer data in order to quickly adapt to changing customer behaviors, evolving standards, industry consolidation and market trends.

Many companies also face the unique challenge of monitoring and managing IT systems that are distributed.  IT professionals must often travel from location to location to address problems, update systems with the latest software updates and ensure that they are running smoothly. The need for improved operations in every aspect of the IT management process is crucial to the overall success of the business.

In fact, improved IT services is no longer a consideration, but an actual mandate, put into effect in order to address these challenges. Such a mandate is designed to align IT operations with strategic business goals, and whether and organization outsources all or part of their IT services or maintains them in-house, automation is the means to accomplish this.

Without IT automation, performing the routine IT tasks that ensure consistent IT service deliver is a time consuming and daunting task. Fortunately, IT Professionals now have the power to automate an entire IT infrastructure.  From Software Inventory to Remote Desktop Management, the tools and technology and resources are available that make complete IT automation possible. 

At Kaseya, we strongly believe that, regardless of the size of the business, the mandate to automate applies. You don’t have to be a large corporation to experience the rewards in operational productivity and increased profitability through IT automation. By implementing a comprehensive and integrated solution, with the power, flexibility and scalability to meet your needs today and expand as your business grows, the mandate to automate becomes less of directive and more of a pro-active approach to improved operations and customer satisfaction.

IT automation is what we do and what we passionately believe in. In times when tough economic pressures and business directives involve issues like data protection, business continuance, regulatory compliance, industry consolidation and competitive threats, implementing IT automation as mandate can, in reality result a distinct competitive differentiator.  

Utilizing IT Automation to Enable Efficient Classroom Technology for K-12 EducationBest Practices in Automating Software Installation, User State, and Patch ManagementUtilizing IT Automation for Regulatory Compliance

By: Dan Shapero – Sr. Vice President, Marketing - Kaseya

Environmental and energy conservation issues are popular topics in the business world. Increasing energy costs and their impact on international affairs combined with increased concern about global warming and other environmental issues have shifted the social and economic consciousness of the business community.

Last year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a study that revealed that within the last five years, the total amount of energy utilized by all domestic US Data Centers has doubled. Yet, data centers are only a part of the total business power utilization. A recent EMA survey found that workstations account for over 90% of business power consumption.

So, what is “green computing”? Very simply, it’s the practice of implementing policies and procedures that improve the efficiency of computing resources in order to reduce the environmental impact.

But unless there is an easy way to “be green” it is likely not to be done. IT has a critical role to play in contributing to the “green initiative”. While data centers are a primary target, the majority of business computing is on desktops, laptops and distributed services. Fortunately, Green Computing can be easy, affordable and part of a natural process.

By incorporating IT business practices and technology solutions that address many of the energy consumption concerns, IT professionals can build solid business practices for maximizing energy conservation, decreasing operating expenses and boosting profitability. If IT tasks are done “off peak “, automated and can be accomplished remotely, an immediate and energy efficient power management policy is automatically put into effect.

At Kaseya, we believe that realizing an efficient and automated “Green Computing” initiative can be accomplished by implementing these policies and by utilizing the power of the Kaseya IT Automation Framework with the functionality of User State Management (KUSM) and Intel® vPro™ Technology. By using this technology, IT professionals can realize power management without compromising system management, and increase productivity while at the same time contributing to energy conservation.

By automating IT processes, implementing best practices and providing consistent customer service levels, even while going green, you can still wake up an out-of-band PC or Laptop to perform software updates, patches, backups and more. What’s more, you can do it all remotely so you don’t need to travel to fix a problem. So, you can even reduce your carbon footprint while improving IT service.

View the webcast: Reducing IT Operational Costs with Green Computing

Read about Kaseya and Green Computing

Download the Whitepaper: Green Computing: Using IT Automation to Achieve Energy Efficiency

Kaseya has been working on its Kaseya 2008 release for over a year. This release marks a milestone for the company as it contains the basic infrastructure changes to allow us to release many of our next-generation platform extensions. As a result of these changes, functions seemingly as simple as renaming an Agent, can now be handled without effort.

