Despite this widespread dissatisfaction with database performance relative to cost, business IT professionals seem reluctant to take advantage of new database options that can vastly improve scalability and performance. For example, more than half (55%) of respondents say they will not take advantage of cloud technology and only 2% are currently using the open source Apache Hadoop software framework, although another 37% are considering doing so.

Where SMBs Fit In

The survey covers IT professionals at businesses of all sizes, and is not specific to SMBs. However, if concerns about database ROI are widespread across the general business community, in all likelihood they are even more pronounced in the SMB community, where installed database solutions are likely to be older.

In addition, resistance to employing new technologies is also likely even greater among SMBs, as resources to replace or upgrade outdated database implementations are more scarce than among the general business population.

Where MSPs Fit In

Presumed SMB reluctance to implement new database technologies may seem like an impediment to MSPs capitalize on this trend, but MSPs should focus on SMB dissatisfaction with their databases. This is a golden opportunity for MSPs to do a little customer education, demonstrating how by utilizing managed services, SMBs can actually reap the benefits of new database technologies and infrastructures, such as cloud and Hadoop, without the direct expense of development or hosting.

And even if SMBs may not want to implement the newest and shiniest managed database services, the fact that about nine in 10 SMBs are not happy with their current database situations still leaves MSPs a lot of wiggle room. A sales pitch can start with a hosted cloud database service, but does not have to end there. There is a strong need for new databases out there, who will step up to fill it?

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First off, Hartco Distribution is branch of Hartco Inc., a three-decade old Canadian IT services provider that will give N-able a trusted name to attach to when pursuing Canadian MSP customers. Hartco has more than 50 established, physical locations throughout Canada and serves a range of businesses, from SMBs to enterprise. So by partnering with Hartco, N-able will be able to expand the use of its RMM software throughout different-sized business markets in Canada.

As part of the partnership, N-able will have direct access to Hartco’s entire network of IT solution providers. The real beneficiaries of the N-able – Hartco partnership will be Hartco affiliates who will now be able to leverage all of N-able’s RMM solutions, including the N-central RMM platform.

N-able has big plans for the Canadian market, which N-able will heavily focus on in 2012. And even though Hartco’s reach gives N-able the opportunity to target larger companies, N-able will hone in on MSPs serving the SMB market. Cullen claims that the majority of the 1 million-plus SMBs in Canada are not managing their networks with an RMM platform. Translation? N-able wants to be the go-to RMM provider for SMBs throughout Canada, and it wants to develop relationships with Canadian managed service providers looking to provide an RMM software solution to its SMB customers.

One big benefit that N-able can now market to SMBs and MSPs in Canada? A new cloud-based help desk solution courtesy of its recent partnership with NTRglobal. N-able will also give Business e-Traning Essentials, Technical e-Training Essentials, Instructor-Led Product Training, Professional Services and other benefits to Canadian MSPs who buy an N-central license in order to help them better understand how to market and sell the RMM solution.

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Level Platforms’ new MDM feature will make its debut in mid-February when the RMM software company embarks upon its 2012 Global Road Show. And when it does, the MDM solution will allow the software provider’s customers to monitor and manage business networks from Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM smartphones and tablets. Level Platforms managed service provider customers will be able to access this new MDM feature through their existing RMM dashboards via the new Level Platforms Mobile Service Manager that will be pre-packaged in Managed Workplace 2012.

Once a customer installs the new MDM software on a mobile device, they will be able to use that device to collect asset information, remotely configure devices, track location and restrict user access to business networks upon request. And if a device is lost or stolen, MSPs can remotely wipe, lock, or completely reset the device. In the end, Level Platforms hopes its MDM solution will give its MSP customers a complete RMM solution to add to their existing managed services offerings that will help them accelerate their revenue growth.

The news of Level Platforms’ new MDM capabilities comes about two weeks after the RMM software provider introduced its new NOC and help desk services. Shortly thereafter, N-able Technologies, another major RMM software provider, partnered with NTRglobal to offer a cloud-based help desk service. Then N-able made a regional expansion move by partnering with Hartco Distribution in order to target MSPs and SMBs in Canada. Now comes new of Level Platforms new MDM software offering included in Managed Workplace 2012. It’s a major RMM development, but it definitely won’t be the last we hear from Level Platforms, N-able or other RMM providers.

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“EMC FAST moves data across storage tiers based on how hot it is,” Sorenson explained. “VFCache accelerates the reads from the server.” So by reading data more quickly, VFCache allows EMC FAST users to moved data around to different storage tiers much faster, EMC asserts.

Disk Drives Still Alive

Even though Flash storage innovation will be a large part of EMC’s 2012 plan, both Sorenson and President and CEO of EMC Information Products Pat Gelsinger said Flash won’t make traditional disk storage drives completely obsolete.

