We all know that having 20/20 vision is critically important and there’s little room for compromise. So, when it comes to seeing what’s visible across corporate IT infrastructures, why do so many organizations fly blind?
The ability to envision all the devices connected to the corporate network is tied closely to overall IT wellbeing and security. With insufficient visibility, companies are exposed to undue security risks and vulnerabilities, all of which will grow exponentially as we enter the era of the “Internet of Things.”
According to IDC, the installed base of the Internet of Things (IoT) will be approximately 212 billion “things” by 2020—and this year alone, shipments of smart-connected devices (e.g., PCs, tablets and smartphones) are expected to surpass 1.7 billion units worldwide. That’s a lot of exposure if companies can’t see and securely manage the deluge of devices entering their environments.
In a recent CMSWire article, Prepping IT for the Internet of Things, Dave Kloba, general manager of Endpoint Systems Management for Dell Software, addressed the increasing need to discover, secure, and manage all our newly connected devices in order to reduce risk and management complexity.
Today, we’re making a major move to help customers securely manage the “Internet of Things” by giving them greater visibility across their infrastructure while laying the foundation for improved endpoint security. The new Dell KACE K1000 v6.0 features agentless technology, which extends our agent-based management to track all connected devices, spanning printers, power, storage and network switches, routers, firewalls and more—all without having to install software directly on those devices. The new release also provides broader cross-platform inventory, automated software blacklisting and a new user interface to further simplify IT administration for a multitude of Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and UNIX systems while helping halt the execution of known malware and harmful freeware.
For Southeast Alabama Medical Center, the new K1000 will play an even bigger role in its 24/7 hospital environment by enabling the tracking and assessing of everything from servers and systems to radiology stations. App blacklisting will permit blocking the use of browsers that are incompatible with specific healthcare software.
Paul Neyman at Waypoint Business Solutions, a Dell Premier partner and member of the Dell GeoPartner program, plans to take advantage of the K1000 v6 to do more in helping customers assess, deploy and manage mission-critical systems. For this Houston-based partner with many customers in the oil and gas industry, this will translate into improved security through better visibility of network-attached assets at drilling rigs and platforms, field offices and wells.
We’re excited about taking our award-winning K1000 to the next level, while giving Dell KACE customers the best view of what’s in their existing environment as well as what’s entering at a rapid pace, thanks to IoT.
We’re equally pleased to be a finalist in two categories for the prestigious American Business Awards. The Dell KACE Systems Management Appliances join a clean sweep of Dell finalists in the Systems Management software category. We’re also proud to provide world-class systems management as part of Dell’s Enterprise Mobility Management solution, which is a finalist in Mobile Operations’ new product or service category.
While industry recognition is rewarding, it’s clear with the new K1000 v6, we’re not resting on our laurels. Rather, we are continuing to push the boundaries of what Dell customers can see and do with leading-edge systems management, so they can enjoy better, more secure ways to manage IoT.
So, how’s your IoT vision? Drop me a line at Bill_Odell@Dell.com to tell me what you see.