Patch Management Enhancements – Robert Gibbons, NinjaOne

This is Techstrong tv. Hey everyone, it's Alan Shimmel, and we're back here at techstrong TV today. My next guest is Robert Gibbons.

Robert is the CT O Chief Technology Officer over at n Ninja One. Hey, Robert, welcome to techstrong tv man. How are you?

Thanks so much for having me, Alan. It's great to have you on here. So, you know, we, we, we speak to our fair share of, of CTOs, and, you know, CTOs in my mind, Robert, come from two different stock.

One is kind of the engineering cto, right, who's really the, he's a VP of engineering. He may in fact be like chief product officer as well, because he has a, a huge influence in the product direction of the company and stuff like that. And then there's another kind of cto, you know, more of a, a face for the company that does a lot of marketing opportunities, a lot of, you know, shaking hands and kissing babies and, and look, some CTOs do both.

So, not to sound like Lou Gossett an officer and a gentleman, but you know, only two things from Oklahoma. Which one are you, Robert? Well, well, I can say based on your framing, there's definitely one I'd rather be, um, and, and I, no, no, No.

You give me both. They're all good. This world, this world needs both.

No, it's true. Yeah. Um, well, I, I, I, I would say I'm, I'm the former of year two.

Uh, so I, I, uh, I started my, I have a, a business undergraduate degree, um, but also a master's in computer science. So I'm, I'm a okay. I can, uh, uh, in, in a prior life, um, at a, at a, at a another company, uh, Datto, who's also placed in this space.

Um, I oversaw both the product and the engineering function. Really? Yeah.

So classic, classic C P O with that. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, so, so that was, you know, there, there are certain stages of companies in my mind, um, you know, and, and I, I, I, I think of myself as, um, I'm not the one that you want when you have, uh, 10, 10 geniuses in the basement. Um, and I'm probably not the one that you want when you've got, um, 3000 engineers and your public. Um, I really enjoy the, the intermediate, um, the going from scrappy startup to big deal stage, as I call it.

Um, and that's, uh, that's where I, I played a, a a a a role at Datto. And, um, ninja is, is very much on that track. Um, you know, very similar size team.

Um, all, all of the, um, the growth opportunities that you'd expect, uh, you know, you call 'em growth challenges, right? But, um, going from, uh, uh, 50 engineers where everyone can still kind of keep everything in their head and understand how the whole product works, and how do you scale that to a team of, you know, in the hundreds where you need to start establishing sub-disciplines and your multi-product. Um, that's, that's the fun part for me.

So maybe I'm a masochist, I don't know, but, um, but that's the part of I, uh, No, I, I, look, those are interesting times, right? Yes. Very cool stuff.

So tell us the ninja, I'm gonna assume Ninja one is not a raw startup with just 10 engineers, but you don't have 3000 either. Um, Oh, no. Yeah, we we're, we're, we're much larger Than Ninja One.

Yeah, no, that was my, my personal bounding. Yeah, we're, uh, we're got, we're in the, in a couple of hundred in, in engineer range here. Um, and we're, we're in the process of going, um, kind of multi-product.

Um, I mean, ninja One was a company I was, I was very familiar with, um, when I was, when I was at the backup company, Datto, um, as an up and coming, uh, R m M provider. Um, and, and, and seeing, you know, during the pandemic, the importance of, of remote management, uh, monitoring management, not only to MSPs, which is really our core market, but also to corporate it, as you had more and more companies that were sending employees home. Well, hey, it turns out the feature set of an R M M is exactly what, uh, corporate IT needs, uh, to properly, uh, patch manage and support, uh, a remote workforce.

So, um, you know, that, that that's kind of ninja's journey now. Um, we're, we're introducing, um, you know, a a a, we have a, a, a backup product. Um, and, uh, and there'll be kind of more coming down the line.

Um, you know, the, our our most recent enhancements are around our patch management capability, which, which is something that is, is really critical, um, if a machine is not kind of coming into home base regularly. Uh, so happy to talk more about that or, or the journey or, you know, I'll, I'll let you leave the conversation though. Well, that, you know what, I, I really, I appreciate that, but I, I, uh, I like to have our guests.

