Eric Dykes, CEO of United Technology Group (UTG), a Georgia-based managed service provider (MSP), noticed his team starting to experience "tool sprawl." UTG's customers rely on the MSP to be a one-stop shop that monitors and manages telecommunication, networking and Cloud services. However, the number of separate monitoring tools required to do so was getting out of hand.
"We had all these different platforms to monitor different technologies and systems for our customers, but what was happening was that our 'single pane of glass' value proposition was getting diluted," Dykes says.
UTG was happy with its current partnership with Kaseya for managed services delivery, but wanted to add a comprehensive cloud, virtualization and network monitoring service to consolidate those functions and cut down on the tool sprawl, Dykes says.
Choosing Zyrion's Traverse solution was an easy decision, Dykes says, because it complemented UTG's existing MSP solution set and added virtualization monitoring and management capabilities that supplemented Kaseya's offerings. However, he says, even with two solutions partners, some of the administration headaches remained.
"Theres a much greater need for advanced monitoring as our customers' infrastructure becomes more complex," he says. "We still felt as though our value proposition was a little diluted, and there still was what I call 'data distance.' All the data we use to assess and manage our customers' infrastructure was still kind of far away from us, and we needed to bring it closer, to have easier access to it," he says.
So, imagine UTG's delight when, in July 2013, Kaseya announced it acquired Zyrion, and would bring its flagship Traverse cloud, virtualization and network monitoring offering to market under the Kaseya brand.
In addition to easing monitoring and management headaches, the acquisition gives partners like UTG an opportunity to open up revenue streams in the midmarket, rather than just the small business and enterprise markets.
And Dykes says that his customers will benefit from UTG's capability to finally have a single pane of glass through which to monitor and manage all their systems, and that the Kaseya name will add a level of assurance and trust.
"Our customers, first and foremost, view this as UTG's platform, but they had no idea who or what Zyrion was, so there was a lot of education we had to do," Dykes says. "But as far as brand recognition, Kaseya's been around for awhile, customers are familiar with that name and with the brand. So, I think there will be an increased comfort level. I'm sure our customers will be much more satisfied."
Kaseya Traverse, released to general availability today, brings five types of monitoring and management solutions under a single pane of glass, says Jeff Keyes, senior product manager, Kaseya. The consolidated solution includes monitoring and management capabilities for virtualization, network performance, power and cooling, application monitoring, and business service management, Keyes says. The solution will help address customers' challenges with BYOD, mobile device management (MDM), patch management, service level agreements (SLAs), in addition to general network performance, storage, and virtualization, he says.
The Traverse offering is also designed to provide a one-stop shop for not only monitoring and management, but includes tools for root-cause analysis to help MSPs quickly identify and address the problems with a customer's infrastructure, he says.
Sharon Florentine covers IT careers and data center topics for CIO.com. Follow Sharon on Twitter @MyShar0na. Email her at sflorentine@cio.com Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline and on Facebook.
Read more about business intelligence (bi) in CIO's Business Intelligence (BI) Drilldown.
