Managed Service Provider Week in Review: Streamlining Administration and Management

A number of solutions and services were announced this week that are meant to streamline operations and processes for MSPs. As managed services become an entrenched part of today’s cloud culture, technology providers are honing in on them as a target market for niche solutions to help with their data storage and service delivery needs.

Ostrato is one of those solution providers, and the company upgraded its cloudSM cloud management platform this week with new financial management capabilities. The upgrade is designed to reduce costs for MSPs by offering real-time visibility and simplified administration and governance. The theory is that MSPs and IT departments may more easily handle cloud environments along with reducing costs by dealing with a single cloud management platform.

Zetta.net is also out to help MSPs streamline their administrative tasks, and the company completed its integration with the ConnectWise platform this week. The combined offering helps MSPs efficiently handle administration and management of customer networks while using Zetta.net’s cloud backup and recovery solution. The integration offers customer data usage along with billing and alerts, which are accessible through ConnectWise.

In a similar vein, LogMeIn and Autotask Corporation teamed up to pass along efficiencies to MSPs for managing the mobile workforce. The companies are integrating the remote management and automation capabilities of the LogMeIn Central solution with workflow management from Autotask. The combined offering helps MSPs speed up response times to their customers by managing resources through fewer interfaces.

Targeting the government vertical market and acting as MSP, AT&T launched its Synaptic Storage as a Service for Government this week. The offering lets government agencies enjoy cloud-based storage with high levels of security, providing all the features, policies and capabilities of the company’s commercial cloud storage, which uses EMC Atmos technology.

Calix, a provider of managed broadband communications services, launched its 844G and 854 GigaCenter service delivery platforms this week. The offerings are geared toward managing broadband delivery services to fiber connected homes, and provide carrier-class Wi-Fi using 802.11ac “wave 2” 5 GHz band technology. Geared toward MSPs, the platforms offer visibility into performance and operating costs via the Calix Compass software.