Devolutions year in review: Part 1

It is time once again for another wonderful tradition here at Devolutions: our annual look back on some of the biggest announcements, developments, happenings, and events over the last 12 months (and of course, some fun stuff as well!).

To get in the right mood, we invite you to pour a delicious beverage, grab a tasty snack, and play some festive background music (may we suggest this delightful medley of Christmas tavern music). We start with a recap of January to June, and wrap-up tomorrow with a look at July to December.

January

We kicked off the year by sharing how one of our longtime community members, Derek T., uses Remote Desktop Manager to improve operations at one of the world’s leading advisory, assurance, and tax firms.

Next, we shared a list of where the Devolutions Event Team went in 2023 (by the way, you can see where they travelled in 2024 here).

We also published the results of the December 2023 poll, which asked you to share what’s on your Remote Desktop Manager “wish list.” And speaking of wish lists: it’s not too late to tell us what you want added to Remote Desktop Manager and Devolutions PAM in 2025.

We looked at Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2024, which included AI trust, risk and security management (AI TRiSM); continuous threat exposure management (CTEM); sustainable technology, and more. It’s interesting to take a look back and see how these trends shaped the IT landscape and narrative in 2024 — and how they will influence 2025.

January at Devolutions would not be complete without an event that many community members eagerly look forward to: our CEO David Hervieux’s annual Devolutions 2024 Roadmap. We are thrilled and proud to announce that our teams achieved ALL of milestones and deliverables in the Roadmap, including some ahead of schedule. David is currently crafting the Devolutions 2025 Roadmap, and it will be released in the coming weeks.

And of course, we relied on Patrick to put a smile on our face and help us forget how cold it was outside. As always, he came through with the hilarious Sysadminotaur #138 “New year, who dis?” (beware the rogue Roombas!).

February

We rolled into February with a look at the community’s top IT security priorities for 2024, which included automatic password rotation, PAM, end user training, and more.

February is also when Valentine’s Day occurs, which means that love is everywhere — but unfortunately, so are cyber criminals. To avoid a disaster (and no, we don’t mean forgetting to get that special someone in your life a gift!), we highlighted three particularly nasty Valentine’s Day cybersecurity threats to watch out for. We encourage you to revisit the blog, because Valentine’s Day is coming soon — and, sadly, so are the cybercriminals.

Our Product Marketing Manager, Yann, created a new video exploring Devolutions Hub’s powerful cloud-based password management capabilities for IT administrators and business users. Yann covered key features including the comprehensive dashboard view; managing, accessing, and sharing entries and vaults; support for a variety of entry types; AD integration, the built-in strong password generator, and more.

And on the lighter side, Patrick created not one, not two, but THREE Sysadminotaur comics in #139 “User-friendly comics” (pro tip: when you ask your boss for a password manager, be very specific or you might regret what you requested!).

March

In March, we released the year’s first major update (2024.1) across our product line-up: Devolutions Hub, Remote Desktop Manager, Devolutions Server, and Devolutions Workspace, and Devolutions Gateway. Our Product Marketing Manager, Yann, also put together a great video exploring the top new features in these releases.

We realize that in most IT companies, launching major updates across five products is more than enough activity for a single month. But as you all know, Devolutions is not like most IT companies — because like the weather outside, we were just getting warmed up!

First on the agenda was announcing the re-introduction of Devolutions Server Free. This robust solution, which is free for up to 10 users and supports enhanced features such as Azure AD and SSO support, is part of our longstanding commitment to democratize productivity and security tools in the IT world, and make them affordable and functional for SMBs.

Our Subject Matter Expert, Adam, was also busy in March creating tutorials on how to secure remote connections with Devolutions Gateway Standalone Free, and how to send passwords securely with the free Devolutions Send service.

March is also when we hosted an event that our community members around the world anticipate and enjoy as much as we do: Devolutions Central! The 2024 edition took place on March 13, and we were inspired and grateful to earn a 9.4/10 rating from attendees on whether they thought the event was a success. If you missed Devolutions Central 2024 or want to re-experience it, then watch the YouTube videos here. And since many community members have been asking: Yes, we are putting together the final details on Devolutions Central 2025. Keep an eye on our newsletter and blog for more information.

