Microsoft Collaboration to Enhance RMM for SolarWinds MSPs

A new Microsoft collaboration will provide SolarWinds partners with a singular view for better protecting and managing devices.

The Microsoft collaboration will integrate Microsoft 365 capabilities with SolarWinds N-central and remote monitoring and management (RMM). This will deliver monitoring of devices managed by Microsoft Intune from within the SolarWinds dashboard.

Mav Turner is SolarWinds‘ group vice president of products. He said the collaboration will give SolarWinds and its partners a competitive advantage.

SolarWinds’ Mav Turner

“We believe empowering partners with an integrated Intune experience through N-central and RMM will enable them to more fully leverage the capabilities of Microsoft Intune in a simpler way,” he said. “This, in turn, will increase technician efficiency, help deliver stronger security and provide differentiated service for the MSP to their clients. We are committed to helping our partners work within the solutions and platforms they work in every day, without asking them to change anything, but rather, help them maximize the value of their investments.”

New Capabilities Coming

The new capabilities will be available later this year. They will allow partners who deploy subscription plans like Microsoft 365 Business Premium to discover devices that Intune manages. They can also monitor those devices from within the N-central or RMM dashboards.

This means MSPs can manage all client devices from a single place, with the same configuration and alerting policies. This will strength data protection, and streamline monitoring and management efficiency.

Beyond monitoring, MSPs will also be able to receive notifications and alerts for all devices. And they can pass those alerts to their professional service automation (PSA) solution. That makes it easier for partners to manage all their clients at scale.

“We know more than 90% of our partners [use] Microsoft operating systems, with Microsoft 356 being a huge part of their business,” Turner said. “So this was a natural move to help them be even more successful.”

Turner said SolarWinds reached out to key partners during the initial development of the solution. The company plans to continue doing so during the ongoing integration.

Ryan Hartwick is owner of TechPeer, a SolarWinds partner. He said the integration with Microsoft 365 services will provide “better insight into how our clients are using Microsoft products and drive revenue as we position ourselves to the new modern workspace.”

“Everything we can do to streamline our techs’ tool is a win for my MSP and for my client,” said Lisa Niekamp-Urwin, president and CEO of Today’s Technology Tomorrow. “As a partner, changing from tenant to tenant to do administration is a hassle and is an exception in our accountability because we can’t set up all our techs in each client’s tenant. Being part of SolarWinds for that one-stop shop is a win-win.”