25 Hottest IT Products And Services To Check Out Now

New Products, New Revenue Opportunities

Solution providers needed to look no further than The Channel Company's XChange 2018 event this week for fresh hardware and software products to turn into new revenue opportunities.

The event, which ran from Sunday to Tuesday, showcased new offerings from Dell EMC, CoreDial, Aerohive Networks, Cambium Networks and Schneider Electric, among others. Products and services included a new cloud-based call center solution, a click-based wireless presentation system, an artificial intelligence-based endpoint protection platform and an infrastructure management platform.

All of the following products and services come from vendors that have partner programs.

Aisle8 OvrC Pro

Provided by IT vendor and distributor Aisle8, OvrC Pro is a connectivity device that enables full visibility into a company's entire network of IP devices. OvrC Pro's dashboard enables easy remote management and allows systems integrators to test and track the history of connection speed, perform a LAN test, set up the access point, manage firmware updates and integrate control systems. The platform also comes with advanced remote access capabilities, including the ability to access the local web interfaces of supported devices. Aisle8 offers the solution through its partner program.

Barco ClickShare CSE-800

The ClickShare CSE-800 is a cross-platform wireless presentation and collaboration system from Barco that can beam a computer screen to a monitor with the simple click of a button on a USB dongle. The CSE-800 supports 4K resolution, AirPlay for iOS mirroring, Google Cast, on-screen annotation, and supports up to eight screens simultaneously and up to 64 connections. It comes with four button dongles, two HDMI inputs and outputs and collaboration management suite software. Barco has a full partner program that includes training programs, marketing resources and sales support.

CoreNexa Contact Center

CoreNexa Contact Center is a new cloud-based customer engagement platform from CoreDial that gives the workplace call center-like features that integrates with voice, email, web, SMS and CRM solutions for omni-channel communication. The platform also includes call recording for record keeping and auditing, administrative management tools for managing call volume and agent activity, and outbound call control with automated dialing capabilities. CoreDial has partner programs for managed services providers, value-added resellers and solution providers.

Elo 3202L Interactive Digital Signage

Elo offers a variety of interactive digital signage products, including the 3202L, which is a 32-inch touchscreen display that supports more than 10 touch points for multi-user interaction and fast responses. In addition to digital signage for public spaces, the digital display can be used for presentations, meeting management, presentation and collaborative conferencing. The product can be augmented by additional hardware, including a barcode scanner, webcam, NFC (near-field communication) reader and credit card reader. It can also include a compute module powered by Windows or Android. Elo's products, including the touchscreen display, are available to solution providers through distributor BlueStar.

SparkCognition DeepArmor

DeepArmor is an artificial intelligence-based endpoint protection platform from Austin-based AI startup SparkCognition, which also has AI products around predictive maintenance, natural language processing and data science modeling. DeepArmor uses machine learning models that detect threats across multiple threat vectors that cannot be performed by traditional security products. This is because instead of looking for a known hash and signature of a malicious file, DeepArmor learns its characteristics so that it can, for instance, identify a mutated and obfuscated version of the WannaCry variant. The company launched a partner program for service providers earlier this year.

Egenera Xterity Cloud Services

Egenera offers an alternative to the major public cloud platforms with its Xterity Cloud Services offering, which provides a managed private cloud that is fully isolated and secure, according to the company. Services include Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service, backup and cloud migration. Xterity also offers major cost savings over AWS, the company says, including in areas such as internal application development and database services. Egenera's Xterity sales are channel-only and in January the company launched a new Xterity Partner Program with a range of tools and incentives for MSPs.

Nfina Technologies Scalable Servers

Nfina aims to differentiate from its tech giant competitors in the storage and server markets by offering a five-year warranty and no "bloatware" on its products. Nfina recently added to its product portfolio with the release of five new premium scalable servers. The servers promise low latency, as well as high performance and scalability, and are offered in 1U, 2U and desktop tower form factors. Choices span between four SAS/SATA/SSD drives and 24 SAS/SATA/SSD/NVMe direct attach drives. Nfina is also looking to boost its incentives for solution providers by offering rebates that are more easily attainable by partners, with low sales requirements to participate, according to the company.

