R8 sees the release of a new generation of the AuthAnvil product acquired with B.C.'s Scorpion Software, in which the Single Sign On, Two-Factor Authentication and Password Server have all been updated with new capabilities.
Kaseya CEO Yogesh Gupta
Remote management software provider Kaseya has announced the availability of Release 8 of its product portfolio. While there are several notable enhancements with this release, the main ones involve the integration of the AuthAnvil identity and access management software Kaseya recently acquired with its purchase of British Columbia-based Scorpion Software.
Kaseya is a well-established vendor in its space. About three quarters of their 10,000 customers are MSPs, who in turn, service over 100,000 end customers. They also sell to mid-market companies with up to about 5000 employees, in all verticals. Nevertheless, Yogesh Gupta, who became president and CEO of Kaseya following its acquisition by Insight Venture Partners in June 2013, said that at that point, the company needed to upgrade its offerings, and took advantage of the new ownership to acquire companies who would bring what Kaseya required.
“We realized we needed to expand our product portfolio beyond what we offered, so we acquired four companies,” Gupta said. This began with Zyrion and its Traverse monitoring solution for cloud and service management, which was integrated in R7, and continued with Rover Apps, which provides security for mobile BYOD users, and 365Command and its Office management solution. Scorpion, acquired in August, was the most recent acquisition.
“Scorpion had been a partner of ours before they were acquired, so we already had a nice integration with AuthAnvil, but this was deepened and updated in R8,” said Tom Hayes, Kaseya’s VP of product marketing.
Another change the new management established at Kaseya was more frequent product updates.
“Last year, we started a very aggressive shift to upgrading the product portfolio, and we committed to three releases every year,” Gupta said. “Our R7 release at the end of May was a phenomenal release, with fast remote control capability which has still not been matched today by competitors. R8 is another big step forward with a true focus on security and compliance.”
AuthAnvil is the key there. It was originally built with a single architecture to provide integrated two factor user authentication with password management and single sign on.
“AuthAnvil is only solution which is fully integrated to do all three together,” Hayes said.
R8 sees the release of a new generation of the AuthAnvil product, in which the Single Sign On, Two-Factor Authentication and Password Server have all been updated with new capabilities.
“This includes a new Application Catalogue with 300 applications,” Hayes said. This gives administrators the ability to easily add and remove websites from their users’ SSO portal. An improved Password Server and workflow editor make customizing scripts easier.
The fast Kaseya Remote Control has also been upgraded with multiple new capabilities, including private Remote Control sessions so that administrators can work on servers or workstations without the end user seeing what is being done. Compliance has also been strengthened by adding the ability to track and report on Remote Control sessions with a history of access. Admins can also now see session latency stats to see the connection strength and its impact. The image has also been improved, as R8 enables hardware acceleration on the Windows Viewer for a sharper picture, which also reduces CPU overhead by 25-50 per cent.
“We did this by leveraging the video card, which is usually underutilized, for processing of the image,” Hayes said.
R8 also sees the integration of Kaseya Traverse Service Level Management with VSA Service Desk, to ensure services are tracked and meet required service levels.
“This ticket integration makes sense since many customers have both products,” Hayes said.
Since the acquisition of 365Command, management of Sharepoint has been added to the management capabilities within the Kaseya solution. R8 improves and simplifies the management of both. Hayes indicated that management of other Microsoft solutions, while not in R8, is coming.
In addition, Kaseya has added additional training options through Kaseya University’s new Learning Center, providing customers with more ways to learn about Kaseya products.
“We have really upped our game in the way we do education,” Hayes said. “We have made more easily consumed information available publicly.” Hayes also said the certifications have been enhanced. While the two certifications available are the same as before, the curriculum has been enhanced and they leverage more videos than previously.
“We are getting a great reaction in beta on the new capabilities,” Hayes added.
Kaseya R8 is available now.
