Viewfinity would like to congratulate, EagleMed, on winning the prestigious Info Security Products Guide 2011 Best Deployment Scenario for Least Privileges Management Award.   

With patient data being highly sensitive, EagleMed had to move to a locked down environment to ensure HIPAA compliance. EagleMed uses Viewfinity Privilege Management to elevate privileges for standard users who need to run applications and desktop functions that require administrator rights.   

Most of EagleMed’s workforce is mobile, and Viewfinity easily deployed to and is able to easily support these endpoints. Read the winning deployment scenario on how “Viewfinity helps EagleMed manage its locked down desktops in order to comply with HIPAA laws.” 

Read the full EagleMed case study here.   

Lathrop & Gage LLP is a prestigious law firm with over 700 desktops and laptops running 400 plus applications.  As any IT team can imagine, this poses many challenges, especially related to its staff that works in various remote locations. So what steps did Lathrop take to secure its distributed computing environment?  

Lathrop made the decision to move to a least privileges PC environment.  With this decision, Lathrop decided that Viewfinity’s Privilege Management solution was the best solution for their needs because of its ability to manage and control mobile endpoints over a secure internet connection.  Among the challenges, IT needed a way to efficiently and immediately install custom applications needed by an attorney at a remote site.  The Lathrop IT team is able to push a policy that is immediately propagated on the endpoint (no logoff/logon cycle is needed), elevating privileges for the specific application requested by the attorney, allowing it to be installed and executed, without having to invoke a remote terminal session and use a RUNAS function. Thus the attorney’s focus is on the client’s requirements instead of having to take on the role of an IT support person. With Viewfinity, Lathrop has been able to manage user access privileges effectively and efficiently. 

Ben Weinberger, CIO, of Lathrop & Gage said, “With Viewfinity, we have a method for securing the endpoint client by elevating privileges on the application level, or for desktop functions, rather than providing blanket administrative permissions at the end user level. Being able to control lockdown policies and elevate privileges on the fly, regardless of the end user’s location, and do that cleanly, is very powerful. This has proactively alleviated many IT concerns.” 

Read the full Lathrop & Gage Case Study

“Sony on Monday said that it expects the cleanup cost from the data breaches it's suffered to cost at least $171 million,” reported by Mathew J. Schwartz of InformationWeek. 

$171 Million. Think about it. And there are the public relations clean-up costs as well. 

Loading up your network with multiple layers of security protection is of paramount importance if you want to do all you can to prevent a costly data breach. The money a company invests in securing their network is inexpensive compared to the cleanup costs and tarnished brand that could occur as a result of a breach.  Moving to a least privileges environment is a best practice to be highly considered.  As noted in Neil MacDonald’s recent blog post, “One of the top recommendations I made to increase your security “bang for the buck” in 2011 was to increase the percentage of users that run without administrative access.”

Removing administrator rights from the end users significantly reduces the number of malware introduced they will not have permissions to download or install unapproved software that could corrupt your endpoints.  After removing administrator rights, IT can utilize privilege management and application control software to enforce consistent policies for endpoint access to enterprise applications and desktop functions by controlling user rights for desktops and mobile users.   

Do you know the cost of a data breach?

by Gil Rapaport, President and co-founder of Viewfinity 

• Quarter over quarter new customer average growth of 143%
• Tripled revenue bookings with 306% quarter over quarter growth
• 393% average growth in number of desktops licensed
• A significant milestone was the release of our private cloud version in June, enabling us to target enterprises bringing success with enterprise customer acquisitions.
• Nearly 70 new customers. We’ve signed on many large, premier customers such as IBM, the US Department of Energy, Benjamin Moore, Dominion, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, and more.
• Our vertical markets are becoming more defined - select examples include:
  • Energy & Utilities: Sempra Energy, Dominion
  • US Government: US Army, US Department of Energy, Ericsson Federal
  • Education: North Texas University, South Texas University, Kilgore College
  • Biotech/Biosciences: Mass Department of Health, Gen-Probe, Meridian Bioscience
• eWeek and WindowsITPro product reviews, Red Herring North America and Global finalist awards, MITX finalist award.
• Achieved Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility and Gold Partner status, VMWare TAP Partnership, and signed up several targeted resellers.

