In this month's Gears release, codenamed Mississippi, we're making it even easier to manage and monitor diverse groups of endpoints by providing new grouping options and assessment enhancements to the devices and the device log. Read the release, and contact us if you have any questions or would like an advance preview of Gears Mobile and the Linux client.
CODE NAME "Mississippi" includes:
- Automatic machine grouping
- View installed software and versions
- Gears for Linux and mobile now in preview
- Other fixes and enhancements
Automatic Machine Grouping
When handling large or distributed networks consisting of multiple deployments, providing centralized management can get messy if proper organization structures are not in place. Without some sort of organization process, endpoint management and monitoring efforts can get overly tedious.
OPSWAT Gears makes handling remote and mobile workforces easy. For companies with many branch locations, Gears now makes grouping as simple as changing the name of the installer before running it on the target endpoint. Each device is given a nickname, automatically generated from the device's hostname, and will append the group name (if any) to that nickname for filtering in our UI. The device APIs have also been enhanced with this group name parameter in the response. This type of pre-tagging is ideal for monitoring devices that aren't in Active Directory and don't have an AD-assigned Organizational Unit. For example, by taking the Gears installer and appending '-Branch1234' to the file name, any devices installed using that installer will automatically be tagged with "Branch1234" in the Gears console UI and APIs.
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By grouping all related devices automatically, administrators can have a better overview of their devices; incorporating department, branch or location labels allows easier monitoring and auditing of endpoint configuration status.
View Installed Software and Versions
In order to monitor personal devices for security reasons or manage corporate endpoints, administrators need a way to gather information quickly and easily. Our device policies and monitoring already include security applications and unwanted applications, which are applications that are deemed unwanted due to their inherent security risks or network policies, and we've now extended this monitoring function to many other software categories.
With the new "other" section, located within the individual device's profile, IT administrators will be able to see all other installed software and its version (security applications and unwanted applications haven't moved). This added visibility allows administrators to identify out-of-date or risky software that needs to be removed or updated, and to perform organization-wide audits on specific applications and versions.
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What kind of software do we detect and report in this 'other' section? A typical system would show Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Office, Oracle Java and more. And as usual, this data can be seen in either the Gears management console, or taken directly from our Open API.
Gears for Linux and Mobile now in Preview
We are happy to announce that the Gears app for Android™ and Linux monitoring agents are now in preview! The app is currently in preview while we add the ability to manage it from the cloud the Gears Cloud. So download the Android app today, or sign up for the waitlist to be notified as soon as the app is available for iOS. And please don't forget to let me know if you would like to participate in the preview for Gears for Linux!
Other Fixes & Enhancements
- Windows 10 devices are automatically exempt from 'Automatic Update' policy item because automatic updates for security patches cannot be disabled on Windows 10 (only feature upgrades can be deferred)
- Guest devices are now included in the Gears inventory reports
