MSPs: Remote Managed Services for Raspberry Pi?

Most MSPs have extended their managed services from Windows toward macOS and perhaps even full-blown Linux servers and desktops. But now there's even some chatter about supporting slimmer Raspberry Pi devices -- especially as the Internet of Things (IoT) begins to take hold.

Raspberry Pi is a very low-cost, credit-card sized computer originally designed for education, inspired by the 1981 BBC Micro. Among those intrigued by the tiny offering: Addigy, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software provider that originally focused on macOS.

Addigy's software agent consumes 3.8MB of memory, and has no outside dependencies. In other words, it doesn't need .NET or Java to run. That means the agent is small and light enough to run on a $35 Raspberry Pi, according to Addigy CEO Jason Dettbarn. The agent consumes 0% CPU and only a 1.2% memory footprint on the device, he writes in a recent blog.

Nobody is predicting that Raspberry Pi devices are the next big MSP management opportunity. But Dettbarn can image MSPs using slim agents to manage additional types of slim Linux devices -- perhaps Google Chromebooks or embedded systems linked to IoT networks.