An Ottawa-based software vendor is touting its latest product as the “flexible solution” for technology management.
N-able Technologies recently launched the N-central IT Element Management Suite, a product the company’s systems architect, Scott Jackson, likes to think of as a “three-fold offering.”
“The first fold is a total methodology to our clients that gets them in a framework where they can offer our solution to their customers,” Jackson said. “The second aspect is full marketing and sales support where we offer all marketing collateral and marketing support. The third piece is technology. It is a server-based appliance that enables system integrators to start offering an outsourcing arrangement or any sort of network support or network service using the Internet as its main transport.”
N-able offers the product in three different packages to meet the needs of the small and medium business market: the standard package, the premium package and the premium-plus package.
The standard enables companies to monitor elements across multiple platforms. If a network element fails, N-central guarantees notification via e-mail. It also provides at-a-glance management and historical information. This package costs $55 per key network element per month and N-able recommends five elements.
The premium provides the same offerings as the standard, but also provides remote trouble-shooting and escalation action.
“If we find there is a problem, one of our systems engineers will log into their system and will try to fix the problem remotely,” said Christine McKenna, marketing manager at N-able.
The premium package costs $110 per key network element per month.
The premium plus offering includes on-site network support and has a different pricing system. This package is $60 per user, per month.
The software uses a browser as its main interface, which is vendor and platform independent.
The company’s managed service provider N-able program has three program levels for different kinds of service providers.
“If you start off with the silver program, you get N-Central IT 2.0 and other hardware,” McKenna said. “The number of customers we support on this one is five. We provide installation and training, free e-mail support, patches that are downloadable off our Web site, a program certificate. The price per month is $355 per month over a 24-month period.”
Moving to the next level, the gold program, clients receive the same product, but the number of customers supported is up to 25. The gold program also includes technical and sales training and a discount on after-hours support, along with custom branding. The price per month is approximately $1,050 per month over 24 months.
The platinum program supports up to 100 customers, and costs about $2,000 per month over a 24-month term.
Richard Ptak, senior vice-president for industry analyst group at Hurwitz Group, said that while this may be new to N-able Technologies, it isn’t all that new to anyone else.
“The fact that it is lightweight and is designed for wireless devices – that’s good,” he said. “But it will collect information like a thousand other devices out there and it will send information to a web-based console.”
That being said, Ptak does think the N-central IT Element Management Suite will be competitive with others on the market because of a competitive price point.
“It’s competitive and it’s a well-designed package that will provide the capabilities that you need and it allows them to build a solution with the customer,” he said. “Typically, people want a local presence. They will work that angle.”
Jeff Schubert is the vice-president of research and development at FreeBalance Inc., a customer of N-able Technologies. He said it was the combination of product and consulting service that his company was after.
“Being a software development organization, we couldn’t afford to have key servers or equipment fail either during regular business hours or at anytime,” he said.
He said his company now receives real-time warnings of failures or pending failures and while his network availability was unmeasured before, it is running at 99 per cent availability now.
For more information on N-able Technologies, go to www.n-ableit.com.
