DirectPointe Builds PaaS Monitoring Platform for Peer MSPs

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The company’s PaaS technology is now in use with more than 170 customers. The solution brings together Quest Software’s management and monitoring tools for SMBs and MSPs and Wendia’s Point of Business Service Desk Management and ticketing system. The scope of the monitoring effort includes networks, servers, PCs, and applications.

DirectPointe said the monitoring platform represents an outgrowth of its participation in the Quest Service Provider Alliance Program. Wendia, a service management software company based in Switzerland, also partners with Quest.

The PaaS approach will let customers avoid the burden of deploying and maintaining monitoring environments, according to DirectPointe.

MSPs also pursue tool innovation to boost their own efficiency and margins. CMS, for example, reported its use of layerX Technologies’ prism software has cut problem resolution time by 50 percent.

Dan Atkinson, vice president of marketing at DirectPointe, said the company hasn’t been operational with the new platform long enough to generate specific data regarding gained efficiencies.

“Although we are seeing improvements, it is too early to predict what the gains will be,” he noted.

Prior to PaaS monitoring, DirectPointe used a combination of “some commercial tools for remote desktop support and tools that were developed in-house,”Atkinson said.

DirectPointe plans to let other MSPs use its monitoring platform. Atkinson said the company will begin with a beta program, which it has yet to define. The company’s PaaS move will provide another option for service providers who lack the in-house development skills, alliance partners and/or desire to focus on monitoring tools.

DirectPointe is a familiar name to many MSPmentor readers. The company landed atop MSPmentor’s first-annual MSPmentor 100 research report back in January 2008. Also, former DirectPointe CEO Michael Proper now runs ClearCenter, an open source cloud platform for VARs and MSPs.

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