Spiceworks debuts security integrations

“More than 4 million IT professionals rely on Spiceworks for the tools, information and connections they need to do their jobs,” said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and COO of Spiceworks. “As the platform expands, Spiceworks is reshaping how IT professionals research, purchase and use technologies from their favorite brands.”

New security integrations and help desk plugins fuel growth in the platform
Following the introduction of Spiceworks 7 in September 2013, the company released version 7.1 of its free IT management application. The update includes performance enhancements to its IT inventory, help desk and mobile device management capabilities, as well as new ways for technology vendors to more seamlessly integrate their offerings with Spiceworks. The company also debuted four new help desk plugins that give IT professionals the ability to customise their Spiceworks help desk system to suit their needs.

To date, technology brands such as Microsoft, Rackspace, Dropbox and Google have integrated with Spiceworks to extend the functionality of the platform and provide IT professionals with the tools they need to manage their cloud services more efficiently. The platform continues to expand, and Spiceworks is introducing new security integrations that can help IT professionals address their data centre and endpoint security needs, all from within Spiceworks. These integrations include:

· AlienVault – AlienVault Threat Alerts in Spiceworks helps users identify and mitigate security threats on their network for free. Based on AlienVault’s Open Threat Exchange database, the integration allows IT professionals to scan network assets for connections with known malicious hosts, trigger alerts within Spiceworks for any issues that are found, and provide remediation advice.
· NetClarity – Built exclusively for Spiceworks, NetClarity’s Network Access Control enables Spiceworks users to block and/or take action against unwanted devices attempting to access their networks, including rogue wireless access points, hackers, and employee-owned devices entering the corporate network.
· Webroot – The integration of Webroot’s SecureAnywhere - Endpoint Protection with Spiceworks’ IT management platform enables IT professionals to receive real-time threat alerts, and view and manage endpoint security directly from Spiceworks.
Spiceworks is also adding four new help desk plugins to give IT professionals the ability to add new functionality to their ticketing system for free. Spiceworks’ plugin library consists of more than 300 plugins that have been downloaded over 600,000 times. New plugins include:
· Help Desk Responses – The Help Desk Responses plugin allows IT professionals to add a series of auto-responses to their ticketing system so they can more quickly respond to support requests from end users.
· Ticket Check Lists – This plugin gives Spiceworks users the ability to add to-do lists and checklists to individual help desk tickets. Doing so helps IT professionals manage complex support requests more efficiently.
· Custom Time for Tickets – With the Custom Time for Tickets plugin, IT professionals and service providers can customise the “time spent” field within a help desk ticket to detail, at a more granular level, how long they spent addressing a support issue.
· Remove Ticket Comment – The Remove Ticket Comment plugin gives IT professionals the ability to edit or remove comments from a help desk ticket.