Category Archives for "Managed Services News"

Blueshift Cybersecurity, which spun off from Cigent Technology nearly a year ago, is helping MSP and MSSP partners beef up their cybersecurity with its full-service extended detection and response (XDR).

Blueshift XDR is a security operations center (SOC)-as-a-service platform. It simplifies compliance initiatives and extends security visibility and management across an entire organization. It integrates with all existing devices, data and systems across the network. That includes cloud, IoT, endpoint, server, remote workers and more.

MSPs and MSSPs are using Blueshift XDR to keep data on-premises at all times. Blueshift mixes automated threat detection and response with hands-on cybersecurity expertise to increase efficiency and reduce cost.

In April, Blueshift announced a $6 million seed fund round from investors WestWave Capital and CyberJunction.

Blueshift Experiencing ‘Crazy Growth’

We spoke with Steve Nicol, Blueshift’s co-founder and senior vice president of sales and marketing, and Greg Scasny, co-founder and CTO, to learn more about how the Blueshift helps MSP and MSSP partners.

Channel Futures: What sort of growth has Blueshift experienced since you formed, and what role are MSPs and MSSPs playing in that growth?

Blueshift’s Steve Nicol

Steve Nicol: When we first launched this platform, the first thing we did was go out and get 10 or 15 customers that we could use as references. And we sold those directly. And then during the pandemic, things kind of ground to a halt for awhile. So Greg went and added a lot of the additional functionality to the platform. We added a management console, the managed security information and event management (SIEM), and some of the other … layers to this thing.

When we relaunched with the new functionality, we’ve just seen exponential growth with both MSPs and MSSPs. And what surprised us the most is how interested MSSPs are in this platform. Our biggest customer is an MSSP. They like to sell highly curated, best-of-breed solutions to MSP partners worldwide. So they’ll sell a product called SentinelOne and a vulnerability management product called Cyber CNS and some other platforms, and they chose Blueshift as their designated XDR/managed SIEM platform. We’re literally booking two to three deals a week with this partner.

Blueshift’s Greg Scasny

We’re replacing a lot of the existing SOC-as-a-service vendors that are in the space that haven’t been able to keep up with the changes in the threat landscape. So the growth has just been crazy for us. And I don’t see that abating in the near future. We’re transitioning to a 100% channel model. We rarely will sell this directly to an end customer. Our play is to be that SOC-as-a-service partner for the MSPs and the MSSPs.

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Blueshift and more cybersecurity news.

Blueshift Cybersecurity, which spun off from Cigent Technology nearly a year ago, is helping MSP and MSSP partners beef up their cybersecurity with its full-service extended detection and response (XDR).

Blueshift XDR is a security operations center (SOC)-as-a-service platform. It simplifies compliance initiatives and extends security visibility and management across an entire organization. It integrates with all existing devices, data and systems across the network. That includes cloud, IoT, endpoint, server, remote workers and more.

MSPs and MSSPs are using Blueshift XDR to keep data on-premises at all times. Blueshift mixes automated threat detection and response with hands-on cybersecurity expertise to increase efficiency and reduce cost.

In April, Blueshift announced a $6 million seed fund round from investors WestWave Capital and CyberJunction.

Blueshift Experiencing ‘Crazy Growth’

We spoke with Steve Nicol, Blueshift’s co-founder and senior vice president of sales and marketing, and Greg Scasny, co-founder and CTO, to learn more about how the Blueshift helps MSP and MSSP partners.

Channel Futures: What sort of growth has Blueshift experienced since you formed, and what role are MSPs and MSSPs playing in that growth?

Blueshift’s Steve Nicol

Steve Nicol: When we first launched this platform, the first thing we did was go out and get 10 or 15 customers that we could use as references. And we sold those directly. And then during the pandemic, things kind of ground to a halt for awhile. So Greg went and added a lot of the additional functionality to the platform. We added a management console, the managed security information and event management (SIEM), and some of the other … layers to this thing.

When we relaunched with the new functionality, we’ve just seen exponential growth with both MSPs and MSSPs. And what surprised us the most is how interested MSSPs are in this platform. Our biggest customer is an MSSP. They like to sell highly curated, best-of-breed solutions to MSP partners worldwide. So they’ll sell a product called SentinelOne and a vulnerability management product called Cyber CNS and some other platforms, and they chose Blueshift as their designated XDR/managed SIEM platform. We’re literally booking two to three deals a week with this partner.

Blueshift’s Greg Scasny

We’re replacing a lot of the existing SOC-as-a-service vendors that are in the space that haven’t been able to keep up with the changes in the threat landscape. So the growth has just been crazy for us. And I don’t see that abating in the near future. We’re transitioning to a 100% channel model. We rarely will sell this directly to an end customer. Our play is to be that SOC-as-a-service partner for the MSPs and the MSSPs.

Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Blueshift and more cybersecurity news.

U.K. communication regulator Ofcom is to investigate the dominance of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the cloud services market.

The coming weeks will see Ofcom launch a study into the UK’s £15 billion ($16.9 billion) cloud sector. The watchdog will examine whether Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud pose any barriers to competition.

Ofcom on Thursday said it will take action if it finds the companies are harming competition.

Collectively, the three firms generate around 81% of revenue in the U.K. public cloud infrastructure services market. Ofcom said to wants to “formally assess how well this market is working.”

It will examine “the strength of competition in cloud services generally and the position the three hyperscalers hold in the market.”

The regulator will also consider “any market features that [make] it difficult for other companies to enter the market and expand their share.”

Ofcom said that as cloud services are still evolving, it will look at how the market is working today and how it expects it to develop in the future. It will aim to identify any potential competition concerns early “to prevent them becoming embedded as the market matures.”

Ofcom said it will conclude its review and publish a final report including any concerns and proposed recommendations within the 12 months.

Microsoft last month outlined coming changes to the terms of its software licensing agreements. They followed complaints to antitrust regulators from some European cloud providers that the company’s practices put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Personal Messaging Apps and Virtual Assistants

Over the next year, Ofcom also plans to investigate other digital markets, including personal messaging apps and virtual assistants.

It will look into how services such as WhatsApp, FaceTime and Zoom are affecting the role of traditional calling and messaging. It says it wants to see how competition and innovation in these markets may evolve over the coming years. Moreover, it aims to understand whether any limitations on their ability to interact with each other raise potential concerns.

Ofcom will also focus on “the nature and intensity of competition” among connected televisions and smart speaker manufacturers.

“We will explore competition dynamics in this sector and identify whether there are any potential areas that require more formal examination,” it said.

Its work will include analysis of consumer behaviour, future developments and the business models of major players and their bargaining power with content providers.

Ofcom’s Selina Chadha

“The way we live, work, play and do business has been transformed by digital services,” said Selina Chadha, Ofcom’s director of connectivity. “But as the number of platforms, devices and networks that serve up content continues to grow, so do the technological and economic issues confronting regulators.”

Chadha said that is why Ofcom wants to scrutinise those markets, identify any competition concerns and ensure they’re working for people and businesses.

Cloud computing doesn’t just mean deploying a platform and calling it a day. No indeed-y, the technology has grown far more sophisticated than that. That seems to be the theme of this week’s cloud news roundup, which showcases — from Amazon Web Services’ new Smart City competency to a report on the cloud skills dearth — just how much organizations need cloud channel partners.

You already know that AWS develops a competency for just about everything. But now, with rising demand for governments to get more efficient while delivering better services, the applicability of a smart city certification has come to fruition. Find out what AWS public sector head Jeff Kratz tells Channel Futures about that initiative.

After that, if you’re looking for more information on what Salesforce’s new Genie platform means for the channel, we have some details. Recall, Salesforce debuted that “real-time” capability for all of its Customer 360 solutions at Dreamforce this week. The company is going so far as to call Genie “the most significant change” to its CRM platform ever. That’s a bold statement, so partners will want to understand the reason for it.

Up next, Ingram Micro Cloud has a big Microsoft integration announcement. The cloud marketplace provider calls that enhancement the “continuation of a long-term … strategy” to enable its partners. We go into what all of that is (and you’ll have to forgive us some Lewis Carroll “Jabberwocky” references. You’ll see why.).

Finally, we’ve got two new cloud studies that contain implications for the channel. The first, courtesy of Wanclouds, relates to cloud spending via a survey of more than 500 IT leaders in the United States. The second comes from tech workforce development firm Pluralsight. Moreover, that report pinpoints a lack of cloud skills within organizations. That ought to surprise no cloud channel partner, many of whom are dealing with their own talent shortages.

Kick off your cloud news update this week in the slideshow above with a look at the AWS Smart City competency, and understanding why that’s important.

AVANT SPECIAL FORCES SUMMIT — The technology advisor channel continues to drive adoption within next-gen vendors and enterprise customers.

Attendees trained hard and played hard at the Avant Special Forces Summit this week in Austin, Texas. And that combination of effort and celebration is very much connected to the movement partners are making up-market and up the stack.

The agent space has long been associated with SMB and midmarket telecommunications. But declarations from Avant staff and vendors, and anecdotes from partners weave a picture of a partner model that has gained credibility in the eyes of the CIO community.

Avant’s Chris Werpy

Avant chief innovation officer Chris Werpy said a spotlight has shown on the industry in the last few years.

