SolarWinds’ Empower MSP Conference
About 250 MSPs from around the globe gathered last week in Orlando, Florida, for SolarWinds MSP’s Empower MSP conference.
MSPs were reintroduced to SolarWinds MSP and its latest capabilities, and received training on the company’s products. Two of the biggest issues covered during the conference were the need for MSPs to provide more security to their customers, and the importance of automation to increase efficiency and profit.
“Our mission is to make you succeed,” John Pagliuca, SolarWinds MSP’s general manager, told attendees. “We are 100 percent aligned. If you’re successful, we’re successful, if you’re profitable, we’re profitable.”
Scroll through our gallery below to see the highlights of this conference.
Dave Sobel, SolarWinds MSP’s senior director of community, welcomed attendees to the conference. He also shared his thoughts about where the evolution of the industry is leading and what ideas are being discussed as his company considers the future.
John Pagliuca, SolarWinds MSP’s general manager, told MSPs they can rely on the strength of his company.
“In my mind, change is good, but there needs to be a stable force and a stable vendor, a stable partner that you can rely on,” he said. “SolarWinds has a long history of being that partner, not just for the MSPs, but for 250,000 customers worldwide in over 180 countries.”
Greg Lissy, SolarWinds MSP’s vice president of product management, said the principle behind automation is to provide customers with techniques and/or tools to “make their lives easier, to make them more efficient, and to allow them to do more in less time.” The vendor’s Remote Monitoring & Management offering includes automation capabilities.
A panel of managed services security experts with SWC Technology Partners, Long View Systems, Onepath and Netsurit discussed the challenges MSPs are facing in meeting their customers’ growing demands for more security. A hot topic at the conference was whether MSPs should become MSSPs.
MSPs talk business during lunch in the Networking Lounge.
SolarWinds MSP offered demonstrations of its products in the Networking Lounge.
Major General Retired Brett Williams, former director of U.S. Cyber Command, and CSO/president of IronNet Security, showed attendees where the biggest cyber threats are coming from and the most effective defense.
In the Networking Lounge, Inbay, a vendor that provides a white-label offering for MSPs using a number of SolarWinds capabilities, talked to the partners about opportunities.
SolarWinds MSP’s user-experience team is focused on new ideas and concepts, and obtained feedback from MSPs during the conference.
CareWorx is both a SolarWinds MSP vendor and a client. It uses SolarWinds MSP’s products to manage a number of its clients, and has developed a ServiceNow-as-a-service for MSPs.