Momentum is strong, growth is rapid, and our win rate over the competition remains solid. We have continued backing from our current investors due to their confidence in our technology, customer traction and increasing market share. We have a disruptive product roadmap release, including our “Zero Touch” feature that allows for self provisioning of privilege management policies.

We are currently scheduling briefings on our new product features and roadmap.  Please contact Matt Stubbs at our PR firm for an appointment: matt@snappconner.com

Many organizations look at the migration to Windows 7 as an opportune time to re-evaluate polices associated with granting local administrator rights to users on Windows system.  There are a number of advantages when end users do not have local administrative rights on their Windows desktops.  These include:

-         Less chance for malware to successfully attack the system.   When the end user doesn’t have local administrator rights, the malware that tries to exploit vulnerabilities in software such as media players, mail clients, and internet browsers is much less likely to succeed.   A locked down desktop doesn’t eliminate the need for firewall, AV, and other security software, however it certainly does provide another layer of defense against malware.

-         Reduce chance for the end user to make unauthorized changes to the system.   When users are not able to make unauthorized changes to their system there is less chance for something to break that will lead to a support call from the user.   The more changes that are made to a system the more chance that there will be system or application errors introduced.  Locking down the desktop results in a more stable and predictable computing environment for the end users.

-         Better control on which applications are installed and used on the system.   When end users do not have local administrator rights there are many applications that they can no longer install.   This helps organizations better ensure compliance with software license counts.  Controlling which applications are installed and run on the desktop also limits the chances for application incompatibility issues.

-         Fewer support calls to the IT helpdesk.   When end users are running in an environment that is more stable from a perspective of system changes and applications that are installed, there are problems that the end user encounters.  This results in fewer calls to the IT helpdesk.   

-New OS Image Deployment, Patch Management, Privilege Management and Interactive Dashboard Features Continue Viewfinity’s Commitment to Customers-

Waltham, MA – June 14, 2010 – Viewfinity (www.viewfinity.com), the innovator of privilege and systems management, today released version 3.0 of its solution suite. Nearly 3 months after its debut launch into the market, Viewfinity continues to make good on its commitment to customer-led product development and to build products that are critically needed in the market.

See the new features and updates in a live webcast demonstration, June 16th at 11:45 am ET

Register here to attend: http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/LiveDemo.aspx?reg=sm

Additional Viewfinity features / functionality include:

· Privilege Management: administrators can create policies that will execute scripts without needing to assign local administrator rights to the end user; identify applications that require administrator rights, and permit or block the use of child processes

· OS Deployment: creates an exact disk image of the laptop/desktop including the operating system, configuration files and all applications and deploys the image to multiple systems simultaneously, making it ideal for rapid bare-metal installations (OS deployment via Acronis Snap Deploy)

· Patch Management: fully manages the distribution of updates released through Microsoft Update to computers in your network as well as mobile computers not connected to the internal network

· Viewfinity Dashboard: provides a quick view into the operations and status of the company assets through live monitoring of select desktops and servers to identify problematic areas

· Windows 7 OS Deployment with Viewfinity User Migration: a valuable add-on to the Acronis image deployment software for domain based migration of user personal settings, application settings and user data files to prepare for and perform the migration from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7.

Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management, such as SCCM, by offering new flexibility to manage administrator rights for locked down computers.

Viewfinity Systems Management solution can be delivered from a web-hosted platform or installed on premises. All desktop management is done through a secure and encrypted HTTPS connection which provides the ideal method for managing PCs for remote and mobile workers. Its web-hosted platform is also ideal for proof-of-concept evaluations because it eliminates the need to build a complex server environment to evaluate or deploy the software.

Online registration is available for trial evaluations here: http://www.viewfinity.com/SaasStart.aspx

Tags: Viewfinity, Desktop Management, Systems Management, Patch Management, OS Deployment, Software Deployment, Privilege Management, SaaS, Windows 7 Migration

About Viewfinity

Viewfinity is the innovator of systems and privilege management via cloud-computing, allowing IT professionals to focus on managing systems and not the platform's infrastructure. With the cloud model, IT can be up and running quickly to provide management, support and control for desktops, servers and laptops. This makes it extremely cost effective and easy for IT to support local as well as mobile workers.

