Kaseya Moves To Unite Management Tools, Including Third-Party And Competitor Tools, Under "One Pane Of Glass"

May 10, 2018, 03:08 PM EDT

Kaseya on Thursday took its first step towards unifying the full range of IT infrastructure management software in a unified console to create what it terms a "single pane of glass" management.

The new management interface, known as Kaseya One, follows the introduction Tuesday of the company's new remote monitoring and management software, RMM 2.0, which Kaseya said is the first RMM offering to natively unify both endpoint and network management with embedded IT documentation in a single platform.

The MSP business has almost from the start been saying the idea of a single pane of glass to manage all applications is the "Holy Grail" of the industry, said Fred Voccola, CEO of the Dublin, Ireland-based company.

"This is important because of an urgent need for technician efficiency and MSP efficiency," Voccola told CRN. "The technology industry is near 0 percent unemployment. If a business loses a technician that people like, they might lose customers."

At the same time, prices for basic management services are falling, which impacts MSP profitability, Voccola said. "Over 50 percent of MSP salespeople are competing against other MSPs," he said. "A couple years ago, that was 10 percent. They're dealing with margin pressures."

MSPs also have access to many more services to offer customers, including endpoint management, data protection, disaster recovery, security, compliance, network management, and professional services automation, Voccola said.

Kaseya offers those through its IT Complete platform, which integrates the different offerings but does not offer a common management interface, which is where Kaseya One comes in, he said.

"Kaseya One is a single interface that allows technicians or even the CEO of an MSP to provide the automation to handle all those capabilities," he said. "This goes way beyond RMM. Before, they were integrated products, but with no common entry point or no common management. Kaseya One is an intuitive interface that allows customers to navigate in and among the different management tools."

The tools included in IT Complete and managed by Kaseya One include several of Kaseya's own offerings, including Kaseya Traverse service-level monitoring and management software, Kaseya VSA RMM software, professional services automation, data backup, network management and cloud management, Voccola said.

It also includes tools from several third-party vendors including compliance technology from RapidFire Tools, IT documentation tools from IT Glue, and security technology from Webroot, Bit Defender and Kaspersky, he said.

It also works with many other offerings, including those from competitors ConnectWise and Datto/Autotask, he said.

Kaseya One, as introduced Thursday, is only the first iteration, Voccola said. Future versions will include deeper integration with existing partners, additional integrations with other partners' and competitors' offerings, and self-learning capabilities via Kaseya's artificial intelligence platform, he said.

RMM 2.0 and Kaseya One are important additions to MSP operations, said David Raucher, director of IT and managed services at CHR Solutions, a Houston-based MSP and Kaseya partner.

Currently, if a technician sees an alert in Traverse, he or she might send a service ticket to level-one technical support, Raucher said. However, the tech support person only sees the technician's interpretation of the issue.

"But if the different management tools were integrated in RMM 2.0, the tech support person would see everything in real-time," he said. "And with IT Glue, the right documentation is available. Today, this requires three windows: Traverse to get the alarm, VSA for the RMM, and IT Glue for the documentation."

Just a simple thing like getting quick access to the right documents is a big help for MSPs, Raucher said.

"With RMM 2.0, there's no need to search separately for the documents," he said. "IT Glue would see the server involved and bring up the right documentation. This sounds like it may not be a big deal, if you think about one server. But we have 1,100 servers to manage. Think of all the customers and documents involved."

So many MSP tools are siloed, but Kaseya is starting to break down those silos with Kaseya One, Raucher said.

"We sometimes deal with separate screens even in some RMM sites," he said. "Kaseya One will start breaking down the barriers and making us more efficient. And more efficiencies means less tech time per customer, or letting each technician handle more customers. Either way, I make more money."

RMM 2.0 and Kaseya One are both very exciting from several perspectives, said Brett Johnson, founder and CEO of Simpleroute, a South Burlington, Vt.-based MSP and Kaseya partner.

The new Kaseya offerings mean less popping into or popping out of windows, Johnson told CRN. "With a single pane of glass, a technician can go into a single window and see everything, saving a lot of time," he said.

RMM 2.0 and Kaseya One will also offer another big benefit to MSPs in terms of license utilization, Johnson said.

"We have a lot of Kaseya product, and a lot of licenses we don't use," he said. "It would be nice to have a single pane of glass to bring everything together. The walls between the tools will get eroded, and over time more products will be integrated. It's not enough to do PSA (professional services automation). You need PSA with RMM and security and new things like Unitrends backups. That will really decrease the time technicians spend on support."

Like Raucher, Johnson said one of the most immediate benefits of RMM 2.0 and Kaseya One is integrating VSA and IT Glue's documentation capabilities.

"So many times, we do things we shouldn't do because no one said, 'Don't do that,'" he said. "A technician pulls up a workstation but doesn't read the documentation. Or someone tries to work on a service ticket but doesn't know he needs to call the customer. This will make things a lot easier for account management and will help smooth issues over before they become big problems."

Joseph F. Kovar

Joseph F. Kovar is a senior editor and reporter for the storage and the non-tech-focused channel beats for CRN. He keeps readers abreast of the latest issues related to such areas as data life-cycle, business continuity and disaster recovery, and data centers, along with related services and software, while highlighting some of the key trends that impact the IT channel overall. He can be reached at jkovar@thechannelcompany.com.