“It hit at all levels — the [technology services distributors] (TSDs) down to the trusted advisors. And so I think that was a validation for a lot of work that people had done for years,” Werpy told Channel Futures. “We knew how powerful this channel was, in terms of a go-to-market motion. The vendors knew it. It was no secret in our world.”

Huge Partner Sales

Avant CEO Ian Kieninger offered a staggering statistic: Twenty-six percent of the $230 million CCaaS market revenue in 2021 came through technology advisors.

“This room basically sold 26% of that number,” Kieninger said. “If you add up our competition, that number is going to get even bigger.”

Avant’s Ian Kieninger

Partners are increasingly tackling technologies like CCaaS and cybersecurity. Moreover, they’re targeting larger and larger customers. Kieninger said 48% of the TSD’s top 50 partners have sold a deal to a $1 billion company. That’s up from 45% last year and just 23% in 2019.

Avant’s Ted Schuman

That evolution comes as the technology services distributors consolidated into a handful of massive national players. And those TSDs say that they are doing more than they have ever done to meet end customer needs.

“Back then it was pretty simple. We pushed papers, we babysat accounts, and we sent out checks,” Avant chief experience officer Ted Schuman said. “It has certainly evolved today to engineering, pricing, picking vendors, finding the right architecture and solving problems for our customers. We’ve literally invested millions of dollars to do that.”

Avant acquired Schuman’s PlanetOne earlier this year with the aim of expanding its Pathfinder tool, bolstering its back office and bringing in a complementary culture.

Channel Futures spoke to Avant leadership, vendors and partners about the evolution of the channel and what TSDs need to be providing moving forward.

Scroll through slideshow gallery to see industry commentary as well as a visual recap of the last day of the conference.

Marking Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group’s largest data center product launch yet, the company introduced more than 50 new servers, storage and edge systems. The Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group V3 lineup, unveiled on Wednesday, will include the next generation of AMD, Arm, Intel and Nvidia-powered systems.

Besides a wide array of more robust infrastructure, Lenovo is readying an upgrade to its Neptune warm water-cooling technology. Also, Lenovo revealed a new unified, cloud-based management platform called XClarity One. The company didn’t announce pricing or ship dates. But Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group president Kirk Skaugen, in a virtual launch event for media and analysts, underscored the timing.

IBM, which sold its x86 server business to Lenovo in 2015, launched the first system 30 years ago to date. The first release was called the PS/2 Server, Skaugen (pictured above) noted.

“Today’s portfolio announcement is three-and-a-half times larger than any product and solutions announcement in our 30-year history,” he said.

XClarity One

The new XClarity One tool integrates Lenovo’s TruScale “as-a-service” cloud consumption option with interfaces to the company’s infrastructure offerings.

“It’s our most advanced, cloud-based unified software management platform,” Skaugan said. “It integrates Truscale metering, remote deployment, our automated orchestration software and smarter support analytics covering all our products from edge to cloud.”

Since acquiring IBM’s server business, Lenovo has aggressively added its ThinkAgile storage, ThinkShield Security, and most recently, ThinkEdge portfolios.

Pund-IT’s Charles King

“In the eight years since the System x deal with IBM, Lenovo has grown from a client computing powerhouse into a mature provider of end-to-end business computing solutions, including market-leading HPC and hyperscale systems,” noted Pund-IT principal analyst Charles King, in a blog.

“Within our engineering and development groups, we’ve been working for the last several years delivering the breadth of this new product portfolio with a new in-house ODM plus design model and in-house manufacturing,” Skaugan said. “What this means is we’re now designing our own motherboards at Lenovo, and systems for not just the hyperscale market, but for the general-purpose market. And we’re manufacturing them around the world, from Mexico to Hungary to China.”

Expanded Infrastructure Portfolio

The new lineup includes 15 new ThinkSystem servers with either AMD’s latest Epyc or Intel’s Xeon Scalable processors. The new ThinkSystems are available with AI accelerators, and GPUs, DPUs, SmartNICs and FPGAs.

Kamran Amini, VP and general manager for Lenovo server, storage and software-defined infrastructure, said customers would see 70% faster analytic performance when used with financial applications. When used for AI modeling development, customers will see a 2x boost in performance compared with the current line of servers, he said.

Amini said the portfolio would cover a broad range of organizations, from SMBs to the largest enterprises. For example, the new DE Series will provide NVMe flash storage that can scale to 1.8 petabytes of all-flash.

Lenovo’s Kamran Amini

“This delivers innovation of all NVMe to customers that want to deploy in sub-$20,000 range solutions,” Amini said.