“Flash storage can be as much as 30x more expensive than disk storage,” Gelsinger said. So EMC has focused on Flash storage for performance applications. That is, VFCache is designed to hold data that is being used regularly.

“Some of our competitors only sell Flash storage,” Sorenson said. “But only about five percent of a businesses’ data is hot, meaning it’s being used regularly. And that five percent changes all the time. So EMC FAST can change the data across storage tiers depending on when it’s being used and not used, and VFCache speeds up that application performance by 2-3x.”

Focus on the Channel

Sorenson also said that EMC plans to focus on its channel business throughout 2012, which ties in well with its VFCache solution development.

“VFCache is interesting to the channel because those who supply servers and system integrators can integrate VFCache into their service offerings,” Sorenson said. EMC plans to heavily market VFCache in London City, New York City and along the U.S. West Coast. The company also plans to sell VFCache to the mid-market, along with its more traditional enterprise base.

For service providers, VFCache could help to speed the performance of on-demand and SaaS applications.

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In announcing the Numara’s acquisition, BMC said its product portfolio combined with Numara’s, will represent the most comprehensive set of SaaS and on-premise IT management solutions across all business segments. And in the following prepared statement, BMC President of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) Paul Avenant outlined what the acquisition means for current and prospective BMC customers:

“Now BMC can effectively serve the entire spectrum of organizations hungry for IT management with products that truly meet the specific needs of their businesses. Numara’s solutions, customer base and sales and channel partners will round out BMC’s market leadership in Business Service management (BSM), and focus on customer care and support.”

Some rivals are already responding to the move. In a blog post, ManageEngine President Raj Sabhlok took shots at the BMC-Numara combo. ManageEngine also launched a new program, inviting current Numara customers to switch to ManageEngine’s ServiceDesk Plus help desk software solution for free for an entire year. In order to receive the free, one year license, Numara customers have to show proof that they have purchased licenses for either Numara Track-It! or Numara FootPrints. The offer is valid until March 31, 2012.

It’s anyone’s guess how this most recent IT management feud will play out. Both BMC and ManageEngine are claiming the acquisition is a good sign for their businesses, as it opens new marketing opportunities. We do know that for the time being, BMC has increased its customer base and expanded its channel reach by taking over Numara’s current channel partnerships. Time will tel if ManageEngine can stop that momentum with its latest effort to steer both BMC and Numara customers toward ServiceDesk Plus.

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“Even though we released eXo 3.0 more recently, we’ve been working on this multi-tenancy feature for the last three years,” Mestrallet said. “It’s not something that can be created overnight.” The multi-tenancy capability in version 3.5 allows cloud service providers and MSPs to deploy the platform in either a public or private cloud environment. It’s a capability that, according to Mestrallet, eXo’s enterprise customers have been asking for.

eXo 3.5 also offers mobile support for Apple iOS and Google Android mobile devices. As a result, mobile users can interact with dashboards, activity streams and other platform capabilities.

eXo has introduced new collaboration tools — including support for Wikis, forums, polls, FAQs and shared calendars. Users can now store, share and organize documents, and integrate more advanced workflows into their existing environments by leveraging eXo 3.5′s enhanced content management features. The platform includes a new search engine optimization (SEO) feature and an inline editing feature so that customers can edit and publish content from the front-end more efficiently. And finally, 3.5 comes with integrated sample sites that customers  can use as examples of how to leverage all of the new technology included in eXo UXPaaS 3.5.

Mestrallet said that eXo plans to leverage channel partners to double its enterprise customer base in 2012. eXo currently sells its solution in North America, Europe, Asia and South American.

Mestrallet did not rule out a potential SMB push. MSPs could be a doorway into that market, and Mestrallet hinted that eXo is working on some sort of solution for SMBs. He did not give specifics or a timetable for such a solution.

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First, let’s take a look at the Novatrend win. Novatrend is leveraging AppLogic to run NovaCloud — a scalable, cloud-hosting service that lets customers design and deliver virtualized business services in hours, according to Novatrend CTO Michael Brunner.

“The CA AppLogic platform provides faster provisioning of applications, which allows us to more rapidly deliver services, while minimizing our go-to-market costs,” Brenner said in a prepared statement while outlining several different problems with other MSP cloud offerings, including limited performance and availability of dedicated servers in the cloud, and slow response times during peak hours.

NovaCloud customers can adjust their resources and cloud capacity to meet their specific needs, all through a single business portal. In the end, NovaCloud users will only have to pay for the cloud capacity they are using at that particular time. And if they need to scale up, they can pay for more capacity as needed.

