Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

What is software sprawl, and why is it impacting more organizations than ever? Find out the top causes and how IT teams can regain control. In an effort to support evolving workforces and new technology, more organizations have recently implemented additional operational tools. These new tools often have a specialized purpose or were added to make processes more efficient. In most cases, however, it’s simply resulted in more management responsibility being added to an already stressed IT team.

In November, NinjaOne continued to release updates at a rapid pace, with 5 releases and hotfixes delivering new functionality and greater stability to Ninja users. 5.3.7, this month's largest release, including major new functionality for patch management and ticketing. Please Note: 5.3.7 is currently available in OC and CA instances, with EU and NA instance updates coming soon.

The SDC Awards focus on recognizing and rewarding success in the products and services that are the foundation for digital transformation! At the awards evening in London on November 24th 2022, NinjaOne were voted winners in 3 categories: Intelligent Automation Project of the Year (with customer We are Focus), Data Security/Compliance Project of the Year (with customer We are Focus), Excellence in Service Award for their MSP offering.

Active directory (AD) can be an essential component of an IT infrastructure. In fact, active directory is used by about 90% of Global Fortune 1000 companies. AD is a directory service that’s provided by Microsoft and runs on Windows servers. What makes Azure AD unique is that it’s a specific Microsoft product. Azure AD is not the only directory solution available, so how do you know if it will fit your business’s IT needs?

Every IT asset provides value for a business. IT asset management (ITAM) allows businesses to maximize the value that is received from each asset, thus saving money, time, and other resources. Vision networks announced that an ITAM program helps businesses save around 30% per asset within the first year of implementing the system. Explore the world of ITAM by learning more about hardware and software asset management.

Let’s start with a simple but harsh fact: If you say you’re protecting your customers’ networks and you’re not managing their Apple devices, then you’re lying to them and yourself! Over the years hackers have targeted everything from HVAC machines (Target) to fish tank thermometers (an unnamed Las Vegas casino) and a whole host of devices in between in order to prise their way into company networks. Let’s stop for a minute to consider that fact.

Having returned from our N-able Empower event in Las Vegas about a month ago from writing this, I was surprised at just how many attendees felt like they were not doing enough to automate their IT processes. I spoke to several IT leaders, business owners, presidents, and other executives and all of them were looking to do more with automation—many were even still trying to get to grips with the concept from a business perspective and start out on their automation journey.

Patch management has become an essential part of IT and a critical part of ensuring an enterprise’s safety and efficiency. Why are these seemingly trivial updates so important? In short, because companies without an effective patch management solution are at a massively increased risk of cyberattack. There are other reasons why patching hardware and software is important.

Many entrepreneurs hang their shingle without putting much thought into sales. They find out further down the road that sales is the heart of enterprise, and that it demands just as much preparation and planning as any other aspect of business. More often than not, an MSP who doesn’t plan ahead finds a great deal of difficulty growing once their referral business has inevitably run dry.

The MSP industry is facing and ongoing movement across customers’ transition to the cloud, the evolving threat landscape, and a skills shortage that seems to be more pronounced than ever. Consider these facts from Gartner: The threat landscape is also evolving as highlighted by some of the following statistics: Data protection is a service that managed service providers (MSPs) need to consider as critical.

When I initially wrote my guide to blocking Microsoft’s auto-update to Windows 11—Windows 11: how to configure an auto-patch decline in N-central—I only had N-central partners and our N-central Patch Management in mind. However, after reading various other forums and discussions, I thought I’d take a more regimented approach to stopping or blocking Windows 11 from your machine.

Today, almost every IT department or MSP uses some form of mobile technology. Even though smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other mobile endpoints are incredibly useful for an organization, they can be difficult to manage. TechFunnel’s article on mobile devices in the workplace announces that one laptop is stolen every 53 seconds, while 7 million smartphones are lost every year.

As someone who has worked in an office environment for more than 20 years, I never considered the idea of working remotely. But as a result of what’s happened in the world over the past few years, like so many others out there, I find myself working from home full-time now. Don’t get me wrong, there are many benefits to working remotely—none more so for me than not sitting in traffic for an hour in what should have been a 10-minute commute.

Welcome to part 2 of our Patch Management Basics series. In part 1—Learn patch management—we covered what patch management is, how it’s different to vulnerability management, and what the components are that make a good patch management program. In this article, we’re going to go a step deeper and explore the features that make up the best patch management solutions.

Hard drive crash. Ransomware. Equipment failure. Accidental deletion. Theft. There are plenty of reasons why end users want to have a secure and up-to-date backup of their most important files. And there are just as many approaches to backup and recovery as there are reasons to want it in place. In this article, we’ll discuss practical strategies and best practices for backing up important data, including consumer-level options and how to get the most from an enterprise-grade backup solution.

Looking to launch or improve your MSP sales process for 2023? This guide covers examples and tips that will give you a massive jumpstart. On the face of it, now is a great time to be an MSP. The MSP market continues to grow every year — it’s expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4% from 2022 to 2030 according to Grand View Research. That means plenty of new business and sales opportunities, right? Maybe. But for who?

From harmful malware attacks to data breaches, there are many problems that will arise if you don’t manage your endpoints. As a matter of fact, a report on endpoint security by Expert Insights states, “68% of organizations have experienced one or more endpoint attacks that successfully compromised data and/or their IT infrastructure.” Protect your organization from threats by learning more about and implementing endpoint security management.

Mac monitoring is still seen as something of a weird science by many MSPs, but it is going to be a growing issue if you continue to ignore them. We’re increasingly seeing unmonitored Apple devices on our networks, and the harsh reality is, if you’re not monitoring these devices on your customers’ networks you’re not only creating risk, you’re also missing out on a potential revenue stream.

October included six new releases and hotfixes, providing new functionality and greater stability to Ninja users. 5.3.6, the largest release, included major new functionality for endpoint management, patch management, and ticketing while reducing setup friction for new customers.

Prior to joining N-able, I worked for MSPs that supported clients all over the island of Ireland. That career in IT started back in the last millennium (yes, I’m that old), when reactive support often meant hopping into the car and driving to a customer to resolve their issues in person and on some rare occasions jumping on a flight if the situation was that urgent.

Ah SpiceWorld. One of NinjaOne’s favorite conferences – and a personal favorite of mine. So after two years of the show being virtual, we were thrilled to learn that SpiceWorld would be back in-person this year (with a virtual element too). We couldn’t wait to see everyone in person again! Conversations with customers in the NinjaOne booth Now that the show is over, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to showcase what Ninja was up to and highlight the great work of our team.

Countless times in the MSP world I’ve had to ask myself, “why can’t the end users handle this?” Typically, the answer boils down to the fact that they are paying the MSP to take that stress and labor off their hands. However, there are occasions when end users, providing they’re properly trained, can legitimately take some of the workload off the MSP’s hands.