Nerdio's 2024 product initiatives
When Nerdio was first founded, our mission was to empower MSPs (managed service providers) to succeed with virtual desktops in Microsoft Azure. This was before the days of AVD and Windows 365, and our technology focused on provisioning, managing, and optimizing RDS environments in Azure. Nerdio’s mission and capabilities have expanded drastically since those early days.
Our technology evolved from helping MSPs with virtual desktops to empowering IT professionals in all industries across the globe to succeed with desktop-as-a-service using AVD and Windows 365. However, we didn’t stop there — we expanded Nerdio’s award-winning management, automation, and cost optimization capabilities beyond DaaS to include physical endpoints with Intune, innovative application delivery using native Microsoft technology, simplified management of Microsoft Defender for Endpoints, infusion of Generative AI and machine learning capabilities, and implementation of Console Connect to enable MSPs to remotely manage user devices.
Since the release of Nerdio Manager for Enterprise in March 2020 and Nerdio Manager for MSP in April 2021, both products have seen dozens of releases and hundreds of new, innovative features driven by our customers’ and partners’ feedback. Today, I’m extremely proud to announce major new releases of both products: Nerdio Manager for Enterprise (NME) version 6.0 and Nerdio Manager for MSP (NMM) version 5.0. Both NME and NMM advance Nerdio’s mission of simplifying the lives of IT professionals and helping them maximize their organizations’ Microsoft Cloud and end-user computing investments.
At Nerdio, we pride ourselves on being an outside-in company when it comes to product innovation. We work hard to create as many opportunities to receive feedback from our customers and partners as possible. Collecting this feedback and rapidly turning it into software updates is what allows us to continuously innovate and delight our customers. Customers frequently tell us how impressed they are with Nerdio not only listening to their input, but how rapidly we deliver the features they ask for. It is as a result of being an outside-in company that we were able to create NME v6 and NMM v5 with so many amazing new capabilities and enhancements to existing features.
We started 2024 with three major product initiatives that underpin this year’s product strategy:
1. Infuse AI into all products
Nowadays, AI is top of mind topic for many. Generative AI has demonstrated some of the possibilities of what can be achieved. Nerdio is building GenAI into our products to help with contextual support, scripted action creation, and report generation. However, beyond GenAI, cloud environments are treasure troves of valuable data that can be used with machine learning to continuously optimize the infrastructure and detect anomalies.
2. Innovate with virtual desktop management
Nerdio started our journey with virtual desktop management, and we continue to make significant investments to make the lives of AVD admins better through automation and continuous, proactive optimization.
3. Expand management beyond Azure infrastructure
Our customers and partners have been clear in their requests of wanting Nerdio’s easy approach to management to apply to other technologies in their stack. We’re continuing to build management capabilities on top of Microsoft Intune to enable broad endpoint management, especially for MSPs in multi-tenant scenarios. We’re also making significant investments in optimizing application management and delivery for both virtual and physical endpoints. Microsoft Defender security suite is another major area of investment this year.
Nerdio Manager for Enterprise version 6
For years, NME has been known as a platform that delivers best-in-class cost optimization with customers saving as much as 75% in Azure costs relative to an unoptimized deployment. New NME cost optimization features extend far beyond basic stop-and-start VM auto-scaling. Storage optimization of Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, Log Analytics, OS disk swapping, Advanced Predictive Drain Mode, and multiple scaling triggers are just some examples of what Nerdio Manager can do to closely match the Azure infrastructure to user demand in real time.
Over the past few years, customers have told us that although they value the cost optimization capabilities of NME, the greater benefit they derive from the platform is management automation. Nerdio’s simplified, automation-driven admin capabilities give IT pros back multiple hours in their days and the confidence that the necessary tasks will be performed in a predictable manner and can even self-recover if unexpected issues arise. Simplifying the lives of IT professionals fits squarely into our mission, and we continue to invest in simplifying and automating management while proactively reducing Azure costs.
Here are a few examples of the new Nerdio Manager for Enterprise capabilities in v6:
General availability of host pool and individual VM right-sizing
Last year, we introduced a suite of capabilities called Nerdio Advisor. These are used to model an AVD deployment to fully understand the costs before deploying any Azure resources and to continuously optimize an existing deployment while recommending changes that can improve costs and/or performance. Host pool and VM right-sizing monitors utilization of an AVD environment and determines if VMs are oversized or undersized for the actual user demand that they are supporting.