Viewfinity uses virtualization technology as the foundation to simplify and automate deployment and management of applications, licenses and assets. Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management by offering compliance adherence to flexibly manage privileges for locked down computers. Viewfinity's cloud approach delivers immediate and long-term value, scales with business need, and eliminates the equipment, training, and substantially higher costs of on-premise implementations. Based in Waltham, MA, information on Viewfinity systems management solutions can be found at www.viewfinity.com.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010
1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT / 5:00 PM GMT
Overview: Managing the mobile user is the number one pain point in desktop management, and is a challenge that continues to escalate. Most IT professionals are struggling for a better method to remotely perform patch management, deploy/update applications, manage user privileges, and resolve problems faster. Are you relying on traditional tools that were designed when only 10% of your users had laptops?

Read more…

http://www.myitforum.com/Forums/calendar.aspx?eventID=28&calDate=2010-06-09

Viewfinity launches cloud computing systems management

Q&A: Viewfinity's president on the company's new management suite that uses virtualization and takes systems and privilege management into the cloud

Systems management startup Viewfinity announced the availability of an updated suite of management products that help differentiate the company by taking advantage of two of today's most interesting and cost-saving technologies: virtualization and cloud computing.

The company's new cloud computing model offers cost-effective and easy-to-use systems and privilege management solution for laptops, desktops, and servers. And it provides management support for both in-house and mobile workforces.

To help grow the company and allow it to scale, Viewfinity also announced that it has secured a $9 million Series B-round of funding from Giza Venture Capital, JK&B Capital, and Longworth Venture Partners.

To find out more about this cloud-based management solution, I was able to speak with Gil Rapaport, Viewfinity's president.

InfoWorld: Your company is introducing the concept of bringing systems management into the cloud. Can you tell us why you're taking that position and explain what you've done that makes it really that easy to use?

Gil Rapaport: If you look at the evolution of systems management so far, it started with tools like Microsoft SMS, Altiris, LANdesk, and a few other legacy applications. These systems are costly to implement, costly to manage, and complex to use. Improvements came by the way of appliance-based solutions, but those still required a capital investment in infrastructure and operations, as well as license costs. With our cloud-computing software platform, the software can be quickly and easily installed and ready for evaluation. IT departments can turn their focus to managing computers to meet their business needs instead of focusing on the management platform. We make it extremely cost effective and easy for IT to support local and mobile workers. And our approach delivers value quickly, scales with business need, and eliminates the cost of in-house implementations.

InfoWorld: Your team has a strong foundation in virtualization. Tell us why that's so important and how you're leveraging that background as you take your strategy higher into the systems management realm.

Rapaport: Viewfinity has a unique method of encapsulation we call on-the-fly virtualization. This is a process that doesn't require application pre-packaging or change the infrastructure or desktop usage environment. It's also completely transparent to the end-user -- zero change to the end-user experience. Basically, we believe we have an ideal application and desktop virtualization solution for the IT administrator and end-user. Encapsulation is done at the endpoint (encapsulates existing applications or new deployments), and with the agent installed on the PC and through a basic Internet connection, it seamlessly communicates with our cloud platform, providing the ability to better support mobile workers. We have two patents pending to protect this unique technology.

With this underlying technology, we transform the model from management of the computer as a whole to management of the conglomerate of applications. As an example, with our IT support feature, Activity Recording, you can filter the significant events of each application, watch a screen-recorded "movie" clip of the PC events, and even rollback (or "undo") the action that has caused problems.

InfoWorld: What size of company could realistically bring its systems management into the cloud, and who do you compete with most heavily?

Rapaport: Viewfinity isn't necessarily a small company play, although it could manage any implementation from a small number of users on up to several thousand users. The real beauty of the market position is that we don't really have to compete against anybody -- in a new installation, Viewfinity could replace the entire need to put a classic hardware/software management infrastructure in place. If a traditional (or "legacy") system like Altiris or LANDesk is already in place, Viewfinity is a smooth and simple way to add urgently needed functionality such as management for mobile workers (IT's biggest headache right now), Win7 upgrades, a quick path to privilege management, etc., and then can stand at the ready to take progressively more of the systems management functions into the cloud. It's a wonderful place for us to be -- far less expensive and smoother to put in place than even the plug-and-play appliance approaches to systems management on the market today.

