Taking Systems Management Simplicity to the Next Level with KACE

At this year’s Dell Software User Forum, I had the pleasure of convening with many long-standing KACE customers as well as meeting new advocates who came to Dell World to learn more about our family of systems management solutions. This annual “meeting of the minds” is an excellent opportunity to share our business strategies, technology roadmaps and systems management vision with a fast-growing global user community.

Many interesting themes emerged from this year’s discussions, including the ever-increasing need to address the convergence of client management and mobile management requirements. Many organizations are struggling to manage the massive influx of corporate- and employee-owned smartphones, tablets and laptops while ensuring legacy systems, applications and servers continue to perform at optimum levels.

Traditional mobile management solutions don’t deliver the depth of systems management capabilities customers need to holistically address both mobile and fixed endpoints. As a result, they’ve deployed separate products for security, network services, as well as software and hardware management across multiple OS platforms. This approach offers a narrow, disjointed view of the environment, which creates additional complexity, cost and risk to exposure.

That’s where we come in. Earlier this week, we announced Dell™ Enterprise Mobility Management, an end-to-end mobile enablement offering that blends best-in-class security technologies, new container-based secure workspace apps and a flexible deployment model. KACE Systems Management plays an integral role in Dell’s EMM strategy, as our ability to simplify IT management is one of our greatest strengths.

KACE’s first systems management solution, introduced as an easy-to-use appliance more than eight years ago, was designed with simplicity in mind. Over the years, we’ve added a virtual appliance along with more features and functionality to automate, integrate and streamline system lifecycle management.

Now, we’re taking simplicity to the next level with the introduction of KACE K1000 as a Service, which integrates with Dell’s EMM offering to provide customers with a consolidated inventory of all their devices. This latest addition to the KACE lineup features all the functionality of the KACE 1000 on-premise appliance in a hosted, cloud-delivered virtual appliance. Additionally, it works seamlessly with the Dell EMM unified console to deliver a consolidated view of all endpoints, encompassing corporate- and employee-owned iOS and Android smartphones; Windows, Android and iOS tablets; Linux, Mac and Windows laptops and desktops; as well as thin and zero cloud clients.

Together, Dell KACE K1000 as a Service and Dell EMM are designed to ease mobility enablement across devices, data and users without compromising security, workforce productivity or employees’ privacy. This is a major step forward for Dell and we’re excited to be a part of it!

Additionally, we wanted to make sure all customers could benefit from this new hosted, cloud-delivered appliance, which was the next logical step for KACE. That’s why the Dell KACE 1000 as a Service also will be sold separately. For those customers who prefer an on-premise mobile solution, we can combine the Dell KACE K3000 with the appliance-based K1000 for managing both fixed and mobile devices using our legacy appliance-based approach.

For me, one of the best parts of being at Dell World each year is having the opportunity to strengthen our simplicity story with updates, plans and new offerings. This is a banner year, as we’re making major inroads with mobility enablement and offering a new SaaS deployment model—all while raising the bar in systems management simplicity.

How do you plan to take simplicity to the next level at your company? Drop me a line at David_Kloba@Dell.com to share thoughts and ideas.

About the Author: Dave Kloba