Autotask Integrates With Performance Monitoring Firm LogicMonitor

IT Infrastructure monitoring company LogicMonitor has struck an integration deal with IT management platform provider Autotask, the companies said.

Integration will allow for two-way interaction and syncing data between LogicMonitor and Autotask's service desk, said Kevin McGibben, CEO of LogicMonitor, an 80-person firm based in Santa Barbara, Calif. This will make it easier for solution providers to address customers' IT problems without having to manually re-enter information.

"I think this provides a real clear value," McGibben said.

[Related: Managed Services Move: Autotask Acquires Cloud-Based RMM Player CentraStage]

Customers had been requesting more seamless communication between LogicMonitor's performance-monitoring and outside IT management platforms so that each wouldn't have to be managed on a separate app, McGibben said.

In addition to taking much manual effort out of the daily operation of IT service companies, McGibben said the integration will make it easier to anticipate service issues in advance. Plus any new devices added to an Autotask customer's environment can be automatically monitored by LogicMonitor and serviced with alerting and escalation services.

Roughly a third of LogicMonitor's customers are IT service providers, McGibben said, with the rest being midsize-to-large enterprise companies in the web technology or IT operations space.

Autotask already had integration agreements with eight to 10 remote management and monitoring (RMM) platforms, said Len DiConstanzo, senior vice president of community and business development. However, the East Greenbush, N.Y., company felt LogicMonitor could offer its existing customers more functionality in monitoring databases and web applications than most traditional RMMs.

A webinar is planned for late September or early October to familiarize existing Autotask and LogicMonitor customers with what the other company has to offer, DiConstanzo said.

iVision of Atlanta already used Autotask's service desk and was looking for a new monitoring platform when it heard about the impending deal, said Eric Aslaksen, iVision's chief technology officer.

The arrangement will provide iVision, a 115-person full-service technology firm with $46 million in annual revenue, with greater flexibility for setting alerts and monitoring customer problems, Aslaksen said, since tickets can be opened with either the host name, product ID number or other pieces of information.

And when it comes time to close a ticket, Aslaksen said he can do so directly through Autotask without returning to LogicMonitor.

Autotask also allows customers to set thresholds so that iVision engineers will be alerted once a certain number of tickets have been filed about the same issue, Aslaksen said.

Aslaksen expects the integration to make it easier for iVision to become aware of, and process, customer issues, ultimately boosting its performance on service-level agreements.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 11, 2014