InfoWorld: Speaking of traditional or "legacy" systems management options, I notice that Greg Butterfield, former CEO of Altiris, has joined your board and that Altiris' former CTO Dwain Kinghorn is now part of your Advisory Council as well. Can you tell us a little more about how they will be directly involved in Viewfinity's strategy and growth going forward?

Rapaport: We believe the addition of Greg Butterfield and Dwain Kinghorn to our extended team speaks volumes. That is also true for the other industry icons that have joined our new Advisory Council. The ability to attract and appoint these leaders validates our credibility and presence in the market. Greg, Dwain, and the members of our advisory council will provide insight and direction regarding Viewfinity's vision and its strategy for executing that vision, as well as technology and product guidance as we expand our offerings into the systems management marketplace. Their existing field of connections in every sector ranging from investors to industry partners, to channel participants and key services throughout the world can help to shorten the cycle it takes to make us a strong global leader and a pervasive force in the systems management sector by as much as two to three years.

InfoWorld: Which systems management functions do you consider to be the most obvious to bring into the cloud? And which are more complicated?

Rapaport: Viewfinity's ability to reach mobile workers is the function that has had the greatest impact on our customers and prospects thus far. This is a problem that all companies have, regardless of size. For green fields, we're able to provide the ability to manage and control all of the company's desktops and laptops at the application level from a standard Web interface, wherever they reside. For larger organizations, with our browser-driven interface, we can operate side-by-side with more traditional systems, to fill the gap where needed to reach mobile workers and to provide remote support and propagate privilege management policies. In particular, we've found our software deployment capabilities especially useful for reaching workers who don't regularly connect to the corporate network. Corporations are often utilizing the Viewfinity platform as the distribution point to deploy software packages.

InfoWorld: I understand part of your go-to-market strategy includes a "freemium-based" component. How does this play into your overall business strategy?

Rapaport: As with most freemium products, our free components are meant to offer value and to entice. Once IT administrators use our product, they will immediately realize the benefits. Viewfinity's cloud-computing model offers a much lower barrier to entry because we provide the infrastructure. It's easy to continue using Viewfinity to increase the number of desktops that are being managed. The cloud delivery model, coupled with the ever growing base of mobile workers, positions us nicely in the marketplace. Offering unlimited use for up to 50 PCs helps IT administrators get comfortable with the product and apply it to their environment before rolling out mainstream. And then they will typically tell their colleagues about us, which supports their confidence in the product.

InfoWorld: Where do you hope and intend the market for cloud-based systems management to be a year from now? And what is the role you hope Viewfinity will play in helping to drive that charge?

Rapaport: We believe we're already driving the charge. More adoption and use of cloud-based software is going to reaffirm and strengthen the direction the market is moving. When companies can be more productive immediately and can do that with the help of a systems management solution that doesn't required specialized IT experience or the need to purchase and install a management server, we believe cloud-based systems management will become a natural and increasingly prevalent trend.

Once again, I'd like to thank Gil Rapaport, president of Viewfinity, for taking time out and speaking with me.

This story, "Viewfinity launches cloud computing systems management," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.

Managing desktops and laptops in a distributed environment is a top challenge for IT departments.  Current industry research shows that the most urgent and pressing issues are clear: 

• Providing better support and management for your mobile workforce
• Securing your environment through desktop lockdown without simply causing a shift in the type of help desk calls
• Deploying software versions and patch updates easily and with extended reach to mobile workers
• Resolving help desk calls faster

Yet, many solutions that exist on the market today to help alleviate these issues become a burden themselves.  With some legacy systems, in 50% of the implementations, the time to roll the system out takes over six months.  And for every 5,000 desktops an organization must manage, they must have at least one full-time employee on staff to simple tend to the administration of the systems management servers. 

We'd like to hear from you - what are some of the  systems management challenges you are dealing with in your organization?  Are they the same issues as noted above, or do you have an entirely different set of challenges?