Q&A: How to drive efficiency with Barracuda RMM

You may have seen that last month, Barracuda unveiled a new name for its security-centric RMM platform. Formerly known as Barracuda Managed Workplace, it will be called Barracuda RMM moving forward. This change is an exciting step as we continue our commitment on the security-centric journey that our MSP partners are undertaking.

In addition to the name change, the latest release of Barracuda RMM brought forth a new integration and other enhancements. To learn more about this release, I spoke with Mark Whiffen, Senior Product Manager at Barracuda MSP.

What’s new with Barracuda’s RMM offering?

Q: There was a big update to the RMM platform last week. Can you share with us what was included in that release?

The latest Barracuda RMM release further streamlines the delivery of security services for MSPs. At Barracuda MSP, we know the importance of utilizing a multilayered security strategy to protect SMBs against today’s cyberthreats and for MSPs to become security-centric.

But we know this could cause some inefficiencies for MSPs, namely, the need to jump through different product platforms to monitor and manage the various security solutions. Not only does this cost MSPs time, which we know they do not have a lot of, but it also requires you to learn the nuances of each product’s platform. To help reduce these operational inefficiencies, we are committed to integrating the different security layers with our security-centric RMM tool.

In our previous releases, we had integrated a new third-party patch management automation tool, Barracuda Advanced Software Management, as well as Office 365 API integration. In our last release, we fully integrated our advanced web security solution, Barracuda Content Shield, with Barracuda RMM. In this most recent release, we integrated Barracuda RMM with Barracuda Intronis Backup, our software-only backup and disaster recovery solution.

This new integration allows MSPs to deploy, monitor, and manage their customer’s backup straight from the Barracuda RMM Service Center. Through Barracuda RMM, MSPs can deploy Intronis Backup agents to devices that are managed by Barracuda RMM, monitor the backup process for each managed user, and conduct the necessary actions to ensure the backup process is successful. Additionally, Intronis Backup tickets generated from Barracuda RMM will be passed to your Professional Service Automation (PSA) tool. Finally, new reports of Intronis Backup have been added to Barracuda RMM, allowing MSPs to use Barracuda RMM as the centralized platform for their backup needs.

On top of the integration with Intronis Backup, we also introduced enhancements to our Microsoft patch management capabilities. We offer free Microsoft patch management for MSPs and in this release, we improved our dual scan support for remote workstations and added more visibility as to when a device last checked in, when patches were installed, and granularity for device status. These key improvements ensure that MSPs have visibility on the status of patch deployments and to identify potential patching gaps in their service delivery, increasing their security footprint against ongoing patch vulnerabilities.

Lastly, we further improved the performance of the new Central Dashboard, where MSPs can quickly and easily get an at-a-glance view of their customers’ environment status and the alerts they need to address to ensure their customers’ networks are performing optimally. The new Central Dashboard is still in BETA stage and we are continuing our development efforts based on feedback we receive from our MSP partners.

Q: There were several exciting enhancements in this release. What else can we expect in the near future?

Security and integration  will continue to be the theme. We have a new integration with a PSA tool in the works, enhancements to the built-in security assessment feature, along with an expansion to the antivirus solutions Barracuda RMM can monitor to name a few of our upcoming innovations. Our goal is to empower MSPs to become security-centric with Barracuda RMM, which provides a built-in, free of charge security assessment capability that MSPs can use regularly with their customers, identify security gaps which allows MSPs to turn into business opportunities, deliver as many of their customers’ security needs as possible through the RMM, and monitor anomalies in real-time to ensure their customers are protected from today’s cyberthreats. All while increasing efficiency and reducing unnecessary operational overhead for MSPs.

Thank you to Mark for the great overview. For more information, visit us at www.barracudamsp.com/product-details/barracuda-rmm-remote-monitoring-management/.

This post originally appeared on SmarterMSP.com.