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Kaseya Traverse 9.5 Set for September Release

The next version of Kaseya's Traverse tool will feature an enhanced visualization interface, more powerful automation profiles, and new remote control integration for the network monitoring and management platform for managed service providers (MSPs) and mid-market IT departments.

Kaseya unveiled Traverse version 9.5 on Tuesday. Currently in the final release candidate stage, the new version is expected to reach general availability at the beginning of September. It will follow the previous release, 9.4, by about 10 months.

Network visualization is not new to Traverse 9.5, but it's greatly enhanced, says Kaseya Chief Product Officer Mike Puglia. "We've really taken it to the next level. I call it network topology on steroids," Puglia says of the feature, called Panorama 2.0. "Not only do you have a visualization of what your infrastructure looks like, you can see it, you can hover over and see where something is broken."

[Click on image for larger view.] The Panorama 2.0 functionality in Kaseya Traverse 9.5 will allow new admins to quickly visualize and drill into problem areas of the network. (Image source: Kaseya)

The interface of Panorama 2.0 may not be a huge deal for an experienced network technician who knows what to do with a simple list of alarms, Puglia says. The interface improvements are really aimed at newer network admins. "For the less-experienced infrastructure folks, a picture is worth 10,000 words. Seeing is a lot faster. Network topology is interesting, but being able to manipulate it and click around it empowers IT administrators," he says.

Written in HTML 5, Panorama 2.0 is fully functional for admins on their iOS and Android devices.

Another feature set that is ratcheted up in version 9.5 is the use of best practices through Automation Profiles. Traverse previously had best practices-related features, but new capabilities are designed to dramatically reduce the time it takes MSPs to onboard new customers. Through the use of faceted search options (think online shopping checkboxes on the left-hand side of the screen that allow you to sort products by price, brand, et cetera) and other capabilities, Automation Profiles are designed to automatically apply monitoring policies to devices during the discovery process.

MSP feedback led Kaseya to add "If Then Else" capabilities to the Automation Profiles in Traverse 9.5, Puglia says.

"A lot of people want to tweak the best practices based on their experience, especially in the MSP world because they all try to differentiate themselves by the expertise that they have," Puglia says. As an example, Puglia offered: "If a service crashes on a Windows Server, automatically I'm going to monitor these services because that's what I like to do in my environment. No. 2 if it does crash, I want a snapshot -- what was happening at the time, not an hour later. Restart the service, but I'm going to automatically start monitoring these five other services because they're suddenly important to me."

The other headline feature of Traverse 9.5 is the integration of Kaseya Live Connect, which is Kaseya's tool allowing admins to remotely view and control a system for troubleshooting.

Posted by Scott Bekker on August 08, 2017


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