Aparavi

Aparavi offers an active archiving solution that takes advantage of cloud economics to dramatically reduce long-term cloud storage costs, according to the company. The Aparavi solution – which is cloud-native, multi-tenant and delivered as a software-as-a-service offering – is ideal for organizations that need to retain data well into the future, but want the option for getting quick access to that data. Key features of the solution include file-level granularity, a web-based user interface, and the ability to use any cloud or on-premises storage, according to the company.

Cytracom VoIP

Cytracom is looking to offer a simplified approach to VoIP with no contracts (billed on a monthly basis, with no cancellation penalties) and managed hardware (including free phones that can be replaced every 36 months). To ensure high quality, Cytracom has also included voice continuity capabilities in the event of system outages and interruptions. The company is selling only through channel partners and is offering partners a 20 percent commission on every extension, as well as dedicated account management and training.

Aerohive 802.11ax Access Points

Aerohive Networks is the first to market with 802.11ax access points, the company said, with shipments in the U.S. launched in late July. The successor to 802.11ac, the 802.11ax standard dramatically improves Wi-Fi efficiency, according to Aerohive. For instance, 802.11ax access points can provide strong performance to a far higher density of users than access points using previous standards, thanks in part to new channel-sharing capabilities, Aerohive said. The company's products are 100 percent sold by partners.

Cambium Networks cnPilot e700

Wireless specialist Cambium Networks recently launched its new cnPilot e700 enterprise class outdoor Wi-Fi access point. The cloud-managed AP has an IP67-rated enclosure supporting the 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless standard. The e700 is ideal for providing connectivity to hotels, schools and industrial campuses where client capacity and networking performance are critical. Features include a 4x4 MU-MIMO antenna on 5 GHz, 16 SSIDs and a highly rugged enclosure. The enPilot family of ruggedized outdoor AP's played a critical role in providing communications in the dramatic cave rescue of 12 young boys and their soccer coach in Thailand earlier this year.

Dell EMC PowerEdge Mx

The Round Rock, Tex.-based infrastructure giant this week launched its breakthrough composable infrastructure architecture, the PowerEdge MX. The future-proof architecture includes flexible compute, storage and networking products such as the new PowerEdge MX7000 chassis, which provides a hardware foundation with support for multiple server processor generations in a scalable system. Also inside the system are Dell EMC's new PowerEdge MX740c and MX840c servers, which are two- and four-socket blade sleds that deliver high performance and a rich set of storage options including NVMe drives. The PowerEdge MX also includes the company's new direct-attach, scale-out storage sled, the PowerEdge MX5016, which can hold up to 16 hot-pluggable SAS storage hard disk drives.

Dell EMC OpenManage Enterprise Modular Edition

A critical part of Dell EMC's new PowerEdge MX modular infrastructure is the company's new OpenManage Enterprise Modular Edition system management technology. The software manages the compute, storage and networking products inside PowerEdge MX with a unified interface. The multi-vendor solution enables customers to perform full life-cycle management on all PowerEdge MX components across multiple chassis at once. Customers can also access servers remotely with the OpenManage Mobile application and use OpenManage Enterprise as a turnkey deployment as a virtual appliance.

Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure IT for Partners

Channel partners cheered this week as Schneider Electric unveiled its first cloud-based data center infrastructure management platform, EcoStruxure IT for Partners. The Software-as-a-Service solution was tailor-made for solution providers aiming to drive recurring revenues. The SaaS solution is infused with predictive analytics, remote monitoring and lifecycle management capabilities that give partners visibility into a customer's physical infrastructure. EcoStruxure IT for Partners collects data and assessments on various physical assets such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), cooling units, intelligent power distribution units (PDUs), physical security and emergency management.

