Pulseway has released the on-premise version 9.3 of its RMM solution. The cloud version was made available a couple of weeks ago. This release extends the capability of its patching, remote control and automation functionality. It has also added a new set of Virtualization Discovery, Topology, and Management features with token-based access controls. There are also improvements to the UI.
Patch Management
Enterprise Times spoke to Andy Ellwood, VP of Marketing, about the latest update. The Patch Management update delivers much greater flexibility for admins. The new categories enable admins to increase the complexity of patch rules.
Ellwood explained, “For patch management, we are adding new patch categories, whereas it was just on three categories. But now, it also has the patch category itself, so whether it’s a security update, a critical update, or a service pack, and the release date.
One thing that people have been asking you for is CVE and CVSS rules.
“You can add those in your policies and also the Microsoft severity status. We’ve got more control over the Windows patching and also Windows updates. You can defer quality feature updates and things like that. We’ve also given more people information about the history of the patching.”
I asked Ellwood what he meant by more information. He replied, “Errors when updates were skipped? With that sort of information, people just went, ‘Oh, it failed’. Now we’ve given a little bit more information and with error popup messages that will have a bit more clarity about why something failed, if it failed.”
The full list of supports categories are:
- Security Update
- Critical update
- Update Rollup
- Service Pack
- Tools
- Feature Pack
- Update
- Driver
- Definition Update
Users can also determine the date they want patches to roll out based on when it was released.
While version 9.2 had, and version 9.4 will have several improvements to automation capabilities, 9.3 doesn’t miss out entirely. Ellwood revealed that, “We’ve added support for stored files. You can load up files securely in Pulseway and then use workflows to distribute them. So for things like printer drivers or configuration files, you can store them and then use those in workflows using the write file action in the workflow. You can automate the things that probably weren’t necessarily covered by patching.”
The feature, called managed files, will enable technicians to roll out various content, such as corporate word templates or other files.
Remote Control enhancement
One useful new feature enables technicians to black out a user’s screen when taking control. This enables them to mask certain sensitive information as they resolve issues. The user receives a notification that a technician is accessing their computer. Ellwood called this out as something users had requested for some time.
Usability
The UI has been improved with changes to the Header. A new Dropdown has been added to the Notifications utility in the Header for quick access. Access to the Help utility has also been added to the menu.
What else?
There are a lot of new features within this update. Some additional updates include:
- The ability to configure Hyper-V and VMware Connectors, allowing you to discover, view, and manage hosts and virtual machines
- Support for token-based API access using third-party tokens, or trusted tokens
Additional SNMP Profile contents for network devices include:
-
- Firewall: Check Point Generic
- Firewall: Juniper Generic
- Firewall: Palo Alto Generic
- Firewall: Sophos/Cyberoam
- Firewall: WatchGuard Generic
- Router: Cisco Generic
- Server: Dell iDRAC FW v1-6
- Server: Dell iDRAC FW v7+
- Server: HP Integrated Lights-Out
- Switch: HP ProCurve
- A new BSD Agent which supports installation on BSD platforms such as pfSense, FreeBSD and OpenBSD
- The Mobile app has significant update with support for workflows
- .PKG support for the generic macOS Agent deployment package
Enterprise Times asked Ellwood what most excited him about this release.
“We’ve also done some work on the back end, the stuff you can’t see. Because we clearly have people using Pulseway with low bandwidth. That screws up remote control. They’ve done some changes to the algorithms in the back end that is to do with displays. This is just to make it easier in those low-bandwidth situations. 9.3 has got lots of bits that are foundational.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
While Ellwood says, this is a foundational release. Although this release has no major new functionality, many things will please customers and differentiate it from the competition. Of real note are the improvements to patch management, with a level of granularity that can make a difference in rolling out the right patches in a timely fashion.
To find out more about the Pulseway release, the company is hosting a webinar on September 6th at 11.00 AM EST, 16.00 BST.
9.4 promises a lot more, with Ellwood noting, “Now looking ahead to the next release, we are going to add improvements to the policy management and reporting” 9.4 is planned to start rolling out in September.”