This is becoming a familiar trend. Back in November 2011, ViaWest — one of the largest privately held data center provides in the U.S. – also standardized on AppLogic for its cloud strategy.

Back at CA Technologies, the company has been working overtime to gain mind share among MSPs and cloud services providers. CA Technologies Senior Director of sales Chris Goodman spoke with MSPmentor in October 2011 about some of the strategy. CA now sells multiple cloud services and managed services platforms for MSPs.

It sounds like CA is gaining momentum with MSPs and CSPs. But it’s also important to keep the momentum in perspective. As of late 2011, AppLogic’s installed base involved around 60 MSPs and cloud services providers — not a huge figure, but the number seems to be climbing steadily each month. And each win typically involves a pretty big name in the data center or managed services market.

Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.

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Here’s a list of the Cloud Manager’s new features:

• A multi-tenant environment that gives MSPs a  faster, automated service delivery platform to help eliminate support calls for IT service providers.
• A self-service and business work-flow for application architects and IT consumers to browse and modify new business services so that they can find out exactly what those services will cost before purchasing them.
• Web and mobile iOS support so that MSPs can managed cloud environments from any where, at any time.
• Integration between Cloud Manager 2.0 and IT infrastructures like VMware vSphere, Linux Enterprise Servers, Citrix XenServers and Microsoft Hyper-V
• The ability to scale and manage more than 100,000 workloads.

NetIQ’s Cloud Manager 2.0 is intended to help MSPs meet the ebb and flow of their customers’ demands by giving them full control over allocating their resources, according to NetIQ Director of Product Management Tom Cecere. So the Cloud Manager is a way for MSPs to more closely align all of their IT assets with their business priorities.

NetIQ’s partner ecosystem includes more than 600 MSPs and resellers that serve over 12,000 business customers in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The release arrives roughly one year after NetIQ gained identity and security management solutions from Novell, which Attachmate acquired.

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A few days before ManageEngine released the upgrade, I caught up with Zoho Corp. President Raj Sabhlok to learn the specifics of how ManageEngine’s roughly 50,000 end-users will benefit from the Zoho Report integration.

“Both MSPs and their organizations are starting to deal with a huge amount of data, and they’re struggling to make sense of that data and get their arms around,” Sabhlok said. “This is our entry into answering the big data issue that they’re facing.”

Sabhlok said that many IT administrators don’t have the time to create reports and capture data. There’s too much on their plate and many don’t have a reporting tool. “Some administrators are using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to aggregate pieces of data and make a report,” Sabhlok explained. “But that takes several hours per week.”

So ManageEngine is trying to do two things with its MSP Center Plus Upgrade: churn out more detailed reports, and save MSPs the several hours per week they’re currently spending just setting up reports. The MSP Center Plus will now automatically push an MSP’s data into Zoho Reports, which is a cloud-based data capturing solution. Zoho Reports then churns out reports that Sabhlok says are easy to pull analysis from. That analysis can then be published into dashboards for customers.

“The goal is to get the hidden nuggets within the data and then report on that,” said Sabhlok, who noted that the upgrade is not only for MSP en-users; it’s also for MSPs themselves. Zoho Reports can be used both internally and externally. Now that MSPs will have their data in an analytics tool, they can use the data to evaluate and assess their own businesses.

“Because of the amount of applications ManageEngine has to offer, and because of the various components of a network we monitor, ManageEngine is well positioned to help make sense of all the data MSPs and others are currently dealing with,” Sabhlok said. “We think more MSPs will be looking for this type of solution. Their customers want to to know what type of service they’re getting, and this solution lets them do that.”

ManageEngine’s latest move is another step toward fully integrating all of its IT solution — something the company began in December 2011 when it integrated its Desktop Central and ServiceDesk Plus solutions. We’ll be hearing a lot more from ManageEngine has the company announces a slew of product announcements at Cisco Live London 2012.

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The communicator platform includes instant messaging and email integration, the ability to search a corporate directory and add contacts directly to the Avaya Flare, and the ability to manage simultaneous voice calls. Overall, the Avaya Flare Communicator gives mobile device users a way to multi-task. And most importantly, Avaya claims its Flare Communicator helps businesses save money. How? Instead of getting hit with roaming charges when traveling across different cell networks, users can connect via their data channel.

iPad users can now download the Avaya Flare Communitor from the Apple App Store. And if all goes well, Avaya plans to extend its communication solution to several other consumer mobile devices and operating systems in 2012.

Another note – Avaya claims its Flare Communictor is another solution to help businesses support their bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and consumerization strategies. BYOD is trend we expected would take off in 2012 and make the mobile device management (MDM) sector one of the fastest growing and most valuable managed services sectors. We’ve already seen several examples of this in early 2012, as 70 percent of MSPs say their customers are now asking about mobile device management.

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