StorageCraft OneXafe

StorageCraft this week launched its new converged data platform, OneXafe, combining scale-out storage with data protection for both physical and virtualized environments. It delivers comprehensive storage and data protection services in a single, integrated solution with seamless integration to Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service. OneXafe is based on StorageCraft's legacy data protection technology but is also injected with innovative technologies the company gained through its 2017 acquisition of Exablox. At the core of the platform is StorageCraft's object-based file system that is integrated with flexible data protection services.

RapidFire Tools InDoc

RapidFire Tools this week enhanced its InDoc offering to provide network scan results and client-specific network documentation through a secure web-based portal that's accessible from any desktop or mobile device. InDoc makes it possible for MSPs to store additional information in the portal such as client- and asset-specific notes, remediation procedures, checklists, passwords, tags and links to related assets. The InDoc Amazon cloud-based portal is accessible from any internet connection, including desktop workstations, tablets, laptops or mobile phones. InDoc is being made available to existing Network Detective Reporter customers as a free upgrade and will also be included with all new Network Detective Reporter subscriptions at no extra charge. The feature is expected to broaden the appeal of, and expand interest in, adding Reporter to an MSP's subscription with RapidFire Tools, according to Mark Winter, vice president of sales.

WatchGuard Technologies AuthPoint

WatchGuard 's new AuthPoint is a cloud-based multi-factor authentication (MFA) offering designed for small and midsize businesses. AuthPoint eliminates complex integration processes, considerable upfront expenses, and burdensome on-premises management requirements traditionally associated with MFA tools, the company said. AuthPoint is a cloud service that can be deployed and managed from any location without the need for expensive hardware components. User authentication is facilitated via an application, which enables users to view and manage log-in attempts by way of push notifications, one-time passwords or QR code entries for those in off-line scenarios. AuthPoint also adds value for customers through its single sign-on capabilities, making it so that a user's identity is federated to multiple applications after just one log-in, according to Himanshu Verma, WatchGuard's director of product management.

IntelePeer CPaaS

IntelePeer is currently working on a more flexible Communications Platform as Service (CPaaS) offering that will make it possible to partners to expand beyond IT and the contact center into the rest of an organization, according to Jeremy Jones, senior vice president of channel sales. CPaaS today is very much focused on delivering voice and messaging into the unified communications environment, but IntelePeer wants to push beyond UC into the rest of the business. Being able to address problems beyond the developer, engineer or contact center should quadruple the revenue opportunities for a typical midsize enterprise, Jones said. The new offering will do so by democratizing the automation platform and making it visible to business analysts, Jones said, as well as obtaining integrations into applications frequently used by the rest of the business such as ServiceNow. The contact center has historically been run by the IT shop, Jones said, but as clients become more comfortable with cloud technologies, business units have gotten more power over contact operations.

ADT Managed Detection And Response

ADT has dived head-first into managed detection and response (MDR) with its acquisitions of Datashield and Secure Designs over the past year, enabling the company to deliver three different varieties of MDR offerings at three different price points to better service both enterprise and SMB clients, according to Michael Keen, vice president of ADT Cybersecurity. The enterprise and mid-market MDR offerings both come courtesy of Datashield, Keen said, with the mid-market tool coming in at half the price of its enterprise counterpart by using less hardware and more IP that's facilitated through a SOC (security operations center). The MDR tool for SMB came in through the Secure Designs acquisition and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence network traffic to deduce where threats really are, Keen said, boiling the landscape down to the three or four most actionable threats. All told, Keen said, the MDR offerings are intended to help ADT's MSP partners attract bigger and better customers without requiring a major capital outlay.

