Appliance Deployment Featured Article

Dell Software Group, a provider of system management solutions, in partnership with Dell KACE (News - Alert), a provider of software appliance deployment solutions, has launched ITNinja, an expanded version of its popular online IT community site for applications and OS deployment, AppDeploy.com.

AppDeploy has been one of the biggest IT community resources for software deployment best practices, with more than 450,000 monthly visitors. The site also features a community knowledge base that is continuously updated by IT professionals.

ITNinja builds on the success of AppDeploy, allowing community members to engage and share ideas through forums. The community site is also used to validate the results of a new Dell (News - Alert) KACE-sponsored Dimensional Research survey, “The Value of IT Communities.”

According to the survey, IT professionals are increasingly turning to online communities to get their work done more efficiently.  The survey revealed that 80 percent of IT professionals engage in online communities, with 70 percent of them visiting several times a week.

Furthermore, the survey emphasized the fact that online communities help IT professionals do their job more efficiently, with 95 percent of front-line professionals admitting this fact. The proliferation of social media has further simplified access to the support and knowledge base of these communities and has helped them participate in relevant discussions with peers. 

 “ITNinja builds on Dell’s established social media success to deliver a valuable community hub in which IT professionals can not only share tips and information but also form new connections with their industry colleagues,” said John Swainson, president, Software Group at Dell, in a statement.

“With one of the largest knowledge bases of software application topics on the Web, ITNinja will help the IT community find the answers to their software questions quickly so they can focus on innovation and do more,” Swainson added.

The ITNinja community is open to all who want to share information and answers to thousands of common problems that make critical IT decisions and support tough. The community portal mainly focuses on software application deployment techniques, configuration settings, and management solutions.

The new ITNinja upgrade will include an ever-growing database of software applications, a new activity feed highlighting users’ contributions, an engaging user reputation management system with gamification elements, and a new Q&A system that includes rich features for crowd-sourcing solutions to technical issues faced by IT professionals.

The new portal also integrates with Dell KACE Appliances, which enables customers to access the same information directly through the interface of their KACE Systems Management (News - Alert) Appliance Console, which acts as a quick reference for common system administration tasks.

Late last year, Dell KACE launched its new K-Series Advanced line of appliances. The new line of appliances complements Dell KACE's current portfolio of appliance deployment solutions for small business and enterprise appliances, and caters to the unique needs of IT organizations that are small and medium-sized.