It's your story, not my story. So you mentioned ninjas branching out into multiple products, not, don't say anything that's gonna get us both in trouble, Robert, but can you talk about, can you talk to that as well, or those that's still kind of in the formulation stages? No, I mean, I, I, I, I can talk about, uh, you know, certainly there, there's an ecosystem of products that corporate IT and that MSPs use, which is fairly well known.

Um, if, if you, if you think of, uh, you know, the, the, the key functionality you need, um, you certainly need the ability to, uh, to get telemetry from your endpoints. Um, uh, you also need the ability to, um, properly patch them, uh, to connect and assist users when they're, um, uh, when they're having problems. So, uh, you know, the in, instead of having to say, drive a truck out or, or, or meet with someone in person, um, how can we create a robust ability to, um, to connect to this machine, um, and, and, and do real time troubleshooting?

And then, uh, you know, something that, that we, we pay a ton of attention to, um, as, as everyone in this industry should, um, is is the, the, the risk that comes along with building a tool like that. And we take that really, really seriously. Um, you know, because we, we, we, we build both a powerful, um, and, and important tool that that's, that's required, but also that, um, you know, if our, if our processes weren't locked down, um, could have, could have bad side effects.

So we, we, we think about that almost every day. Excellent. Excellent.

Hey, before we jump into this, these new, the advancements you guys have come out in your, uh, patch management and mitigation tool, I wanna talk a little bit about the remote management market. I would imagine like, you know, there were a lot of winners and losers in Covid I here at techstrong, man, our virtual event business went through the roof because obviously people weren't going to in-person events. Mm-hmm.

And, and you know, it was, I mean, the, the, the horror of people losing their lives and friends of ours did, yeah. Is, is not to be outweighed obviously, but from a business point of view, it wasn't terrible for us. I would imagine a similar thing for remote management, right?

With everyone going remote, all of a sudden a remote management really became a must have capability in, in so many, so many organizations. Now we're seeing a little bit of a backlash about the work, the, you know, on the work from home crowd workers are still resisting going back to the office, but employers want people back in the office. I wonder how that, you know, do you see that playing out at Ninja One?

And, and if so, how? Yeah, so, so we're, we're fairly lucky in how we're positioned in that, um, the prior to the pandemic, um, the, it was well established, uh, primarily since we came, uh, you know, our, our, our core and our original market, uh, w w and we still are very focused on the MSP market. Um, that that was always a case of trying to manage endpoints when you're not in the building, right?

Um, we, we, we've expanded and, and we, we found that the solution that we built for MSPs also plays very well with, uh, with corporate, it internal it some at some higher frequency prior to the pandemic. Those, um, IT departments might have been co-located with people they were supporting. N n now everyone's, everyone's distributed.

Um, but the feature set that worked for MSPs in the past now also works for them just as well. Um, and corporate IT meaning the, um, uh, h h how do you deal with machines with endpoints that, uh, periodically go offline for extended periods of time, right? If I, if I go away on vacation for two weeks, um, I, is that, is that an alert that, um, the machines offline or is that a normal activity for a laptop?

These are things that corporate IT departments, when you had, back in the old days, you had workstations that were plugged in, you know, and, and, and kind of always available. You didn't really have to think about it as much cuz you could get your, your, your latest patches on Patch Tuesday out pretty quickly. Now you have to start to think about what's the right way to think about exceptions in a world where the machine's not always available.

Um, that's something MSPs have been dealing with for a long time and that we are really in a unique position to help corporate IT navigate. Um, h h how should they think about their, these endpoints that are now out at employee homes, right? And, and we're, we're agnostic to whether the employees come back to the office or they do a hybrid model or, or, or, or what.

Um, these are machines that still need to be protected and, uh, the, the service level for corp for, uh, for supporting the user is still very high. Got it. I, I would imagine, and I think, look, I think the future's hybrid anyway.

So I think remote management actually becomes even more important because you need a remote management, uh, solution that it's going to handle, you know, do anything from everywhere all at once. Like, like the movie, right? Yeah.

And, um, and, and that's an important piece of it. Hey, we, I know we had a specific agenda we were gonna cover and I guess maybe we should return to it. And that is Ninja One recently, uh, announced the debut of some new advancements in their patch management, uh, capabilities to mitigate, mitigate security vulnerability.

Talk to us about it. Yeah, no, I'd be happy to. So, so PA patch management ha has always been a core part of, of our RMM product.