Alongside the changes in the plumbing are many new features that have been exposed in the VSA and add-on modules for this release. I believe these features will result in many tangible benefits to your customers and will make your life easier. Some highlights are:

1. Scripts. - You will see this category change with the next release. We have moved Scripts from a set of procedural primitives to a closed loop procedure “language” with the addition of file parsing and fetching capabilities in the release. With the next releases, the underpinning changes in Kaseya 2008 provide us with the capability to seriously move into workflow.
2. Monitoring. - You will notice that there are significant changes in monitoring in the K’08 release. Among these are the ability to distribute the load for management and collection of alerts and alarms over an “unlimited” period of time. Moreover, we have introduced the notion of “State” into the discipline – so that alarms are on or off, for example. That is, not treated like alerts. There are so many other important changes in Monitoring and these include,
     a. Log Archival and Collection
     b. Auto Learn
     c. Import & Export
     d. Log Monitoring
3. Kaseya User State Management (KUSM) Module.
     a. Green computing initiative
     b. Management of User State
     c. Definition and Enforcement of Desktop Standards
     d. Definition and Enforcement of Desktop Policies
           i. Example, Power, Mapped Drives, Printers
4. Mac Agent. This should give you an understanding of our cross platform aspirations.
5. Active Directory support. No explanation needed!
6. Patch Management.
     a. Patch Approval system was rewritten based on customer feedback
7. Log Monitoring for Syslog and other generic device and application text log monitoring and reporting
8. Auto Learn Monitoring
     a. Profiling device or computer
9. Kaseya Endpoint Security (KES)
     a. Exchange Server support added
     b. Threat management and alerts improvements
10. Intel vPRO Technology. This industry standard from Intel will provide added green computing benefits, not to mention ease of use for machines so equipped
11. Remote Control
      a. KVNC was made available for all customers in this release
      b. ActiveX is no longer a requirement to make a connection to a customer
12. Backup and Disaster Recovery (BUDR)
      a. Dashboard
      b. VSS
      c. Stitching
      d. Virtual Disk Support

These are but a dozen items I can think of that will go a long way to improving your capacity to manage IT infrastructure both local and remote.  

There is significant new functionality coming in the form of additional releases scheduled for this year. Without the underpinning work we did with this release this all-new functionality could not be supported by the platform nor delivered to you.   

Our Controlled Release customers for Kaseya 2008 spent much time and effort providing feedback and assisting us in refining the release and I want to thank them for their superb efforts. While many of you will have had a flawless upgrade experience, there are always issues with such a significant upgrade. Our thanks goes to those customers who, if they did experience an issue during their upgrade process, took the time to file an incident report with all the supporting information needed to track down the issue. It really helps us be responsive and get any hotfixes posted quickly. 

As I write this blog, we have upgraded 50% of the base and less than 2% of the customer-base has reported any significant issues during the transition process (typically these are data dependent so they don’t appear for other customers). During these periods, we move all development and support resources to affect resolution to issues brought to our attention. Kaseya expects to be totally current with all trouble reports within the first week of the release. Keeping in mind that our customer base is managing millions of machines we are very pleased with our development and support team’s efforts in making this the best and smoothest release of a major platform upgrade in our history.
 
For those of you who did experience upgrade/use issues, I hope you feel that we have been responsive to those issues. We do care about all of our customers and have committed all of our resources to making the upgrade process as painless as possible. I know I don’t need to remind any of you that IT Best Practice demands that you don’t throw the upgrade switch directly on your production system. There are many resources to assist you in understanding the changes in Kaseya 2008 over the previous version 4.8. You can go here for that detail and review the status of the upgrade issues that we have found and fixed. Clearly, for as mission critical that Kaseya is for our customers, it is wise to put the release into a test lab and use your back up data to test out the system on a batch of non-mission critical systems. That way, you can assure yourself that none of your critical services are broken, such as your scripts, before deploying to the full production environment.

Once again, I want to convey my appreciation to all of our customers, for their support and input in driving the continued advancement of the Kaseya technology; our controlled release customers who added their expertise to our market readiness and to the entire Kaseya team for producing this milestone Kaseya release.

It’s no secret that economic indicators point to a possible US recession in 2008. Financial markets have recently declined, driving key stock indexes to their lowest levels in more than a year. In an economic downturn, some businesses are more vulnerable to recession than others. When times get tough, people tend to tighten their belts and look for ways to fix or cut expenses and increase revenue. There are a variety of ways that businesses can leverage and better manage their IT assets to accomplish both.

