ManageEngine promises to track all devices and trouble tickets and is becoming available as a hosted service, in addition to the on premises service that is already on the market.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [February 26, 2009]

This week, Pleasonton, Calif.-based AdventNet (development center in Chennai, India) released the latest update to its Manage Engine product, allowing customers to host the service in the cloud.

ManageEngine's MSP product helps service providers monitor the desktop, the network, and the data center. It also helps track trouble tickets and provides network and device information to tech support.

The system uses a simple software probe that sits on the customer premises on a basic Linux computer, explains Rajesh Ganesan, director of managed services for Manage Engine.

Now this service will be available as a hosted product, with a monthly subscription fee. The goal, says Ganesan, is to enable small companies to subscribe to the hosted product and then upgrade to an on premises solution after they have grown.

"An MSP today might start with one or two employees," he says, "initially supporting five or ten customers. Then once they have a good set of customers and steady income, if they want to broaden their service, they may move it from hosted to on premises and build their own data center."

ManageEngine even allows subscribers to take their data to another service, Ganesan claims. This is a hot button issue right now. It is a feature that every ISP should demand from their hosted services providers—but very few hosted services allow it at this time.

AdventNet
The parent company brings several strengths to ManageEngine. It is the parent company of hosted service Zoho, which offers a massive variety of applications to small businesses. Zoho claims 1 million users, a "large percentage" of whom pay for service.

AdventNet also provides consulting services, particularly specializing in ITIL, which is a set of procedures for managing IT infrastructure. ManageEngine incorporates ITIL, especially the concept of Change Management.

Any ISP that also uses ITIL or ITSM should pay particular attention to this service offering.

Pricing and availability
The ManageEngine hosted service is available now in beta, for an undisclosed price per device per month. Payed subscriptions will start in Q3 of 2009.

The first element of ManageEngine to be available is OpManager. The help desk and desktop management elements will be available later this year.

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