Partners Tell How N-Central 10 Boosts Efficiency
SolarWinds N-able’s launch of its N-central 10 platform is notable to managed services providers (MSPs) for a number of reasons. Not only is it the first launch under the company’s new brand name since SolarWinds’ 2013 acquisition of N-able, but Derik Belair, VP of marketing and business development for SolarWinds N-able, says it also creates a fundamental shift in the way MSPs support their SMB customers. N-central combines service desk with NOC (network operations center) capabilities to span the MSP services lifecycle, and features a redesigned user experience. He comments that feedback from partner communities contributed to the direction of the enhancements.
The release also features improved workflows and interoperability with leading professional services automation (PSA) solutions. “[N-central 10] made it easy to leverage the combined power of RMM [remote monitoring and management] and PSA. This is the number one question asked by MSPs,” Belair comments. With the new release, he says, “You can live within the RMM and access the PSA.”
Belair adds another significant enhancement is the ability to resolve issues without interrupting the end user: “You can do help desk work behind the scenes. Not with a takeover.”
Jon Czerwinski, VP of Cohn Consulting Corporation, who used N-central 10 in beta says, “The new Direct Support feature in N-Central 10.0 has cut a significant fraction of time from tickets that we are able to handle unobtrusively. Instead of having to wait for the results of a queued up script, in many cases our engineers are now able to make changes interactively on a client system, all while not interrupting the client with a remote console session. Our engineers have a greater amount of information directly available to them in an organized fashion and receive immediate feedback for their actions, reducing our time to resolution. For those tickets where we are able to engage the Direct Support tool, we are seeing time to complete tickets lowered by up to 30 percent.”
Patrick Leonard, VP of My IT, also a beta user, agrees the Direct Support tool has enabled his company’s technicians to be more efficient, as well as the new Domain User Management tool. “The new Domain User Management tool allows us to quickly reset passwords without having our level 1 techs logging into the servers to complete the task. This is a significant time savings for both our techs and for our clients.”
Leonard also comments, “The new UI redesign improves many functions of N-central, allowing our technicians to do things quicker such as choose from an array of remote control tools easily.”
Belair says, “Regardless of what we do, it comes down to MSP technicians’ efficiency. Every time we implement a new product or design a new feature, the question is not, ‘Is it cool?’ but rather, “Is it going to help them? How do we add real value, streamline things and not worry about running the tool?’ The tool can’t become the job.”