VMworld
2020 goes digital. Will you be in attendance? If the event were
physical, I would have looked forward to visiting with Lakeside Software. So we
reached out to them digitally instead.
With the current pandemic, we're seeing a lot of changes taking place
in our normal, everyday lives -- both professionally and personally.
One of those changes is the end of physical trade show events as we move
to socially distance ourselves from one another. While some trade
shows simply cancelled or postponed until 2021, others have made the
switch to a 100% digital format. VMworld, the world's largest
virtualization and cloud computing event hosted every year by VMware, is
one of those shows -- enter for the first time ever, VMworld 2020 Digital.
While a physical VMworld event would normally have north of 150+
sponsors, a digital VMworld event won't be able to effectively support
that number of sponsors.
Lakeside Software is a leader in digital experience monitoring. Their product, SysTrack, gathers and analyzes data on everything that may impact end-user experience and business productivity. SysTrack captures data such as CPU, disk, memory, and other 10,000+ data points.
So what about you? Are you gearing up for VMworld
2020 digital? Get started now by
reading this exclusive interview with Heather Bicknell, Product Marketing Manager,
Lakeside Software to learn more and
start
getting excited for what's to come!
VMblog: What are
your thoughts on the shift to working from home? How has it changed things for
your company both internally and externally?
Heather Bicknell: It's hard to imagine-let alone prepare for-the scale and
duration of disruption caused by a global pandemic until you're in it. But
being a technology company on the advanced end of the digital transformation spectrum
enabled our global staff to transition to working from home pretty seamlessly. We'd
participated in an early adopters' program for Microsoft Teams, so that level
of integrated productivity and digital collaboration has been part of our
culture for years. Coupled with virtualization, mobile devices, and a healthy
dose of SaaS, I don't find myself missing the in-office technology experience-but
I do miss the people.
Another reason why we might've been able to adjust so
quickly is that we've been helping our customers through this shift as well,
which has kept us busy. In March, we helped customers assess their
work-from-home preparedness and make plans to enable tens of thousands of employees
to work effectively at home. Since then, the need to troubleshoot remote
performance issues and understand whether employees' needs are being met has continued.
We're glad that we've been able to provide this value, especially to our
customers in healthcare and retail who've been supporting all of us on the
front lines.
VMblog: Can you
give us the high-level rundown of your company's technology offerings?
Bicknell: Lakeside Software develops a digital experience monitoring
solution called SysTrack that analyzes and reports data on anything and
everything impacting end-user experience. SysTrack works across platforms and
devices, providing complete visibility into the environment. It also integrates
machine learning and automation to help IT find important insights faster and
resolve problems proactively. Customers commonly use SysTrack for remote work
monitoring, desktop transformation assessment and planning, asset optimization,
and AIOps.
VMblog: Talking
about your product solutions, can you give readers a few examples of how your
offerings are unique? What are your
differentiators?
Bicknell: A few ways SysTrack is unique from other IT monitoring
solutions include:
- Endpoint
instrumentation: SysTrack collects usage and performance data from the
place where work happens, whether a physical or virtual desktop. This is
essential for gaining a full understanding of end-user experience and
productivity.
- Depth
and breadth of data: SysTrack collects over 10,000 metrics every 15 seconds
(CPU, memory, disk, IOPS, etc.) while consuming less than 1% system CPU.
- End-user
experience score: SysTrack calculates a unique high-level KPI for
understanding the quality of experience users are receiving from technology.
-
Scalability: SysTrack supports
deployments of over 400,000 seats.
-
Work-from-home support: SysTrack works
with endpoints that aren't domain-joined (like an employee's home computer).
Telemetry continues even when a user is offline.
-
Flexible deployment: SysTrack is available
as a cloud or on-premises solution.
-
Privacy and compliance controls: Robust centralizedpolicy
and auditcontrolsfordata collection and access.
-
Rich partnerships and integrations:
SysTrack is the leading assessment tool for virtual desktop readiness and
transformation.
VMblog: For those
individuals attending the VMworld 2020 digital event, or those who have
attended VMworld in the past, why should they be interested in your company and
solutions?
Bicknell: If you're looking for ways to streamline IT costs,
accelerate troubleshooting, or understand how IT can better support employee
productivity, you may benefit from digital experience monitoring. One public
sector client recently saw a 19x ROI through rationalizing software alone based
on SysTrack's insights. Lakeside offers a variety of free assessments, so it's
quick and easy to test out the technology and see if it might provide value to your
organization.
You can get started with a free SysTrack assessment at cloud.lakesidesoftware.com.
VMblog: What specifically
does your company offer a VMware shop or VMware implementation?
Bicknell: Lakeside supports the full VDI journey with endpoint monitoring
and insights, helping IT answer questions like:
-
Are virtual desktops and apps right for my
organization?
-
Which users are a good fit for virtual desktops?
-
How can I maximize density without sacrificing
performance?
-
How can I judge the success of my deployment?
-
What problems are my users having and how can I
resolve them?
SysTrack integrates with VMware Horizon, vSphere, vRealize
Operations, App Volumes, AirWatch, and VMware Cloud on AWS.
VMblog: Normally,
VMworld is the time of year that people in this industry announce a new product
or product update. Do you have anything
new that you've recently announced or plan to announce? Can you give us the details?
Bicknell: Yes! We're excited to announce the latest version of our
product, SysTrack 9.0.7. Building on the groundbreaking unified endpoint
monitoring and automation capabilities released last year with SysTrack 9.0,
this new release includes enhancements such as extended data collection,
Chromebook support, UI updates, change analysis and benchmarking, and more. You
can see it in action by requesting a demo at www.lakesidesoftware.com.
Lakeside was also recently named in Gartner's Market Guide
for Digital Experience Monitoring, which you can read more about here.
VMblog: How does
your company work with VMware? Where do
you fit within the VMware ecosystem?
Bicknell: Lakeside's been an ISV partner of VMware's for many years
and we continue to enjoy a strong partnership. We've run hundreds of
assessments for organizations planning a migration to Horizon and we have many
shared customers who monitor their VMware estate with SysTrack.
VMblog: VMware will
be covering things in their keynote, but what big changes do you see taking
shape in the industry?
Bicknell: Beyond specific technologies, we're noticing an increased
focus on IT's role in the employee experience, which is long overdue. It's time
that organizations treat employees with as much care as they treat their
customers-not only to unleash productivity, but also to increase engagement,
reduce turnover, and eliminate unnecessary stress through these already
challenging times.
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