A new 2.0 release of the Napera ActiveAgent for Windows and Mac is now available online. Our ActiveAgent is a lightweight installer that helps you configure Microsoft’s  NAP technology that is part of Windows, a task usually only achieved by the bravest of mortals with the appropriate degrees in rocket science. On Macintosh, the Napera ActiveAgent provides reporting capabilities for OS X overlooked by our friends in Cupertino.

The three most important features of our new agent are:

• Automatic agent self-updating for both Mac and Windows. Our agents now stay updated automatically, which is one less thing to worry about for the busy IT admin.
• Automatic registration to your Napera account for Mac and Windows agents. With a handful of mouse clicks PCs are up and running, reporting their status to Napera Insight. You no longer have to manually enter a registration code.
• We updated our Windows agent to use the standard Microsoft Windows installer which can be deployed silently using group policy if you desire.

If you installed the previous 1.0 release of the Napera agent, this new version can be installed right over the top. Additional information about the Napera agent is available in our customer support forum.

PC Security Informer now works with Google Apps, and can be added via Google Apps Marketplace. This is a great option for IT admins as companies continue to migrate core functions of their business to cloud based offerings. The Google Apps Marketplace combines multiple, synergistic cloud based offerings in a single location, with unified authentication and a common dashboard. Over two million businesses use Google Apps today, and since the launch of Google Apps Marketplace earlier this year, apps have been deployed to over a million users.

We’ve added OpenID authentication for administrator single-sign on from Google Apps. We will be adding additional integration features and new Napera Insight apps to the Google Apps Marketplace in the coming months.

To add PC Security Informer to your Google Apps account, visit the PC Security Informer page in the Google Apps Marketplace and select ‘Add it now’.

If you haven’t tried out Napera Insight yet, please sign up for our free 30 day trial and let us know what you think.

Seattle, WA – June 7, 2010 – Napera Networks (www.napera.com), a leading provider of cloud-based systems and network management applications, today announced the launch of PC Security Informer on the Google Apps Marketplace, the online storefront for Google Apps products and services. PC Security Informer is available immediately to over two million businesses that use Google Apps for messaging and collaboration. IT administrators can use PC Security Informer to continuously monitor Macintosh and Windows PCs, and quickly determine whether they pose a threat to a safe computing environment. PC Security Informer is part of Napera Insight, the company’s flagship online service that delivers enterprise-class systems and security management to small- and medium-enterprises.

“PC Security Informer is the first systems and network management application available via Google Apps Marketplace, and the easiest way for IT admins to know whether their company’s PCs are patched and have up-to-date antivirus, antispyware and desktop firewalls protecting them,” said Todd Hooper, CEO and founder of Napera Networks. “By combining Napera’s applications with Google Apps, we are enabling IT admins to enjoy enterprise functionality in a cloud computing service without the cost and complexity of traditional solutions.”

Powered by Napera ActiveAgents deployed on PCs and network devices, Napera Insight enables a family of cloud based solutions that monitor, inform and resolve everyday IT issues.  As the first app built for Napera Insight, PC Security Informer leverages existing antivirus and antispyware software to immediately inform an administrator when a desktop or laptop computer is a risk to their network and their business.

Google Apps administrators can enable PC Security Informer directly from the Google Apps Marketplace, using Google’s secure single sign-on. Napera plans to deliver additional Napera Insight applications for Google Apps during 2010.

Pricing and Availability

PC Security Informer for Google Apps is available immediately at http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/. A 30 day trial is available, and annual subscriptions start at $99.

About Napera Networks

Napera Networks is delivering a new breed of active network management services, powered from the cloud. Napera Insight, the company’s flagship offering, is an online service that delivers enterprise-class performance and security management to small- and medium enterprises. Napera Insight Apps can be instantly deployed and require zero-maintenance, making them ideal for busy network administrators. For more information, please visit www.napera.com.

Media Contacts:

Napera Networks

press@napera.com

PC Security Informer automatically emails you a daily report about your network at 7am in your local timezone. The daily issue report from PC Security Info covers any issues with your PCs such as users who haven’t installed the latest OS update. You can configure this report for PC Security Informer via the Notifications page under Account Settings to arrive daily or once a week for those who desire a little less in their inbox.

A typical daily report looks something like the following.

That’s great for canned reports, but what if you want Napera Insight to alert you about something when it happens? Custom lists created on the Network page can automatically trigger an alert when any parameters match a condition that you have specified. Currently eighteen different parameters can be checked, including PC centric info such OS update, antivirus, antispyware or firewall issues, as well as network information such as hostname, IP and MAC addresses, NIC vendors, OS types and more. This information is gathered from the Napera ActiveAgent as well as any Napera enabled switches deployed on the local network.

To create a new list, simply go to the Network page and select New List from the left hand column to get to the New Computer List page. Enter a name for your list, select one or more parameters that you wish to monitor, and how often you wish to be alerted. Each email alert generated by a list can be sent hourly, daily or weekly.

You can always see the contents of a list in real time by selecting it from the left hand column on the Network page, and you can fine tune or delete each list from the menu that appears next to each list name.

As an example, here is a list that alerts the admin within the hour if a Windows user disables their firewall.

If you are using a Napera enabled switch with our Switch Detective app, then lists can be used to alert on multiple parameters that the switch observes on the local network. The list below will alert you daily to any new iPhone users on your network.

For advanced users, you can also nest the lists recursively by selecting Computer List as one of the variables.

Too many emails? Every report and alert email contains a link to your Account Settings where you can configure all of your alerts and their timing. This can help you disable alerts that are not critical. If you need to share alerts with someone else, invite them from the Admins page for your Insight account and they will automatically receive reports and alerts.

New features include the following.

