Kaseya has bolstered its R&D and made a key hire to accelerate Traverse -- a hybrid cloud and network systems monitoring platform that will ultimately extend from on-premises devices to Amazon Web Services to Microsoft Azure, ChannelE2E has learned.
With an eye toward larger MSP engagement opportunities, Kaseya has rehired Andrew Morgan in a sales capacity for Traverse, the company has confirmed to ChannelE2E. Morgan is one of the MSP industry's best-known influencers, having previously held key positions at LogicMonitor, TruMethods and ConnectWise. He also worked at Kaseya during some of the company's best growth years (2008-2010).
Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola has spent recent months reaching out to a range of former Kaseya leaders, speaking with them about potentially returning to the company, sources close to the business say. And in many cases, the roles involve management positions outside of Kaseya's core VSA software platform for MSPs. Voccola himself joined the company in July 2015, and he's largely credited for stabilizing the business, which had stumbled quite a bit amid intense competition, an ownership change and a previous CEO change.
Kaseya Traverse: Hybrid Cloud Management Investments
While most external eyes focus on Kaseya's RMM and PSA offerings for MSPs, the company has quietly grown its R&D headcount in other areas -- including the Traverse business.
Kasaeya acquired the Traverse technology amid the Zyrion buyout of 2013. Zyrion was best known for its network management capabilities but the Traverse platform now has major potential for hybrid cloud management.
Traverse gained Amazon Web Services management capabilities in mid-2016, and Microsoft Azure support is on the roadmap -- though the company hasn't officially disclosed a launch date for that capability. "If Amazon is the Number One cloud in our market, then Azure is One A," said Chief Product Officer Mike Puglia. "So you can imagine where we're heading next."
Traverse is designed to automatically monitor customer work loads -- on premises or in the cloud -- even if they're spun up or wound down. In other words, each time a customer spins up a new AWS service, Traverse can already be set to monitor it. The MSP, therefore, doesn't have to manually define what needs to be monitored, according to Rajib Rashid, VP of product management.
Traverse can also monitor a range of network, storage and compute hardware from Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, HP Enterprise, Juniper and more.
Kaseya sees Traverse as an ideal platform for midmarket MSPs and large network service providers. The company also expects Traverse MSPs to build "co-managed" relationships with end-customers that want to outsource some or all of their network management capabilities.
Kaseya Traverse and VSA: Integration Coming
Overall, the R&D team has shifted to a DevOps mindset. Each product or service (Traverse, VSA, etc.) has its own development team. But updates and delivery cycles now have the same cadence across multiple products, meaning that it's easier for Kaseya to build integrations between its products, Rashid. (Rivals are taking a similar R&D approach, by the way.)
With that thought in mind, the company says MSPs should expect Traverse and VSA integrations to emerge, though I don't think an official delivery date has been announced.
Overall, it sounds like Kaseya is finally applying ample resources to Traverse -- though we don't know for sure since we don't know exact past or present Traverse headcount figures. Depending on the company's execution, Traverse could allow Kaseya to push beyond traditional PSA and RMM conversations with existing MSPs. The bigger Traverse opportunity, I suspect, involves the company potentially working with larger network service providers and cloud service providers that need mission-critical workload and network monitoring.
Still, I don't want to get ahead of myself. Kaseya's business is in better shape today than it was a year ago. But competition remains fierce across the MSP and IT service provider software markets. And dozens of tools now exist for AWS and Azure cloud management.