As organizations look for ways to maintain productivity while fixing costs, IT Automation is one of the first areas a business should consider. Using a “managed” approach to IT service delivery leads to exploration of innovative and more cost efficient options such as remote systems management, consistent power policy management, fixed price service agreements, IT out-tasking and energy conservation programs.

Surviving any economic decline also requires maintaining the core lifeline of the business by ensuring pro-active IT management, security, IT governance, regulatory compliance, data protection, timely customer migration and the implementation of best practices.

The Managed Service model is the ideal solution for business of all sizes to meet their budget conscious objectives. In the three economic downturns of the late 1980’s and 1990’s, Solution Providers who were delivering Managed Services to enterprise clients found that these clients outsourced as much or more to them during downturns. Delivering IT management through remote automation provides “more for less”, allowing businesses to focus on their business; increasing revenue, decrease staffing requirements and maintain existing equipment.

By providing IT management service capabilities as a cost-savings, productivity enhancing solution, MSPs and their customers can weather the economic storm and actually grow their business. With the Kaseya IT Automation Framework, MSPs gain significant leverage in meeting the requirements of corporate IT professionals. By automating IT processes, implementing best practices, predicting cash flow and providing consistent customer service levels, even in an a recession, MSP can experience business growth and increased profitability.

Dan Shapero, Senior Vice President, Marketing

Kaseya recently announced the introduction of the Kaseya emPower Program, a complete set of service offerings and resources designed to ensure the successful implementation of Kaseya’s IT Automation Framework. A key element of this program is emPower Education which gives our managed service providers comprehensive Kaseya product knowledge and the business development understanding they need. This knowledge supports MSPs in leveraging their investment in the Kaseya solution and in transforming and building their business.

At Kaseya, we acknowledge that our MSP customers need a fundamental understanding of the Kaseya IT Automation Framework in order to take advantage of all the rich functionality in the software and build their business around IT automation vs. manual break-fix strategies.

The Kaseya commitment is simple: To ensure the success of our customers through vision, innovative technology and world-class services.

In support of this commitment, we have augmented our existing training programs and highly encourage you to participate in the educational opportunities now provided through the emPower Education Program.  We’ve included both basic Product Education and MSP Business Transformation options as well as advanced curriculum for those that want to go beyond the basics.

Covering the basics of Kaseya functionality, the Product Education track addresses the technical aspects of the Kaseya IT Automation Framework from set-up and customization to configuration and implementation through deployment and reporting.  Business Transformation Education provides guidelines and tools that help you define your managed services portfolio based on the break/fix IT services you deliver now, and the automation capabilities you gain by utilizing the power of Kaseya.

We also realize that our MSP customers need access to this information in a variety of ways, so we’re delivering you the materials with access whenever and however you may want it – in person or online 24×7x365.

emPower Education provides a  range of options available to at no cost to our Kaseya customers which include Online – Self Paced courses; The Kaseya Roadmap to Success Seminars and a series of live and pre recorded Webinars on business transformation, best practices and industry trends. In addition, we provide affordably priced options which include regularly scheduled Online Live interactive sessions, classroom style 3-day product BootCamps near your region and one-to-one QuickStarts that allow your organization to accelerate its transition to delivering managed services.  Customized training at your location is also available to meet your specific and unique needs.

Kaseya emPower Education will help you take advantage of all the rich functionality that the Kaseya IT Automation Framework offers. It can take your use of the software and the transformation of your business to a whole new level. We again encourage your participation and look forward to your input and feedback.

Links:

Click here for information on Kaseya emPower.

In partnership with InsightExpress, LLC and Ziff Davis, a recent online survey was conducted with 365 managed service providers. Among other findings, the results of the study identified three primary business issues facing Managed Service Providers today.

In undertaking the challenge of migrating from a break/fix business model to a true MSP, the top three concerns include;
- defining or creating service definitions; (46%)
- determining the appropriate pricing (42%) and
- migrating existing customers to the new managed services model (33%)

At Kaseya we see the same trends and can validate that these are real issues facing MSPs today.  Solution providers face an entirely new business model, a paradigm shift if you will, in the way services are delivered. As solution providers move from a response based, reactive and adhoc service delivery to a proactive service delivery model they pave new ground in developing SLAs, pricing strategies and a unique value proposition for migrating customers to managed services.

