By this time each January, many people have abandoned their New Year’s resolutions in favor of familiar, hard-to-break habits. When it comes to navigating the rising tide of mobile and smart devices connected to corporate networks, however, IT departments can’t afford to fall back on old behaviors. The proliferation of BYOD, Internet of Things and mobile devices in the workplace requires organizations to make “anypoint” systems management a top priority in 2015.
According to a recent Dimensional Research survey, nearly 90 percent of the more than 700 IT professionals polled expect the total number or total types of devices requiring management to increase in the next three years. Security, the ability to monitor device/application performance as well as asset management were their top three concerns. More than 60 percent of the survey participants were sure, or suspected, there were unknown devices or applications connected to their networks.
With today’s announcement of the new Dell KACE K1000 Systems Management appliance, we’re making it even easier for customers to discover, configure, secure and manage their computers and network-connected devices. We’re extending our multi-platform leadership with first-to-market Chromebook support, adding new server monitoring and agentless inventory of Windows systems, as well as enhancing our agentless inventory and asset management capabilities for any connected device with a wealth of actionable data. Simply put, we’re making major strides in providing “anypoint” management by delivering comprehensive functionality in a single, easy-to-deploy solution for supporting hundreds to tens of thousands of computers and devices.
Being first to deliver Chromebook support means that many of our customers in the education market now have a simpler way to manage these devices as they can integrate Chromebook inventory directly into the K1000’s asset management, reporting and service desk capabilities (insert Chromebook inventory image). For Steve Carr, CTO for the Ventura County Office of Education, this makes it easier for smaller school districts to take advantage of economical Chromebook deployments while enabling the County to deliver a higher level of service.
For Dave Perry at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the ability to have greater insight into all the systems and devices connected to the Museum’s network translates into simplified management and improved support of more than just computers. With Dell KACE K1000 v6.3, his team now can see, secure and service hundreds of network switches, printers, sophisticated projectors and electronic device systems that power the museum’s interactive exhibits, immersive classrooms and planetarium. With the new version, Perry’s team uses discovery schedules to get segmented views of their environment and take a more proactive stance on security and maintenance.
In the case of Green Clinic Health System, our agentless inventory enhancements will enable CIO Jason Thomas and his team to ensure the well-being of a range of connected devices. They will be able to check on the status of wall-mounted vitals monitors and Windows-based mobile medical systems while ensuring that critical x-ray/MRI/CT scanning systems have sufficient memory. With Dell KACE, Green Clinic can continue to enhance its overall quality of patient care.
In addition to an overwhelmingly positive response from our customers, our channel partners are also seeing great opportunities to bring Dell KACE into their customers’ environments. According to Steve Van Ginkel, director of business development at Sterling Computers, the new release offers unprecedented visibility and control of diverse environments. The ability to incorporate data from the Chromebook management console directly into Dell KACE will yield significant IT time and cost savings for their education customers.
With a single, “go to” console for streamlining daily administration, security and management, Dell KACE reduces the need for multiple, disparate tools and their associated expenses, training, installation and maintenance. We’re also making it easier for IT departments everywhere to keep their resolutions about prioritizing systems management in 2015.
Drop me a line at David_Kloba@Dell.com to share how Dell KACE can help meet your organization’s anypoint management challenges and make systems management an important part of your IT strategy.
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About Dave Kloba Dave has over 15 years of experience in software development leadership across multiple technology domains including systems management and mobile. |