As we all know, sometimes things on the IT landscape don’t quite go as planned — and occasionally, a crisis erupts. In March, we experienced the latter when the third-party host for Devolutions Force, which is our online VIP user community, experienced a significant service disruption. In response, we took immediate action and worked around the clock to restore access within a few days (and per our commitment transparency, we shared these details and our progress with the community). Since then, we have launched a vastly improved Devolutions Force 2.0 that is built on a completely new and vastly superior platform (we dive into this in part 2 of our year in review).

And since March was so busy — and frankly a bit more stressful than we expected due to the Devolutions Force disruption — we really counted on Patrick to put a smile on our faces, and he didn’t let us down with Sysadminotaur #140 “Scripts” (sometimes it’s just better to think inside the box!).

April

We launched April with some exciting news: the Devolutions Event Team was heading to Dubai at the end of the month to exhibit at GISEC Global, the largest cybersecurity event in the Middle East and Africa!

Since learning never stops in the IT world, in April we published a tutorial on how to migrate a Remote Desktop Manager SQL Server data source to Devolutions Server. We also introduced “Adventures of a CTO”: a new section of our blog featuring content by Devolutions' CTO Marc-André that dives into some of the real-world challenges and opportunities he faces. In the section, Marc-André also provides valuable and practical technical advice for configuring systems and solutions.

Next, we looked at Gartner’s top nine cybersecurity trends for 2024, which included extending identity and access management’s cybersecurity value, establishing cybersecurity outcome-driven metrics, and more.

As we all know, mitigating cybersecurity risks is serious business. But a little fun now and then is wise — and April’s installment of Sysadminotaur #141 “Cybersecurity according to…” couldn’t have come at better time (SysAdmins truly are unsung heroes!).

May

Early May marks an extremely important day on the Star Warsian calendar: May the 4th. We marked this occasion by sharing 10 classic quotes from Star Wars that apply to IT life, with excerpts such as Han Solo’s “never tell me the odds,” and Lando Calrissian’s “I got a bad feeling about this.”

We also published the results of a poll question that generated some of the most interesting and insightful responses ever: “How do you handle a workplace crisis that isn’t your fault?”. We urge all of you to read it (or re-read it since it’s been a while), and be reminded of the 3 C’s of crisis management: stay CALM, COMMUNICATE effectively, and be open to CHANGE.

Speaking of being open to change: In May we changed our blog tagline to “The toolbox for your IT success.” This shift better expresses our longstanding, unwavering commitment to help IT pros of all experience levels — from seasoned experts to newer arrivals — achieve higher levels of success.

Our Product Marketing Manager, France, published an overview of the year’s first mid-release for Devolutions Hub (2024.1.100). For those who are unfamiliar with our approach: unlike some other IT companies, we do not hold back improvements and additions to our various products so that we can make our major updates “look bigger and better.” Our focus is on empowering and supporting our users, and that means delivering enhancements as soon as possible. Our mid-release program achieves this objective and illustrates our promise to always put our users FIRST.

And you know who else is legendary for putting our users first (and also being just a really nice guy)? Our VP of Products Maurice Côté, who in May was interviewed by leading InfoSec news and advice site http://DataBreachToday.com at RSAC Conference (RSAC) 2024 in San Francisco. In the interview, Maurice discussed how privileged access management was initially built for large enterprises, but has evolved over the years — thanks to companies like Devolutions leading the way — into an option that small and mid-sized businesses can afford, implement, and embrace.

And since AI is on everyone’s mind these days, Patrick created another triple-comic edition of Sysadminotaur with #142: “AI comics” (maybe we don’t want AI to be more human in every way!).

June

June is when children cheer the arrival of summer vacation (and then start complaining about how bored they are, even though they have access to more entertainment options than at any time in human history — but we digress).

Here at Devolutions, we certainly weren’t bored, but we were indeed cheering — because it was time to release the year’s second major update (2024.2) across our product line-up: Devolutions Hub, Remote Desktop Manager, Devolutions Server, and Devolutions Workspace, and Devolutions Gateway.

And since our Product Marketing Manager, Yann, created such a great video exploring the year’s first major updates, we asked him for an encore performance: and he delivered yet again!

You know who else always delivers around here? The artist known as Patrick, whose Sysadminotaur #143 “Aerial Screwed” was another instant classic (do drone butlers dream of electric sheep? Or was that just androids?).

More to come!

We hope that you enjoyed part one of the Devolutions’ 2024 year in review. As you can see, we were extremely busy doing what we love most: supporting our global community. Tomorrow, we will continue our recap and look at the news, events, happenings, and fun stuff from July to December. Stay tuned!