New VM size recommendations are provided that will increase performance and/or decrease costs along with an impact analysis of making the change. Changes can be implemented non-disruptively directly from the recommendation by scheduling the update to VM size to occur outside of business hours.
AVD on Azure Stack HCI
Customers have been waiting for AVD support for Azure Stack HCI to become generally available, and it finally is. Many VDI workloads cannot yet move to the cloud and must remain on-premises due to latency or compliance requirements. Azure Stack HCI allows organizations to keep these VDI workloads on-premises while taking advantage of the Azure Virtual Desktop brokering service.
NME can now be used to deploy, manage, and optimize on-premises AVD deployments running on Azure Stack HCI. Nerdio’s simple management UI and automation can be used to manage cloud, on-prem, or hybrid AVD environments. AVD on HCI is priced on a per-core-per-hour basis, and Nerdio’s auto-scaling for personal and pooled host pools helps optimize costs and hardware utilization.
AssistPro (public preview) and ScriptPro (coming soon) GenAI assistants
In line with our 2024 product initiative of infusing Nerdio products with AI, we’re adding several GenAI assistants. AssistPro is aware of Nerdio Management documentation and can answer support and how-to questions without the need to submit a service request. ScriptPro is an expert in Azure and Windows scripting and understands how scripted actions in NME work. It generates scripted actions that can perform any Azure shell or Windows PowerShell task, such as installing software, disabling services, configuring Azure resources, and much more.
Config Manager (SCCM) application connector for Unified App Catalog
Unified App Management enables IT pros to consolidate application delivery from a single catalog using existing app repositories. Apps can then be delivered to virtual and physical Windows endpoints on demand or via policies. Version 6 adds the capability of integrating an existing SCCM deployment to be discoverable by the Unified App Catalog in NME and delivering apps to endpoints or migrating apps to private Package Manager repositories in Azure.
Enhanced FinOps user cost attribution by host pool for show back and charge back
Controlling cloud spend starts with visibility. While Azure provides cost management capabilities, viewing precise Azure costs (including shared components) on a per-user or per-host pool basis remains a significant challenge. This is where NME’s FinOps user cost attribution reporting comes in. It allocates the actual Azure costs from all components, including shared ones, to individual users based on each user’s usage pattern. The new enhanced FinOps charge back and show back capability provides per-host pool, in addition to per-user, cost attribution and an enhanced PowerBI connector.
There are many other new features in NME v6 in addition to the above highlights. Check out the latest release notes for more info.
New Nerdio Manager for Enterprise packaging
With the ever-expanding product functionality, we received customer feedback that our current packaging wasn’t perfectly meeting their needs. Therefore, I’m happy to introduce new packaging for NME features. Premium will remain as the edition that includes all NME features. The current Standard edition is retiring and will be replaced by the new Core edition.
We’re making this change to better align with the needs of the market. Nerdio Manager’s primary value is to simplify and enhance management through automation, and therefore all management-enhancing features will now be part of the Core edition. This includes features like API, custom RBAC roles, PowerShell module, and many others. Everything that simplifies the lives of IT pros responsible for administration is now part of all product editions.
The Premium edition extends the core value of simplifying management with additional features that deliver even deeper Azure cost savings. Advanced features like storage optimization, enhanced compute scaling, and continuous cost optimization recommendations will be part of the Premium edition. The Premium edition also offers capabilities that large, complex enterprise environments require, such as Azure Capacity Extender, Azure API Limit Booster, cross-sovereign Azure cloud deployments, and advanced end-user self-service portal.
Updated pricing
When Nerdio Manager for Enterprise was launched years ago, its pricing was set and has not yet been updated. Since then, there have been dozens of new releases with hundreds of new features added. As part of the version 6 release and updated Core and Premium packaging, the NME pricing will be updated to $6/MAU for Core edition and $10/MAU for Premium edition.
Existing customers
If you’re an existing NME customer, the above changes do not affect you at this time. Please contact our Customer Success team to discuss what these changes mean to you.
Nerdio Manager for MSP version 5
Nerdio’s journey began with helping MSPs succeed with RDS virtual desktops in Azure. Over the last 4 years, our mission and capabilities have evolved dramatically. Nerdio Manager for MSP (NMM) is now much more than an AVD deployment, management, and optimization platform. It is becoming a complete Microsoft cloud management platform for MSPs that encompasses administration of Azure infrastructure, Intune endpoints, Entra ID identity, Defender security, and other Microsoft 365 suite components.
