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Action1: Cloud-based remote management and endpoint security platform

Action1: Cloud-based remote management and endpoint security platform

Software and patch deployment is a pretty straightforward feature, right? Not exactly. There are many “behind the scenes” elements the patch deployment relies on. What if the endpoints are away from your corporate network or even offline? What happens if a thousand endpoints start downloading a gigabyte update over a corporate internet channel? A lot of work goes behind the scenes in cloud management and cybersecurity.

Action1 provides a Cloud-based service for remote IT management that is used by companies and MSPs worldwide as a working alternative to traditional on-premise solutions that are no longer functional in remote workforce scenarios. We had a conversation with the two founders Alex Vovk (CEO) and Mike Walters (President), the founders of Action1, to learn more about the company.

Why was Action1 born? How did you get the idea of this business arena?

Action1 was founded in 2016 by cybersecurity veterans Alex Vovk and Mike Walters, the two gentlemen behind another fast-growing cybersecurity company Netwrix, which they founded back in 2006. With thousands of customers worldwide and over a hundred of industry awards and recognitions, including multi-year inclusions in Inc. 5000 and Deloitte’s Fast 500 lists recognizing verified non-stop business growth year over year.

The idea for the innovative technology behind Action1 was based on the drawbacks of the existing legacy on-premise technologies and the vision that the last frontier of Cloud adoption – Cybersecurity Cloud – will continue to push forward beyond anything imaginable before.

The customer feedback gave the founders the proof that the foundation of the business was solid and in great demand, and what is even more important, allowed to establish the technology development roadmap based on the real-world needs, prioritized based on what the customers are willing to pay for.

How does Action1 make a difference?

The global pandemic that started in 2020 forced most businesses to dramatically change the way they operate. No longer, most of the employees work in glass-and-steel shiny offices, connected to reliable and secure corporate networks. In fact, it’s now the exact opposite, with most employees working from home full time or some form of hybrid operation. This dramatic shift to remote work brought unprecedented challenges to the IT departments worldwide. Most of the existing legacy on-premise technologies that were used to maintain security and operational efficiency ceased to operate almost on a moment’s notice.

Our technology vision was based on the assumption that sooner or later, such a shift would happen. The unfortunate worldwide spread of COVID-19 only accelerated what was bound to happen naturally over the next few years. The Cloud-native, decentralized architecture of Action1 is fully network-agnostic and never assumes any level of reliability of network connections or their availability and bandwidth.

Tell us about the functioning of your cloud-based endpoint management service.

Action1 combines some of the most highly demanded endpoint management technologies into one sophisticated yet simple-to-use Cloud service. Users who sign up for the Action1 service can usually realize its full potential in under an hour. The service can also be used to remotely deploy applications, security updates and patches, whitelist and blacklist software, reboot and perform other system maintenances tasks remotely on multiple endpoints in bulk and implement numerous other remote management activities.

Please help us understand the benefits of remote desktop access and assistance technology.

The remote desktop access and assistance feature allows IT administrators and helpdesk to remotely access their users’ computers located anywhere in the World while not being connected to the corporate network. This allows to perform all kinds of computer maintenance tasks in both unattended mode as well as in fully interactive mode together with the user, helping them to perform troubleshoot issues, train them on how to use some software or company-provided IT services, and more.

Apart from this, Action1 is available for free for full commercial use in networks with 50 endpoints or less. No other vendor in the entire World provides this service for free at this level, with no strings attached (such as adware, free trial baits, etc.).

What are other endpoint management features included with Action1?

As previously mentioned, Action1’s Cloud-based patch management functionality allows to streamline security patch management processes and ensures precise and timely deployment of security updates on all the endpoints in the organization for both office-based and remote employees. This is critical for any organization’s cybersecurity efforts since, according to many IT security analysts, up to 60% of security breaches exploit previously known, well-documented vulnerabilities, where a vendor-provided security patch already exists and is generally available.

Action1 provides many other remote management capabilities. For example, you can analyze the endpoint configuration, what security settings are configured – all in real-time and across the entire distributed network of endpoints. The other important feature is the ability to run actions in bulk on multiple computers remotely.

What is peer-to-peer software distribution?

Traditional on-premise software distribution and deployment tools are built on the concept of a “hub” server located inside the LAN that pre-downloads the needed software or updates and then distributes them to the target endpoints for deployment. Properly designed Cloud-native solutions shall never rely on any locally deployed infrastructure “hubs” or appliances because this kills the idea of the “maintenance-free” Cloud service, complicates the system, and makes it prone to failures.

Action1 solves this in an innovative yet simple to understand way. All software downloads are performed in a distributed fashion, with multiple endpoints downloading smaller chunks of large files and then exchanging them locally over LAN. This is an all-benefits-no-drawbacks scenario. First, it solves the issue of bandwidth usage as no duplicate multi-gigabyte transfers are requested by thousands of endpoints. Second, it completely removes that central distribution component (server or appliance), resulting in no single point of failure and no maintenance of any on-premise infrastructure.

About the Founders

A truly successful partnership between Alex Vovk (CEO) and Mike Walters (President), the founders of Action1, had been established more than 20 years ago. Alex and Mike possess a unique combination of software engineering by trade and the spirit of serial entrepreneurship. They love building successful companies that are in high demand due to their innovation and solid and profitable businesses that are bootstrapped and experience organic hypergrowth almost from day one without any outside investments.

Like their previous venture Netwrix, this new company, Action1, was also established independently of any institutional capital, giving them the freedom to build this great business according to the founders’ vision, without being told what to do by the professional financiers. They believe that the best source of funding for any company’s growth is real revenue because it indicates customer demand and a healthy way to sustain long-term growth without incurring debt and losing control.

“Action1 endpoint management platform gives us close-to-instant ability to understand what is happening across our entire network of endpoints and provide us with management tools so we can respond in real-time,” Credit Union in Ohio.

“Our city prides on being one of the most digitally transformed cities in the region. Without Action1, the risks of managing the infrastructure were too high,” City Government in Georgia.


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