itControl Suite Offers CAKE

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

When last time I chatted with Ted Roller, VP of channel relations, and CTO Daniel Zborovski from itControl Solutions, they were teasing me about the huge release they had slated for 2010. Well, folks, we've now seen under their skirts. CAKE, the new platform for itControl Solutions remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, itControl Suite, is here. Well, almost.

I got the chance to see a sneak peek in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami the first day of the Autotask CommunITy Live event. The new platform achieves several things. One, it allows itControl Suite to work off a flexible platform to fuel fast release of new features on-call from the vendor's partner base. Second, it contains many features that current users have been pining for. Lastly, the new platform does some hot new tasks:

1. Capability to show or hide portions of the itControl Suite management console by policy. That option allows you as an MSP to limit access of your staff to only certain levels of a customer's network (say you have a junior tech that you don't want mucking around on servers just yet... he simply won't see those servers when he is logged in) or to restrict what your customer's can see as well. The reason, says Roller, is to help MSPs sell what their customers want and need right then without overwhelming them with a full view of the capabilities of the RMM tool. So if you want to see your customer one privately branded portion of your managed services, you can, then slowly increase the level of services as they are ready.

2. A "Facebook" style taskbar at the base of the management console that allows for quick links to the most popular and most used segments of the itControl Suite tool.

3. The ability to open multiple windows and work between them without having one move to the front of the window and block the other. I know, it seems simple, but this allows you to select options in more than one place at one time, and cuts down on all the clicking and moving of windows that can drive you crazy, particularly on a laptop.

4. Mobile apps that will allow MSPs to utilize managed services tool via mobile devices such as iPhone (that will be first), BlackBerry, Android, and the iPad.

5. Also, an industry first as far as these guys know – time-based alerting. This function allows you to send alerts to a particular place (internal vs. external) according the time a problem occurs, as well as sending the alert to a particular person (engineer vs. account manager) according to the type of problem. What that allows for an easily manageable escalation program that can move alerts from an internal help desk to an overnight NOC according to a preset time function.

6. Device "tags" that let MSPs group their customers' devices by kind (Dell, for example) and then roll out patches, upgrades, policy changes, etc. according to groups.

The managed service vendor is also working on increasingly tight integrations with other vendors, such as Reflexion and Autotask, which will simplify your life as an MSP by integrating records, logins, and more.

The new platform will be a release candidate May 3; and itControl Solutions expects to fully roll out the upgrade by June 21, with existing customers simply migrated over.

OK, so they are now forgiven for not letting me in on the secret before this.