NMM’s mission is to be a modern, multi-tenant, workflow-powered cloud management platform helping MSPs accelerate deployments, simplify management across customers, and increase margins. To support this mission, we are launching new features in version 5 to broaden product capabilities and continue to enhance and deepen existing features.
Let’s take a look at some of these new innovations in v5:
Console connect (private preview)
Remote support of physical and virtual devices is an extremely common and valuable capability that MSPs rely on daily. We’ve heard repeatedly from our partners that they want the ability to remotely connect to servers, desktops, cloud PCs, and other such devices directly from within NMM. This is why we are thrilled to announce a way to do just that with Console Connect, a capability that allows technicians to remotely support end users across the entire customer base by sharing their screens on virtual or physical endpoints.
Console Connect can be used to administer any VM with admin rights with or without a connected user session. By default, users will have to authorize such a console connection. MSPs can also remotely connect to server VMs and manage them with admin rights.
Unified Application Management (general availability)
Expanding on the cross-tenant management capabilities, NMM now allows MSPs to centralize app storage for all their customers using native Microsoft Winget technology and deliver apps to some, or all, customers targeted by user, group, device, or device type. Using native Microsoft capabilities built into Windows 10 & 11 allows this to be achieved without any third-party agents that need to be pre-installed on the user devices.
Apps can be stored, managed, and updated at the MSP level, at the individual customer level, or both. App delivery policies are responsible for delivering the correct set of apps to the specified set of users/groups on the right set of devices. These devices can be AVD session hosts, cloud PCs, physical endpoints, or even mobile devices. Imagine updating an app version in your MSP repository once and having it automatically delivered to all customers via a policy that installs the latest version of the app.
Defender for Business
The breadth of NMM’s capabilities continues to expand with the introduction of Defender for Business (and Defender for Endpoint). Our MSP partners have told us that onboarding customers to Defender continues to be a complex process. Even though Defender is included in the M365 Business Premium suite, not enough MSPs have started using it. With NMM’s new Defender integration, MSPs will be able to more easily onboard customers to Defender for Endpoint, manage policies and monitor for configuration drift, and centrally remediate customer compliance across all tenants.
Solution Baselines
Baselines are a useful way to create best-practice configurations for customers and apply them at scale. These collections of settings can include Entra ID, Intune, Defender, and even NMM configurations. Starting with Defender for Endpoint policies, MSPs will now be able to customize baselines, apply them to all or select customers, and monitor desired configuration state drift. Solutions Baselines can also be configured to auto-remediate any configuration drift by forcing the correct setting.
Backup and Disaster Recovery of Policies
A lot of work goes into configuring a policy with the perfect mix of settings. However, sometimes accidental or malicious changes can wreak havoc on a customer’s environment with an incorrect policy setting. NMM’s new backup and restore capability allows MSPs to restore Intune policies, policy baselines, and user/device assignments that have changed or were removed.
This Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) feature offers daily snapshots at the customer and MSP levels, capturing essential information for optimal data recovery. The snapshots include custom policies, assignments, baselines, configurations, and tags at the MSP level and user/group assignments at the customer level. Admins can perform a selective or full-scale restore to a chosen restore point.
Reserved Instance Management
Based on feedback we’ve received from our MSP partners, we created this feature to guide Reserved Instance purchases based on recommendations, driving cost savings while ensuring that the right resources are available when they are needed.
Check out the complete release notes for NMM v5 to learn about other new features, such as GenAI assistants, Boot Diagnostics Insights, and Pre-Canned Global Views.
Partnering for innovation: your feedback fuels our growth
Nerdio Manager for Enterprise v6 and Nerdio Manager for MSP v5 bring tremendous innovation and capabilities to our customers and partners, and I am thrilled that Nerdio can continue making cloud management easier for IT professionals and help them maximize their investments in the Microsoft cloud and end-user computing. We will continue to invest in our products by not only expanding the breadth of capabilities, but also continuously deepening functionality within each area of the Microsoft cloud and technology stack.
However, all this is possible only because of the honest and valuable feedback that we consistently receive from our partners and customers. We pride ourselves on being an outside-in company that listens to our customers’ needs to create technology and address customer pain points in innovative and efficient ways. If you are already a Nerdio partner or customer, please continue making your voice heard through NME feature suggestions and NMM feature suggestions. If you’re not yet a customer, we’d love to hear from you as well and learn about what you need to simplify your cloud management and maximize your investment.
