A First Look at ZeroTier’s New Central Updates

During our last webinar, ZeroTier One Update for Enterprise, we highlighted some new projects and ongoing efforts to enhance the ZeroTier One platform already in use by thousands of businesses and installed on millions of devices worldwide. Today, we’re excited to announce the Early Access launch of our new Central for ZeroTier One update, which includes an enhanced and optimized UI and UX. This new release makes managing ZeroTier networks easier, faster, and more intuitive. Starting today, we’re pleased to announce that Early Access Program (EAP) and Customer Advisory Board (CAB) members will be receiving access to the new Central launch features on a rolling basis. Here are a few highlights of this release.

A new beginning
The new Central launch introduces a simplified onboarding experience designed to get users up and running quickly. Our streamlined signup flow guides ZeroTier users through creating an account, accepting GDPR cookies, and agreeing to the Terms of Service, all in one seamless experience. For those joining independently, the system automatically sets them up as owners of their own organization, giving them full control off the bat. We’ve also started rolling out some of our new ZeroTier visual branding with this Early Access Program (EAP) release.

A greatly improved UX
With this Central update, we’ve completely overhauled the UI. We’ve cleaned up navigation, making it tidier and more seamless for faster access to networks. The new layout reduces clutter, highlights key actions, and makes it easier to find what’s needed without extra clicks. New UI affordances for the platform help explain table headers, disabled buttons, and other elements. These enhancements make it easier than ever for users to manage ZeroTier networks and remove any guesswork.

Also with this update, behind the scenes, the ZeroTier platform now includes basic analytics tracking, which includes essential metrics like page views and overall usage, making it easier for us to help. Future updates to ZeroTier Central will provide users with a clearer understanding of how their networks are performing and share with them actionable insights to optimize their setups.

Scalable infrastructure
Additionally, behind-the-scenes, new ZT1 controllers, which admit members to the network and issue certificates and default configuration information, make the ZeroTier platform faster, smarter, and easier to scale. Over the coming months, we’ll be working with customers to migrate existing accounts to the new Central releases, bringing everyone onto this improved, higher-performance infrastructure. This upgrade will ensure smoother performance, better reliability, and more efficient management of connections. Stay tuned for more details.

Building the blocks to smarter access with ReBAC
We’re also introducing the foundational components for our Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC) model, officially announced during May’s ZeroTier One Updates Webinar. These building blocks will help better support complex organizational permissions. Now, all users in an organization will be listed without showing full downstream permissions. An update to the Admin Model will make all users an admin at the organization level, with one designated owner per organization. The owner will be responsible for legal notices and billing details. A substantial amount of additional updates to ReBAC will continue to follow in future Central releases.

Streamlined billing and subscriptions
Billing and the fundamentals of account management are now available in-product. Our billing platform hasn’t changed, and this won’t affect our millions of existing customers, but it’ll greatly improve simplicity for entitlement, node, and device management.

Coming with the GA release, this new in-product billing interface will allow members to view current and upcoming invoices, as well as update payment methods seamlessly. Moving between ZeroTier’s new remapped plan tiers and upgrading or downgrading plans can be completed with just a few clicks.

In the near future, users will also be able to manage the full lifecycle of their accounts, including deleting an organization, canceling a subscription, or closing a billing account entirely along with its associated orgs. This early access rollout gives program members an opportunity to experience and provide feedback on simpler, self-service billing.

Getting started
An Early Access Central Launch email will be rolling out to EAP members officially kicking off the program. For setup details and usage guidelines, see our Early Access Program documentation, linked in the email, for instructions on joining, configuring, and providing feedback during the release.

ZeroTier’s Early Access Program lets select customers test upcoming features, including the new Central launch, ReBAC access, and new billing workflows before they officially launch. EAP members get first dibs on new technology, the ability to provide feedback, file bugs, and may have opportunities to connect with our Customer Success and Product teams. If you’re not yet a member of our Early Access Program and are interested in joining, please click here to learn about applying.

Please note: This testing release of Central for ZerotTier One is not intended for commercial or permanent use, but rather offers an exclusive early look for EAP members at the features in the forthcoming Central General Availability (GA) release. While this release has gone through internal and external testing, there may be bugs or performance issues impacting the full usability of this new ZeroTier Central update.