Waterloo-based Auvik, which entered the RMM space this year from a background in network management software, has chosen their first PSA integration partner, with others soon to follow.
Alex Hoff, Auvik’s vice-president of product management
Waterloo, ON network management provider Auvik Networks is a new player in the RMM space, with a distinct niche because of their strong networking focus. This spring, they launched an MSP Edition version of their software. Now they have announced their first PSA integration, with ConnectWise, with further integrations close on the roadmap.
“ConnectWise is our first major integration, and we have completed the second stage of a two-stage integration,” said Alex Hoff, Auvik’s vice-president of product management. “As there was an issue in getting full visibility in inventory into the system, we broke it into two phases, tested the waters in the first stage a couple weeks ago, and are now doing the full shazam. We have now fully brought in the second phase.”
With the integration complete, MSPs can use Auvik’s pre-configured network performance alerts, or their own custom alerts within Auvik, to automatically create tickets in ConnectWise. Updates to these ConnectWise tickets sync back to Auvik.
Hoff said that in commencing these critically important PSA integrations, for them ConnectWise was the logical place to start.
“ConnectWise is dominant across the customers we work with, and so we went with what the customers wanted for our first integration,” Hoff said. “While we do see other PSA vendors, ConnectWise is so widely deployed that we would have been foolish to start with somebody else first.” Hoff indicated that one of their customers had facilitated the introduction, and that ConnectWise had been exceedingly helpful with the integration work.
“The second integration will be easier, and the third one easier still,” he said. “We plan to do as many as we possibly can.”
The second integration, with what Hoff described as “another very large PSA,” will be available shortly.
“It will be in the next few weeks, and again will be implemented in multiple phases,” Hoff said. “These integrations are all about efficiency for the service provider. The tighter we integrate with them, the easier it is for the MSP.”
Auvik is a unique player in the RMM world, because they come out of the network management space. The company’s senior people tend to come from either BlackBerry or networking equipment vendor Sandvine, with Hoff being from the latter. Auvik began by making networking management software designed to make management simpler and less expensive, by eliminating the need for expensive technicians. They emphasize their offering’s ease of use, with a highly visual map-centric view that makes it easy to see what the network is doing.
The move into the RMM market made their network-focused offering available to a much broader set of customers. They sell both direct and through a growing channel of managed services partners, some of whom use Auvik’s offering alongside another RMM vendor.
“MSPs recognize that the RMM vendors out there have been PC focused, while we are network first and that’s distinct,” Hoff said. “MSPs we have spoken to say they need to work better with networking and get better tools. We have partners who are more focused on network infrastructure who just work with us, and others, who are typically larger, who deploy us alongside other RMM solutions. We work well with other solutions, and we don’t want to come off as a company looking to compete against all the RMM players out there. We are a niche vendor looking to help our partners.”
Hoff said their initial channel recruitment has gone well.
“We have the first set of wins under our belt, including some larger MSPs,” he said. “We have met them through organizations and events like the ASCII Group, Taylor Business Group and Continuum Business Conference, getting our name out there.”
