LabTech Automation Nation 2015: Keynote Lays Out Product Roadmap

LabTech Software will accelerate its platform update release cycle going forward, improve scalability and continue with deeper integration with ScreenConnect, the remote control technology acquired by ConnectWise in February. Director of Development Brett Cheloff delivered that news and more during a keynote address at LabTech Software Automation Nation 2015 today. Here are the details.

Cheloff presided over less than a minute of silence for LabTech VNC, the remote control technology the company used before the ScreenConnect acquisition. “We spent countless hours trying to make VNC stable and work,” he said, as he showed a slide with a tombstone that said RIP LabTech VNC.

“We are very excited at LabTech for that.”  Now the company is bringing ScreenConnect and LabTech together. Cheloff said the ultimate goal is to make it feel like one platform.

Ignite management pack

Cheloff said LabTech has broken up the features of the Ignite management pack into five pieces – web proxy, database, network/port, core services and messaging. Three pieces of that will be delivered in version 10.5 of LabTech Software, due for delivery in the second half of 2015, he said. Version 10.5 will include updates for web servers, databases, email servers, and ScreenConnect enhancements.

Cheloff said that the scalability improvements are on the roadmap for the near future and will focus not just on scaling up, but also on scaling out.

“You are growing very rapidly,” he said. “We need to support scaling out.”

Other big projects include a user interface redesign. LabTech Software showed off a new user interface last year, but it’s taken longer than expected to bring the project to fruition. Cheloff said that’s because of all the work being done on the back end to fully update the platform.

Updating the UI

“We really started investigating what is user experience and how can we take our application and segment it, and be able to not just change the UI but make it be more updated. We want to help you have a positive user experience throughout,” he said.

That meant looking at how users actually used the platform. Are there tasks that are frequently performed together? What can be done to make it more intuitive and easier for users?

Patch management plan

Another big focus is patch management. LabTech will be incorporating a staging approach that enables groups of machines to be patched and tested. If testing identifies an issue, patching can be halted before other machines are updated.

“You will be able to set up staging easily,” Cheloff said, showing both a demo of how the patch management will work and the new user interface for it. The visual interface I saw displayed made it easier to see issues and deal with them quickly.

The patch management workspace is slated for delivery in LabTech 11, Cheloff said.

Roadmap timing

So how should LabTech Software users think about what’s coming in Version 10.5 versus version 11? CTO Greg Buerk held a separate afternoon breakout session today and addressed that question.

Version 10.5 will focus on closing open bugs, he said. LabTech Software will work to close as many open bugs as possible, he said. There are other little improvements, too, he said, including features that will support new plug ins. Version 10.5 will also go all 64 bit which will increase scalability and enable users to use more scripts. And then version 11 will further optimize the script engine, he said.