What's new in version 11.1 (4306296)

KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) is a virtual appliance designed to automate device management, application deployment, patching, asset management, and Service Desk ticket management.

This release of the KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA) includes the following features and enhancements:

• Device Communications
• Patching
• Infrastructure
• Service Desk

NOTE: For more information on new features, known/resolved issues, or installation instructions, please see the 11.1 Release Notes and Administrator Guide.

To download version 11.1, please see the 11.1 Downloads.

For any additional questions or assistance, please contact technical support.

What's New in 11.1 Videos

• KACE Kontinuing Education (KKE): What's New - SMA 11.1 - Dell Updates (332639)
• KACE Kontinuing Education (KKE): What's New - SMA 11.1 - Linux Package Upgrades (332640)
• KACE Kontinuing Education (KKE): What's New - SMA 11.1 - Service Desk Categories (332641)
• KACE Kontinuing Education (KKE): What's New - SMA 11.1 - Agent Shortcuts (332642)

Feature Highlights of the 11.1 release

Device Communications

• KACE Agent System Tray Additions: More functionality added to the agent icon in the system tray, such as opening links. Your system administrators can specify up to ten links that appear in the new Shortcuts menu item. This menu item only appears when one or more links are specified in the agent communication settings, in the Agent Status Icon Shortcuts section. See How to Enable and Configure Agent Status Icon Shortcuts (332633)
  • Standard Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) links are supported, such as HTTP, SSH, and FTP URLs. Clicking this link causes your system to launch the application associated with the selected resource. For example, when you click an HTTP-type link, your system opens the link in the default browser.
• Hyper-V Inventory: Inventory information and related device commands are added in this release for the Virtual Machine Manager and MS Hyper-V data, for agent-managed devices. Inventory details include a list of virtual machines and Hyper-V hosts to inventory. This is similar to the VMware inventory feature created in version 10.0.

Patching

• Linux Package Upgrades: The appliance now allows you to automate the process of installing and managing Linux package upgrades that keeps the Linux OS up to date on your managed Linux RedHat, SUSE, Ubuntu, CentOS, and Raspbian devices. These upgrades improve the overall performance of your managed Linux devices and protect them from potential vulnerabilities.
  • Use this feature to create upgrade schedules which allow you to either detect package upgrades, or detect and upgrade all applicable packages. You can review the list of the available package upgrades after a detect-only schedule action, for each Linux flavor.
  • The upgrade process relies on the assumption that your managed Linux devices point to the appropriate package repositories. Only the packages that include security updates are identified. The appliance does not attempt to detect or upgrade all packages, or to the entire OS to the latest version.
  • Note: Raspbian Linux does not make a distinction between regular and security updates. Detecting and upgrading packages for managed Raspbian devices results in all updated packages being installed on those devices.
• Integration with new Dell Hardware Update Catalog: Starting in this release, the appliance uses a new version of the Dell hardware catalog. The process of detecting and deploying hardware updates is very similar to the one used for device patching. Start by creating schedule updates to either detect, deploy, or both detect and deploy hardware updates. You can review the list of the available Dell updates on the catalog page. This page lists the updates for which signature files exist on the appliance. See How to Enable Dell Updates in version 11.1 (332630)
  • This feature requires the latest version of the KACE Agent to run on managed Dell devices.
  • Existing data related to Dell hardware updates such as schedule history is not migrated from earlier versions of the appliance.
  • User reports associated with Dell hardware updates and created with a previous version of the appliance are not migrated to version 11.1.

Infrastructure

• OVAL for Linux and Mac: In this release, the appliance extends Oval support beyond existing MS Windows-only using the world's biggest and best selection of CVE data in the world.
• License Renewal Alerts: When the appliance maintenance expires, some features such as patching support become unavailable. This causes an error alert to appear on the Home Dashboard. To renew your license, visit https://support.quest.com/contact-us/renewals.

Service Desk

• Service Desk Ticket Category Hierarchy: The Administrator Console is improved to allow you to make setting up categories and subcategories for Service Desk more streamlined. You can create and edit ticket category and subcategory nodes using a tree widget. The tree view allows you to better understand and manage the relationships between the categories. You can easily add new category nodes, rename, delete, or sort them, as needed. A search function is also available, to quickly locate a specific category or subcategory. See How to Configure Service Desk Categories (332636)
• Ability to Specify Service Desk Ticket Prefix: Starting in this release, you can use a different prefix for each queue to organize your Service Desk workflow, and to associate them with applicable categories, such as HD for Helpdesk or REQ for hardware and software requisitions. See How to Configure Service Desk Prefix (332637)