Something of the Moore?s Law holds good for the MSP Market too. Doubling every two years, managed services in 2010 are estimated at 36.1 Billion, compared to a meager 9.2 Billion in 2005.
| Quote: |
| most of the MSP story is yet to be told. The majority of the MSP market is still up for grabs. While some MSPs have carved out their niches and are having success, there's still a lot of opportunity for one or more emerging 800-pound gorillas to step in and succeed.-Oli Thordarson |
The best part is, there is enough gold for everyone, and that is just what has been unearthed so far!
Its been a long wait from your side and an equally difficult concealment of all the excitement from ours. But well, finally we are out with OpManager 7.
Right from the drawing boards, OpManager 7 has incorporated within it a kind of ?Cool Factor?. Check out the site to see, feel and experience what?s new in OpManager 7.
If you are one of those ?I just need to know what?s up and what?s not? people, there is a whole new ocean of experience that OpManager 7 has to offer to you. If you are more on the lines of ?My IT is FOR my business- not the other way?, OpManager is your dream come true, and more.
From the designer?s table, OpManager 7 is sculpted to throw light on your business and the business impact of your IT, and not just give you device statistics- a decisive move from a device-centric approach to a business-centric one.
From the engineering side, OpManager 7 is powered with global device and interface templates- that means you can now configure more number of devices, in more ways, and in just one step!
The flash based map-maker ensures that you know the physical business-technology correlation, adding to an overall refreshing look and feel, complimenting the new and revamped UI.
To sum it up is simpler text, with business-centric management, service level capabilities, aggregate availability information, template driven configuration, intelligent alarm and trap processing, discovery of non-SNMP based devices, flash based map makers and a light weight spiraling into an instant start solution, OpManager 7 has truly reached the next level- Beyond Ping!
Oh, and did I forget- it ALSO MANAGES YOUR NETWORKS!
Its great when someone from the industry shares his thoughts and views on a subject, rich with his experiences to quote, expanding your knowledge horizon. Its even better when that person happens to have crossed the same challenges and difficulties that most others would and shares them with enthusiasm.
That was probably why interviewing Edward Martinbor (EJM Solutions) was both fun and informative. I think it would benefit most readers to listen to the podcast as Edward discusses "The Challenges to being a Managed Service Provider".
Moreover, listening is always easier than reading! :wink:
(Listen to Podcast on http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/opmanager/msp/podcast.html)
Its quite the buzz that IBM has decided to grace the SMB markets with their complexity as well. Their claim that they are not too "BIG" for SMBs is only overwhelmed by sceptics and critics- I cannot see why!
IBM could not be truer when they say they are NOT TOO BIG for SMBs- truth is they are too big for EVERYONE!
There were the good fairy tale days in IT solutions, when sophistication meant complexity, and quality meant huge recurring expenses. Not anymore!
So, finally the all new OpManager 6 MSP Edition is out. (Whew!!!)
I am not going to go on about whats in it- you have the website for that. But I really think I should give you the one thing which would not be mentioned there.
The website is what we have on the table. But perception and interpretation are totally different things.
While the site would tell you about what OpManager MSP has, this blog aims to make you think about what YOU can do with OpManager 6 MSP Edition!
Unlike other releases, unlike other products, we are not providing any features this time. NO FEATURES HERE
Using OpManager 6 MSP Edition, MSPs can experience the potential to grow bigger, provide more services and gain greater profits. So it would be unfair on both you and me if I just dismissed them off as mere features.
With OpManager 6 MSP Edition, we do not just provide features. We provide OPPORTUNITIES
It is only all to common when users downloading our products wish to ensure that the download has been completed successfully- without any losses.
This was the predicament that Dave, one of our users, had to face, after a successful evaluation run. He needed to verify the checksum of the exe or bin before installing it in his NOC.
| Quote: |
| MD5 digests have been used to provide this assurance across the software world and file-servers often provide pre-computed MD5 checksum.Unix based Operating systems include MD5 sum utilities in their distribution packages, while Windows uses third party applications. |
Our support team decided to use a third party tool to calculate the 128 bit hexadecimal checksum of our product installables at our servers. Now all Dave had to do was calculate the checksum of the downloaded product and compare it with the figure arrived by the support team (that had been sent to him by mail).
I am not sure if this method was original enough to win any awards, but it definitely was a quick and intelligent solution that could be of use to other users as well!
It is common practice for MSPs to rebrand the central server and let customers log on. But what happens then if the MSP faces a downtime?
Simon, from CWL Systems, dared to think different- "Just let the users log on to their local probes instead!
This way, availability is maximized, and the MSP's bandwidth will not be hogged when users check status of their servers."
Further, users are provided the url to their local installation to access status. The MSP just creates a user (which is read only) for them.
Simon has conceived a new outlook to rebranding as well:
| Quote: |
| Save all the relevant logos and html pages, etc and Zip them upWhen a new probe is installed, just extract the zip file, and run the batch file which copies all the appropriate rebranding files and logos into correct locations.The customer?s install is rebranded without forgetting anything! |
A Big Cheer to Simon once more!
Most often,for purposes of evaluation, MSP instals the central server on a test machine and the probe in the customer's place. After testing, however, the central server needs to be moved from the test machine to the data center machine.
So how do we go about with this?
This is a pretty common scenario that we face every day. So just thought we'd write a solution for it here.
Solution: Install it on the datacenter machine in the first place! (OK just kidding! :D )
Actual solution
1. stop central server. copy the following folders
* central/conf
* central/users
* central/mysql
2. install a fresh central server in the NOC. paste the above mentioned 3 folders
3. go to admin->customer->add a new customer
4. go to admin->probe->add a new probe
5. download the probe key.
6. stop probe server.
* unzip the probe key in probe/conf directory
7. start central and probe.
I hope this helps!
Ours, being the most dynamic of fields, sees users fidgeting between competitors for better or lesser. Yet it never fails to bring a smile to our faces when our users reinstate their preference in us.
Keihin AirCon is one such customer that has witnessed the comfort and ease, having switched from Numara to ManageEngine's OpManager and ServiceDeskPlus.
?We have been using Numara and found that it did not fulfill our needs. To accomplish what we wanted to do would have required several new modules to be purchased. We had been using the Professional version of OpManager and were very happy with the results we were getting from it and decided to upgrade to OpManager Premium along with ServiceDeskPlus and be able to include more capabilities at a much lower cost than if we had upgraded our Numara license.?
Rob Frazee from Keihin says that with the seamless integration, consistent performance and support provided, ManageEngine products are beyond match to any other product in their line!
Thanks Rob. And guys- kudos to you all over again!
(FYI- Numara apparently means ?New Ocean?- so that justifies the title!)
Despite the numerous examples that I have witnessed myself, I am astounded every day by the diverse user types to whom OpManager has appealed. Reading through one of our users- the Australian Aerospace Limited , provided food for my interest in 'the flying machines' all over again.
Australian Aerospace happens to be the successful prime contractor for the Air 87 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) Project with EuroCopter Tiger. It may be remebered that the Eurocopter Tiger made its first major public appearence in the 1995 James Bond movie "GoldenEye".
With the upgraded MTR390 engines as well as a laser designator incorporated in the Strix sight for the firing of Hellfire II air-to-ground missiles, ARH uses the 70 mm(2.75Inch) rockets developed in Belgium.
Over two decades in the making- the flying Tiger stands tall and mean... shaken, but not stirred!
