Kaseya 6.3 Highlights
- Adds mobile device management to core
- Increases maximum device management to 25k per server
- Adds network discovery functions
- Creates parity between SaaS and on-premise versions
- Adds coverage of the latest Microsoft and Apple operating systems
- Balances increased functionality with simplfied operation through increased automation
- Takes an end-to-end, holistic approach to systems management
- Can help users with the BYOD strategies
Kaseya has updated its systems management software. You’ll be interested to read how it’s simplifying its offerings while adding functions. Its unified systems management product is designed to give user and service provider admin staff the tools to manage end-to-end IT resources.
Who Is Kaseya?
Kaseya (a word meaning ‘to protect or shield’ in the Sioux language) is a software supplier launched in 1999. Its vision is “providing enterprise-class IT systems management for everybody”.
It employs 440 staff in 30 offices across 23 countries, with its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. It claims over 10k customers worldwide. The split between MSP and end-users is now roughly 50:50, with the latter growing as a proportion over time. End-user sectors include banking and financial services, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), education, government, healthcare, military, real estate, retail and transportation. Its reference clients include the US Airforce, FedEx, P&G, Ogilvy and Cisco: its largest have more than 100k devices under management.
Kaseya competes directly with Symantec’s Altiris, less so with CA, HP and IBM Tivoli and in part with smaller suppliers such as RES Software and Centrix Software.
Kaseya’s Unified Systems Management Approach
Kaseya’s core principals are to discover, manage, automate and validate IT assets. Its software provides a number of functions. In particular:
- Event Management including alerts/notifications, system events and logs
- Automation covering scheduling, procedures and API/messaging
- Business Intelligence including reporting, dashboards and interactive data views
In turn these functions support IT configuration management, business continuity, asset management, service delivery, security and systems monitoring. Its holistic approach is based on its early focus on MSPs.
What’s New In Kaseya 6.3?
Kaseya’s new version started shipping this week and includes a number of enhancements. In particular:
- Discovery 1.0 adds consolidated network discovery using multiple scan methods (Ping, Microsoft Domain discovery and NMAP )
- A single license now scales up to 25k devices per server
- Support for Microsoft Windows 8 and Server 2012 as well as Apple OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6
- Full parity between its on-premise and SaaS versions
- Mobile device management is now included in the core product
- The ability to provide custom reports as well as an IDE-driven procedure/script editor
- Enhances the users ability to apply automated policy management
Some Conclusions – BYOD And Simplifying Operation Through Automation
Access to corporate applications needs to accommodate PCs, smart phones and smart tablets and it’s no longer possible to assume that each user can be identified by a single device and location. Our forecast is for 1.6 billion installed client devices by the end of 2013 (see Figure 1) and most advanced users will have three or more.
Since BYOD is like a ‘10-ton train bearing down on IT departments’, there’s good revenue to be made in 2013 by suppliers who can help users with their emerging strategies. Kaseya – due its its roots in servive MSPs – puts mobile management into the core rather than addressing it as an afterthough.
Kaseya is adding features and increasing the functionality of its product over time, but attempting to simplify processes for its users by automating the underlying code and supplying templates. If it is successful its users will spend more time administering and checking compliance within their corporate policies than running around writing code.
Kaseya’s holistic management approach is a good model to follow for system vendors following converged infrastructure strategies, where users will not want multiple programmes to manage integrated resources.
See our earlier analysis of Kaseya in Africa and general approach