The Stratusphere experience monitoring and diagnostics solution also gets many new metrics provided from endpoints, and a new API Builder.

Workspace management solution maker Liquidware has announced the general availability of the 6.5 version of their Stratusphere UX experience monitoring and diagnostics solution. Available in the marketplaces of all three major public cloud vendors – AWS, Azure and Google – the new release adds critical speed enhancements, gathers additional metrics from endpoints, and features a new API Builder. It is also the first version to have an important new integration with ServiceNow.

“We have continued to add Work From Home features and we’ve also added support for ServiceNow,” said Jason Smith, VP Products and Solutions at Liquidware The enhancements to the speed in here are also significant. We are in the business of providing Big Data for desktops, so any time we announce speed enhancements, it’s really a win-win for the customer.”

Those speed enhancements come principally from two things – the upgrade of the CentOS from v6, which will end of life in November, to v8, and the upgrade of the Postgres database to v12. API calls have also been made more efficient.

“These speed enhancements significant business benefit,” Smith noted. The speed in both inspectors and data retrieval has been nearly doubled.

Stratusphere 6.5 also adds additional detailed security and machine health metrics, which include firewall status, OS updates, credential/device guards, secure boot and Secure Storage status, and antivirus and anti-spyware updates.

“What we are doing here is gathering more metrics from the endpoint,” Smith said. “Enterprise IT is finding they have to support more BYOD because of the people working from home, so we’ve added to those metrics. Knowing more finite metrics for the endpoint is very important. Most of the Work From Homes in enterprise settings in our market rely on a virtual desktop experience with multi-user OS, so it’s important to know the health of the desktop environment. There’s very few monitoring solutions that correlate the solutions of desktop in the cloud with the endpoints, so the more metrics we have here, the more visibility we give the help desk about how the virtual desktop is performing.”

This version also has a new API Builder, which is out of beta and into General Availability.

“We’ve dubbed this API Builder 2.0,” Smith said. “The GUI is significantly upgraded, and the API builder makes it easy for any admin to provide connectivity to any other supporting solution. You don’t have to know any software code to build it. It’s easier to use than the UI for Stratusphere UX itself. It’s a very straightforward API.”

API Builder 2.0’s new capabilities include the ability to easily pick related metric column groups to mirror existing Advanced > Inspectors views, as well as the ability to import, save, tag favorites, and maintain a history of API calls. Enabling the Auto-Resolution option now lets end users get updates to the API Call automatically. Support for multiple languages for international customers has also been added.

While the Liquidware certification and integration with ServiceNow was formally announced last week, and Stratusphere UX is now available in the ServiceNow Store, the company is reaffirming the importance of the integration in this product release.

“ServiceNow provides good metrics for the desktop, but not the level we do, with the connectivity of the first mile to endpoints,” Smith said. “We provide detailed metrics like Wi-Fi connectivity. We can tell you the percentage charge of a laptop battery. We go beyond just the basis for knowing what data is available through Windows monitoring through our agent. We literally gather hundreds of additional metrics of Stratusphere on the endpoint.”

Smith said Liquidware is looking forward to developing relations with ServiceNow channel partners who have not been working with LiquidWare.

“Some ServiceNow partners are working with us now, but we are looking forward to expanding our relationship with partners who may not have a detailed monitoring solution that can give you the metrics that Stratusphere can provide,” he stated.

Finally, while Liquidware’s multi-cloud support is not new, Smith emphasized that it is still an important differentiator in their space.

“We lead the industry our multi-cloud support,” he stressed. “You can’t find another desktop solution that has a listing on all three major clouds.”

Smith said that after Liquidware’s third quarter business was more of a return to normalcy, following a standout second quarter as companies moved to Work From Home, they are seeing an uptick in the fourth quarter.

“People who got a Work From Home solution put together in the second quarter are now circling back looking for a more permanent solution, which is our suite of adaptive workplace management solutions,” Smith noted. “Between our really good performance in the second and fourth quarters, we foresee having our best year ever as far as overall revenue goes. Since we are 100% channel, the channel benefits from that as well.”

Smith also highlighted a special Liquidware Lounge event the company has coming up soon with a channel focus to it.

“On December 9, we have a virtual VIP event with a very well known person from the entertainment industry who will serve as co-host,” he said. “Partners that invite customers who can benefit from Liquidware solutions can earn 40% for any deal that comes out of that event. Usually our margin is 20%, but we are doubling it to 20-20. So some good things do come out of 2020. We are also awarding the first 100 attendees with a gift packet.”

Smith indicated that Liquidware is targeting 500 and up Windows desktops environments with this initiative, and added that they are always interested in adding new partners.