RapidFire Tools has introduced a new module for its Network Detective solution that’s designed to help MSPs inventory and secure Microsoft cloud environments.
Called the Network Detective Microsoft Cloud Assessment Module, the system automatically documents all of the domains, organizations, and services in a customer’s Azure Active Directory and collects usage and configuration information from core Microsoft 365 applications, including Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint.
While available in Microsoft’s administrative tools already, such information is difficult to find and collate, according to Michael Mittel, president and general manager of RapidFire Tools, which is a business unit of IT management software vendor Kaseya.
“It requires many, many clicks and drill downs,” he says. “I would guess that what could potentially take an IT person an entire day to collect you can do with a push of a button with Network Detective in under an hour,” he says.
Channel pros can use the data assembled by the new tool both to enhance their oversight of a client’s Microsoft cloud environment and to guide regular conversations about security needs and future spending priorities. The system’s customer-ready Microsoft cloud security report, for example, augments Microsoft’s own Secure Score assessment with its own, deeper breakdown of potentially dangerous settings and activities, while also benchmarking clients against norms at similarly sized organizations.
“Instead of the IT person going through after collecting this information and looking through it, correlating it, [and] analyzing it, we do that through our analysis engine on an automated basis,” Mittel says.
An additional client risk report assigns a risk score to end users. The management report, meanwhile, prioritizes risks and helps users track the progress of their mitigation efforts. “They’re able to look at that over time to see that those issues were cleaned up and are no longer a threat,” Mittel says.
The Microsoft Cloud Assessment Module is the first Network Detective component to evaluate online, rather than on-premises, environments. Both capabilities were critical before the coronavirus pandemic, Mittel notes, when most SMBs were already using a mix of onsite and offsite solutions, but have only become more essential now that closed offices and physical distancing guidelines have large numbers of people accessing corporate resources from home via the cloud.
“There’s a huge number of risk-related issues, because the user has more flexibility with setting their own configuration parameters and other features,” he says.
As with other Network Detective products, users pay a flat fee for unlimited use of the Microsoft cloud module at each physical office address they maintain. Promotional pricing available through the end of the month allows MSPs to buy a full year of service for $199 a month. Starting in August, that rate rises to $299 a month.
“It’s a relatively inexpensive tool for the MSP, and it’s a fixed price that the MSP can plan for and budget for,” Mittel says.
RapidFire Tools has further cloud assessment modules for Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform in development. Both will be available late this year or early in 2021. The company is also working on functionality that will allow users to run periodic re-assessments of client environments automatically at scheduled intervals.
The Microsoft Cloud Assessment Module is not the first addition to Network Detective this year. In April, RapidFire Tools rolled out the Network Detective Work from Home Solution, which helps MSPs assess the security of the personally owned PCs many remote employees are relying on present to get their jobs done.