Um, if, if you think about remote monitoring and management, the, the management aspect has a, has a, a couple of ways to to think about that. One is, um, managed through a crisis, but really a managed machine is one that is that, that, that a central authority, whether it's an s p or corporate IT group, can, can set, you know, this is our policy around patching. This is our, these are our access controls.

This is how we think about, um, uh, uh, antivirus and malware scanning. Um, and, and so we, we've always had that as a core part. Um, more recently we've expanded, um, uh, in, in, in the last, uh, in the last few months, um, extensively our, our support for, for, uh, for, for Linux patching.

Um, the, there's the, these don't tend to be as many user workstations, but, um, when someone invests in our solution, they want it to, uh, essentially manage the, the whole of the infrastructure. So it's, it's important for us as a company to be able to not only support the 95% of endpoints that are out there, but also the, the one, you know, or two Linux boxes that are in the corner or the, the few workstations that are there. And, and do that with a robust patch management.

And, and the other area that we're, we're particularly excited about is, um, you know, we've done this for, on the window side for a while, which is, um, the, the, the kind of the, the, the basics, uh, the table stakes for patching are that you can patch, uh, uh, uh, windows itself or, or back os itself. Um, the, the next order, the next generation of, of capability there is, um, patching third party software. So in, in, in, in, uh, windows, it's often called line of business software, you know, and it's, it's, uh, everything from, if you're running, you know, if you're a franchisee and you're running a kiosk managed by a small M S P, you've got some corporate software on there all the way up to, uh, uh, you know, an enterprise that also has its own corporate software that has its own patch cycle that, um, that, that, that, that I, it or the msp, uh, wants to be able to, to manage.

And, uh, as we've seen a rise of max in our, in our user population, um, there's definitely been, uh, more and more requests for, uh, can you manage, uh, third party software from a patching perspective. Um, the, the, there's also, uh, so, so those are kind of first two functionalities. I'll, I'll just briefly cause I, I don't want us to be like, uh, just, uh, you know, a press release.

But, um, the, the, the third critical area that we, we heard about a lot during the pandemic was, um, and, and I, this I think is a shift from, uh, pre pandemic to, to post, which is, um, pre pandemic. There was also often a paradigm. I I had a few clients that, uh, would have a, you know, leave your, your laptop or your endpoint, uh, uh, in the office on Wednesdays, and that's when we're gonna do patching, right?

And, um, and, and now that's much more difficult to try to coordinate if everyone's at home. And so the flexibility around patching, um, you know, I, I often think in the extreme cases, uh, and this is something we, we think through all day long, um, what happens when a machine hasn't, uh, it's been off cuz you've been a away on sabbatical for a couple of weeks, or, you know, or, or, or taken a vacation. You open up your machine.

Um, w is there a minimum patch set that must be applied before you can do any work? And then what is the best effort, uh, uh, patching that we wanna apply over the next few days? Um, kind of a as, as as possible.

And, and how do you segment that? How do you properly schedule it? So there, there's been a lot of attention, long story short on, um, proper, uh, patch scheduling flexibility.

Fair enough. Very cool. Hey, Robert, you know, these are 15 minute interviews and we've been on longer than that already.

For people who wanna find out more about Ninja one and maybe, you know, dive into this a little bit more, where where can they go? com has, has a kind of, you know, extensive information about what we're working on. Um, we are, we are always recruiting.

So I I, I would be remiss if I didn't take an opportunity just to, uh, if you're, uh, if you're, uh, an, an, an awesome superstar out there and you're looking for your next big gig, um, ninja one might be your home. So check out our career board and, um, uh, you know, that's, that's I I I I, I direct you to our, to our public facing, uh, website. Sorry, it's kind of a, a very, uh, in my, my view, a a very r wrote and, and laman answer.

But that's kind of where, where we No, No, that, Hey, that's the on-ramp, right? You need, that's the on-ramp. Yeah.

You need to An Easy on-Ramp. Robert, I want to thank you for coming on here and sharing with us today on techstrong tv. It's a pleasure to have you continued success over at Ninja One, man.

Thank you so much, Alan. Have a great day. All Righty.

Robert Gibbons, CTO at Ninja One here on Techstrong tv. We're gonna take a break and we'll be back in a moment.