Rove iT Blog: We Manage That

Thanks for attending our online launch of MA 5.1

2010-03-03T22:47:08Z

Great attendance and even better questions. We had a good mix of existing customers and IT pros new to Rove Mobile Admin. We saw a slew of new trial requests and a sale immediately following the presentation....coincidence? We did our best to answer the many questions but if you are feeling like you need a little more air time with us, we would be pleased to set something up. Email sales@roveit.com.

You may find our new forums (forums.roveit.com) the perfect place to ask our community your question - and get even more insight, and some opinions, on your burning question.

We opted not to record this particular webinar, but the new elements available with Rove Mobile Admin 5.1 will all be covered off in our weekly "Intro to Rove Mobile Admin" live webinars. Next Tuesday March 9th will be the first one featuring 5.1 and we always leave lots of time for Q&A. Registration link

What a concept: use VMS for testing services prior to deployment

2010-03-02T20:11:37Z

This article caught my eye. Addressing the IT community who have not yet gotten on the virtualization bandwagon, the author proposes how Virtualization makes financial and practical sense for prototyping, and testing your services prior to deployment. He then goes on to describe how virtualization for prototyping services can be very efficient due to templating, cloning, provisionig and snapshotting. Give it a read.

New roveit forums: great traffic

2010-02-25T19:24:35Z

The traffic on our new forums is bustling. But don't forget to register when you visit. At 5:00 PM EST on March 5th 2010 we are selecting one of the registrations to receive a license of Rove Mobile Admin Professional. It's a great opportunity to add to your arsenal of IT tools.

Rove Mobile Admin 5.1 Released to Market

2010-02-23T20:23:43Z

OTTAWA, ONTARIO – Rove Inc., the leader in IT infrastructure management from smartphones, today announced the availability of new, powerful configuration, monitoring and management options for IT professionals who require secure remote IT administration from their BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile or Symbian device.

Rove Mobile Admin is the only smartphone-enabled mobile IT administration solution available today that addresses the complete IT incident resolution workflow and that covers an organization’s entire IT infrastructure. Release 5.1 offers powerful enhancements to simplify and accelerate configuration, and to give users unprecedented control over how they relate to their IT network via their mobile device.

“IT professionals differ widely in their roles, needs and preferences,” said Russell Ure, Vice President of R&D, Rove Inc. “With this release new users will be able to rapidly establish direct and secure access to their infrastructure and services and realize greater freedom while on-call. For existing users the benefit of speeding up their access to critical elements and services will be an asset during times of escalation.”

On March 3 2010, from 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST, RoveIT is presenting a live online launch of Mobile Admin 5.1. Registration for this online event is open to the public, giving the entire IT community an opportunity to learn more about Mobile Admin’s new, powerful capabilities and to see them demonstrated live.

Current customers are encouraged to upgrade to the new version by visiting RoveIT’s support site. A fully functional, free 14 day trial can be downloaded by visiting RoveIT’s trial registration page.

Discretionary effort?...please

2010-02-16T14:53:44Z

This article kills me. Apparently the percentage of IT employees making "high discretionary effort" is falling. Discretionary effort as employee's willingness to go "above and beyond" their basic job responsibilities. This is the opposite of what we're hearing from the marketplace here at RoveIT. Everyday we hear about our IT customers going the extra mile.

Migration Zone

2010-02-12T19:01:40Z

Most of you are looking at migrating to Windows Server 2008 R2, and everything else. I just came across this blog. Seems to be co-sponsored by MS and Dell. This posting looks at the changes in the Active Directory Administrative Center (ADAC) Windows Server 2008 R2. Have you seen it yet? Let us know what you think.

More resources for you IT professionals

2010-02-09T17:19:35Z

The MS Canada folks seem to have a well kept secret going -- their IT Pro Connection Blog. It contains timely tips on everything a MS IT pro could need (whether living up here in the great white north or not), including a new podcast series on Office 2010, and technical posts on security and server migration. If you are living up here, you'll be able to find all the info you need about the EnergizeIT Week. (http://blogs.technet.com/canitpro/)

How to install Rove Mobile Admin -- in real time (video)

2010-01-30T15:24:47Z

This video demonstrates the entire process of installing Rove Mobile Admin on a server and BlackBerry -- from download to up and running in 10 minutes.

With every release of Mobile Admin we've improved the installation process -- so much so that you can get the basic functionality up and running in 10 minutes. See for yourself:

Rove selected as one of 5 promising companies helping to make smartphones enterprise-friendly

2010-01-30T15:06:49Z

We are pumped to get this type of recognition -- finally! We've always believed the smartphone will make a huge impact deeper inside organizations than they currently are and this article highlights some great companies doing just that. And, of course, Rove is listed in the article:

What they do: Rove’s flagship product Mobile Admin enables IT incident resolution from smartphones. “We provide IT professionals with secure remote access to over 500 IT administration features across dozens of server-, service- and platform-types using a variety of smartphones,” said Rob Woodbridge, CEO.

Why is it important? Without being tethered to their desks, IT and system administrators can use Mobile Admin to manage the entire incident resolution workflow process, from detection to triage and resolution resulting in reduced downtime, better customer service and a more efficient IT department.

“It boils down to busy, scarce and in-high-demand individuals having anytime, anywhere access to their IT infrastructure so that they can resolve issues quickly and drastically minimize the impact to business,” Woodbridge said.

Platforms: BlackBerry, iPhone, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Rove is currently developing an Android version that will be released in the spring.

Customers: Rove claims more than 2,500 customers worldwide, including 75 of the Fortune 500 and five of the world’s largest banks. Named customers include ABC.com, Boeing, Capital One and Duke University.

Competitors: “Our direct competition is laptops and tethered laptops, seriously,” Woodbridge said. He also mentioned Avocent DSV3 Mobile. We’ve researched plenty of other IT-related apps for smartphones but have yet to find one as full-featured as Mobile Admin.

Funding: Angel funded originally but now funded on revenue.

CEO: Before joining Rove, CEO Rob Woodbridge was VP of Operations at Magmic Games.

Headquarters: Ottawa, Canada.

The full article can be found here.

Some honest feedback for Rove Mobile Admin for the iPhone

2010-01-27T16:38:11Z

Under the title of "Expensive, but Useful" reviewer "Aurock" writes this:

This app requires a licensed install of mobile admin server, which costs something like $1000 per user. Still, for a network admin, it can be a huge time saver. With this tool, I can manage all of our servers from anywhere I have wifi or cellular service. All the way from unlocking users or disconnecting rdp sessions to remote controlling, getting a command prompt, or restarting servers.

There are a few glitches in this iPhone client still to be worked out, but rove support has been very helpful in troubleshooting issues as needed.

We love the honesty here but just one quick clarification: Rove Mobile Admin is $595/user, not $1000 :)