Opaq

Opaq re-launched its product line in the first half of August to give customers more flexibility around how they package pieces of the stack together, according to Derek Gabbard, senior vice president of partnerships and channels. Opaq's development team has worked to create segregation from a user interface and functionality perspective to allow for four discrete product sets. Partners and customers will now have the ability to pick and choose which of Opaq's four main product lines: firewall-as-a-service, endpoint protection, web application firewall-as-a-service, and cloud SIEM - make the most sense for them, Gabbard said. Breaking Opaq's suite into four separate offerings provides a lower-cost entry point for SMBs, who Gabbard said are typically more interested in off-the-shelf products at the outset. Opaq is expanding its training, education and enablement capabilities to better tell the story of each of the individual components, according to Gabbard. The four standalone products will be available between now and the end of 2018, Gabbard said.

D&H HPE SimpliVity, Built To Order

The small-but-mighty, two-node HPE SimpliVity hyperconvergence tool is available in a built-to-order format exclusively through D&H, Christopher P. Rigas, announced during a panel discussion at XChange 2018. SimpliVity gives MSPs the opportunity to have their own cloud, their own technology, at work for the end-user, Rigas told the crowd. "It has twice the redundancy of all its competitors and you can configure it in a way that allows your customers who have multiple locations to fail over to each other," he said. "If you’ve got three locations and location B goes down, location A and C are going to take over the workload for location B and there’s almost no delay in the performance of what happens."

Scale Computing Hyperconvergence Data Center

Indianapolis-based Scale Computing has its own hyperconvergence data center that is focused on capturing the MSP market by eschewing VMware to get around licensing fees. Rather than rely on a VSA, virtualizing the SAN, Scale Computing offers a direct connection to storage, according to Mike O’Neil, an engineer with the vendor. Scale recently introduced an edge computing component to its hyperconvergence product that is customizable to MSP specifications for end-client needs, O’Neil said. "Those edge computing capabilities are at the need of the customer specs,” he said. "So if they have five workloads that are very low resource-intensive we can go very small. We can go a handful of CPUs, a small subset of RAM [and] a small storage footprint. All the way up to larger chunks."

Axiom Warranty Service

Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider Axiom – which bills itself as the OEM alternative – has a new offering to help MSPs when their OEM is trying to push them into a new server, but refusing to warranty the existing one. "We actually will warranty it," said Danielle Feith, director of marketing. "The parts, the service, to keep that running. If anything goes wrong we can fix it. Whether it's an enterprise account or a public school system, they don't always need to update all of their servers. It's in the back office [and] it's running fine. We can say, you don’t have to." She said the service is agnostic and will warranty all brands of server. Axiom also provides parts and service for older discontinued equipment, Feith said.

eFolder Replibit

Replibit is an end-to-end backup and recovery platform with strong on-site virtualization and on-site backup management capabilities, said Robert Leake, director of marketing for eFolder. He said eFolder plans to merge the technology with the company’s other offering, Business Recovery Cloud, a product that brings the eFolder cloud experience to the fore using a tool called virtual office, allowing partners to spin their clients up fully, running their business in the eFolder cloud in about an hour. While both are now available separately, eFolder plans to soon merge the two "into one powerful, best in RTO, best in RPO," solution, Leake said. "Between those two we have, I think, the perfect combination of business continuity solutions for partners."

Emerge Managed Solutions

More than service augmentation, margin opportunity, is the mantra for this solution provider with a deep Cisco skill set. The Erianger, Ky.-based company holds authorizations across all Cisco architectures and hopes to put that expertise to use for its channel partners to take and resell to their customers, as needed. Kegley said Cisco professional services can be too costly for the MSP that is focused on small businesses. That’s where Emerge comes in, he said. "MSPs should stick to their stack," said Jesse Kegley, managing partner with Emerge. "My stack is Cisco. If there's an MSP that has a customer or an opportunity, we're here to be an enabler to them and partner up with them … How can you establish account control as you move away from having a practice in Cisco? Simply bring us in and we can help fulfill that for you. Use our professional service resources. We'll wholesale it to you. You can mark it up. It makes perfect sense."