Kaseya acknowledge these challenge and realizes our responsibility to our customer’s success. Recognizing the challenges of business transformation, Kaseya developed the Kaseya emPower Program by leveraging the success and insight of our most successful MSPs.

The Kaseya emPower Program provides a collection of resources designed to assist a solution providers transformation to a managed service provider.

The Kaseya emPower Program focuses on business & technical issues by providing immediate access to online self paced product and business transformation education, sales and marketing tools, and industry knowledge resources.  All developed through collaboration with industry experts and successful MSPs that have knowledge, expertise and experience implementing profitable IT managed service businesses.

Along with a convenient series of emPower Education which covers both product training and business transformation, Kaseya provides a very powerful MSP toolkit that gives you access to invaluable marketing and sales templates that help market and sell your managed service offerings. Customizable brochures, pricing guides, SLAs, case studies and many more collateral templates that you brand and customize with your logo and the unique value proposition of your business.

This survey validates our belief that managed service providers can deliver proactive and fixed priced Service Level Agreements at lucrative margins while increasing customer satisfaction.  It’s about being proactive VS reactive and offering a menu of full service solutions for your clients. By combining automated IT service delivery with global services, education and marketing resources from Kaseya, you can scale your business without limits.

Links:

Kaseya emPower
Webcast Replay of Survey Results

Kaseya’s success is, in part, attributed to its world class integrated IT Automation Framework. We “Kaseyans” have a vision consisting of delivering an increasingly rich, more integrated and functionally complete IT business solution built on top of its current IT automation platform. Not only do we believe we can increasingly support the goal of delivering on the IT Managed Service promise but we can support those of our customers who will naturally migrate toward global IT outsourcing and the intricacies associated with these types of businesses. For this goal to be realized, we have to focus on many aspects of the business-needs across a wide variety of disciplines. We Kaseyans are uniquely positioned to tackle this task due to the fact that many of us cut our teeth on one of the world’s top, fully integrated ERP solutions.
 
Success in these endeavors centers on our ability to provide a cohesive framework around which we, and others, can add functionality: third party ISVs as well our customer’s customization needs. In that regard, we recognize that there has to be several key elements of a “platform” or “framework” in place to support any efforts at creating an eco-system. Kaseya has over two thousand customers as of this writing who are utilizing our systems to deliver IT services. These customers have nearly two million machines at approximately one hundred thousand small businesses world-wide. We feel that this creates a big enough market to incentivize others to support you by providing a rich variety of applications and functionality seamlessly integrated to our Kaseya solution.
 
The question then becomes how to support this business need - to provide and support the richness of resources that allow creativity to blossom is our challenge. The only way we know how to support this progression is to deliver an Application Programming Interface (API) consisting of an open, two-way exchange of data and a common set of methods for processing relevant transactional objects. Without these elements in place integration is much more painful. Kaseya is working on a comprehensive solution to these issues in conjunction with its next generation platform release.
 
Since Kaseya does not have a lock on ideas, let alone how to express those ideas as software that will benefit you, fostering support by third parties is a core part of the Kaseya strategy. Arguably, Kaseya is becoming the core IT services delivery component for most of our customers. Without it, their business model regresses to the traditional break/fix mode. We have numerous examples of customers whom the financial condition has been materially affected in a positive manner by the adoption of Kaseya in delivering their IT Managed Services. Thus, it follows that Kaseya is at the core of these businesses. However, it is not possible for Kaseya to support third party applications by writing to the third party ISV’s APIs since Kaseya has no idea what those third parties need in the way of data. Only the third party knows. We recognize that Kaseya produces much of the input needed for external processes much in the same way a purpose manufacturing solution does for that manufacturing business. Back office and other add-on applications take that data and process it into other meaningful forms. Kaseya does not have the resources to support the dozens of third parties who have expressed interest in supporting the Kaseya platform by writing to their API. We at Kaseya could never know their applications the way they do.
 
So, given that Kaseya has many third party, independent software vendors looking to support the Kaseya platform it makes most sense to foster a rich and varied framework by having them utilize the Kaseya API.
 
Let me finish by saying that we are excited about the future and what we are doing internally to assist our customers become a force in the IT Managed Services business. We welcome and support each and every third party ISV wishing to support us in this endeavor. It is a very large and growing market and for those who understand the role of the next generation IT Service Provider a unique time of opportunity in the history of the IT Industry.

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