• PC Security Informer now has end-user advisory capabilities and a company portal. The Microsoft NAP agent will display an alert on the task bar to inform users of any outstanding issues with their PC, and the NAP agent provides a link to the Napera portal for more information. Here’s an example of what it looks like on Windows for an end user who has disabled their firewall, which puts their PC at risk.

• The administrator can customize the Napera portal by selecting Account Settings>Portal. The admin can also see the portal status from the detail page for any PC. Future releases will provide expanded portal functionality for communicating with end users.

• Users of Switch Detective can now select installation of the Napera ActiveAgent on Windows or alternatively use the built-in Microsoft NAP agent only for quicker deployments.

• Email reports and the Napera Insight dashboard have been improved.

• New features for the Napera ActiveAgent for Windows and Mac include automatic updating capabilities. New agent downloads will be available online next week.

If you haven’t tried out Napera Insight yet, please sign up for our free 30 day trial and let us know what you think.

“SaaS applications clearly are no longer seen as a new deployment model by our survey base, with almost half of those surveyed affirming use of SaaS applications in their business for more than three years,” said Sharon Mertz, research director at Gartner.

In terms of investment levels in SaaS solutions over the next two years, survey respondents gave encouraging responses for software and service providers, with on average 53 percent of organizations expecting to increase investment levels slightly and 19 percent significantly.

This fits with the mood we saw at Interop last week, with SaaS offerings and the rise of the cloud computing paradigm no longer seen as something novel, but rather as viable alternatives to traditional deployment models.

In terms of exactly what customers will be buying in the future, this IDC enterprise IT spending report predicts that customer spending on cloud IT services will be $42.3 billion by 2012, with infrastructure offerings such as Napera Insight second only to business applications.

More details are available in “User Survey Analysis: Software as a Service, Enterprise Application Markets, Worldwide, 2010,” on the Gartner website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1337828.

The Napera team will be at Interop 2010 in Las Vegas next week, giving private demonstrations of Napera Insight.

Contact us via sales@napera.com if you would like to meet up and see the future of cloud based network management.

The first news occurred just before RSA, when enterprise vendor Citrix Systems announced GoTo Manage, based on their recent Paglo Labs acquisition. GoTo Manage offers remote surveillance, control and support of IT infrastructure in the cloud, with the Citrix philosophy of ’simpler is better’. The Citrix Online offering is priced around $1 per network device per month and performs network discovery, monitors data from network devices and provides a cloud based search engine for logs. GoTo Manage is an interesting product that fits well with Citrix Online’s popular GoTo MyPC service.

Just yesterday, our neighbors in Redmond announced a public beta of Microsoft Intune, their cloud based desktop PC management service. Windows Intune is designed for small and medium businesses to manage updates, monitor Windows and track assets. Microsoft have taken a different approach to Citrix and under the hood, Intune is based on a number of existing Microsoft enterprise technologies such as WSUS, System Center Operations Manager, App-V and Microsoft’s own anti-malware software. As a result, Intune has a reasonably heavy footprint on each PC. The beta release of the agent clocks in at over eight megabytes, requires multiple reboots to install and started no less than seven new processes on my Windows 7 PC when I tried it out.

The Intune beta has a number of technical limitations, such as supporting only a single anti-malware product instead of the vendor neutral approach that Napera Insight offers. Eschewing HTML, the Microsoft team opted for a Silverlight based interface, which is fast but can be frustrating if you are used to right clicking and copying information from Web pages. Although pricing has not been announced, the final release of Microsoft Intune will also include upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise, indicating that Intune is likely to be aimed at the top end of the market. Regardless of the beta limitations and pricing, entry of Microsoft into this market is certainly a milestone.

A number of other vendors have also dipped their toes in the SaaS pool recently, with Quest Software releasing beta versions of Quest OnDemand, and Shavlik announcing a beta of it.shavlik.com for SaaS-based discovery and reporting of assets, and security updates. Several other players in the network and systems management market are sitting on the sidelines and have yet to announce any SaaS initiatives, but the year is still young!

Another new release for Napera Insight , our cloud based network management platform, is planned for Tuesday April 6th. This is our second update since Napera Insight shipped in March.

Once again, PC Security Informer got most of the new features. We’ve added better ways to share agent install instructions with your users, including preformatted email and chat messages. You can click Add a PC from the dashboard, or access the same functions from the apps page for PC Security Informer.

The geolocation features released last month have been improved to provide more info at a glance.

You will notice a new Apps menu in the navigation bar, under which all applications for Napera Insight are now displayed. This is the future home of our expanded app portfolio which we will be rolling out in the coming months. For now, Apps displays the PC Security Informer and Switch Detective apps only. Tip: you can quickly access the settings for any app by clicking Configure in the app summary on the dashboard.

Usability and performance improvements are a big focus of every new Insight release. The dashboard and computer lists have been improved, and we also tweaked the integrated GetSatisfaction feedback widget to more accurately display items related to Napera Insight. In addition, we fine tuned the rate at which remote PCs report to the online service in order to conserve connection bandwidth where possible.

Please sign up for the trial and let us know what you think.

Our PC Security Informer app got most of the attention in this release. All remote PC’s reporting in via the Napera ActiveAgent now display geolocation based on their IP address. For our customers using Mac’s, we now check each Mac is configured to require a password when logging in, a common Mac security issue in an office environment.

Switch Detective now displays Active Directory domain and PC names as they are detected, as well as noting any Active Directory, DHCP and DNS servers observed on the local network.

For iPhone users, the Insight dashboard offers better compatibility with the iPhone’s Safari browser. We’ve also improved the readability of our emails and fixed some display issues in Outlook 2007.

If you haven’t tried out Napera Insight yet, please sign up for the trial and let us know what you think.