Lenovo is also releasing 32 new ThinkAgile solutions, including its Microsoft Azure HCI and Azure Stack Hub systems. Also, Lenovo is releasing the new ThinkAgile FX hyper-converged powered by Nutanix and the new VMware vSAN-based ThinkAgile VX.

Channel Partner Enablement

Susan Blocher is CMO of the Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group. She said the company is preparing its channel organization for the new offerings.

Lenovo’s Susan Blocher

“We have partnered closely with them as a part of this announcement to build a repertoire of training, sales enablement, content, marketing — everything that our partners need to help them prepare and go to market around this amazing infrastructure, V3 portfolio and all of the new capabilities that we’re bringing,” Blocher said. “We’re very excited to really be leveraging that one Lenovo channel capability as a part of this launch.”

Skaugen emphasized the shift to the company’s One Lenovo channel-first initiative.

“Our customers don’t need to worry about being baited and shifted in us taking business direct,” he said. “That’s a key element of how we’re building trust with the channel.”

Malwarebytes is getting a strategic $100 million minority investment from Vector Capital, a private equity firm that invests in established technology businesses.

As part of the transaction, Vector Capital managing directors Sandy Gill and Dave Fishman will join Malwarebytes’ board of directors. The transaction is subject to standard and customary closing conditions, and should close in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Malwarebytes plans to use the investment to further innovate the company’s product portfolios. It will also accelerate momentum with channel partners and consolidate its ownership structure.

It will add new features to its consumer protection and privacy suite. In addition, it will continue to launch new modules that enable organizations to reduce their attack surface.

Moreover, the investment will allow Malwarebytes to enhance and scale its international channel partner program and rapidly growing MSP business.

Last month, Malwarebytes initiated layoffs that affected 125 employees globally as part of a shift in its go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Vector Capital ‘Ideal Partners’ for Malwarebytes

Marcin Kleczynski is Malwarebytes’ co-founder and CEO.

Malwarebytes’ Marcin Kleczynski

“Vector Capital’s investment is a testament to the transformational work our team has done to evolve our best-in-class endpoint protection to comprehensive offerings for both individuals and organizations, while driving profitable growth,” he said. “We believe Vector Capital’s collaborative approach and proven ability to help build global software businesses make them ideal partners in our ongoing efforts to build a safer digital world.”

The funding by Vector Capital follows investments in Malwarebytes led by Highland Capital Partners and Fidelity Management and Research.

“Malwarebytes is a global market leader with one of the most widely recognized brands in cyber remediation and protection,” Gill said. “It has become an essential business that keeps the internet safer for millions of people and organizations worldwide every day. We look forward to supporting the company by leveraging our strong track record in building and scaling technology companies, and working alongside management to further accelerate growth across both the consumer and corporate business lines.”

Grip Security partners now have access to the company’s first partner program to accelerate partner sales traction and success in SaaS security.

The Grip Security Partner Program provides partners with a platform for detecting and securing SaaS applications. Its SaaS security unifies discovery, access control and data governance.

Grip Security is actively recruiting partners who are looking to differentiate themselves with a new product that helps companies understand and manage their SaaS risk.

Lior Yaari is Grip Security’s co-founder and CEO.

Grip Security’s Lior Yaari

“This is an all-new program that we created and launched based on the positive feedback we received as we engaged potential partners,” he said. “Partners were attracted to Grip because it is easy to position, install and support. As we started to work with more partners, some of which are national, we needed to establish a formal, consistent engagement model.”

Benefits for Grip Security Partners

Partner program benefits include:

• Fast time-to-market with complete end-to-end support, from first meeting to product demonstrations, to proof-of-value and signed contract.
• Sales and sales engineer training.
• Co-branded sales materials.
• Turnkey free SaaS security assessment to demonstrate need and value.
• Incentives and jointly funded programs to promote Grip Security.

Grip Security incorporated input from partners when designing the program’s deal registration process and incentives, Yaari said. For example, in the first year, the company offers a free golf trip for its top partner sales reps. Partner salespeople said this would be unique and motivating for them to work with the company.

Working with partners allows Grip Security to leverage a national sales team who already have relationships with enterprises, he said.

“Working with partners who are trusted advisors shortens the sales cycle and increases the initial deal size,” Yaari said. “Our partners gain an advantage over their competitors by offering a unique, differentiated product that solves one of the most pressing security issues CISOs face today.”

Todd Stelzer is enterprise account manager at Insight.

“SaaS security is one of the most pressing issues facing CISOs,” he said. “The demo and proof-of-value are eye-opening because they reveal the security blind spots that every company thought they had, but could never see without Grip’s technology. And the best part is they can remediate them with a couple of clicks.”

Ensono, No. 2 on the Channel Futures 2022 MSP 501 list, just launched Ensono Flex Cloud Engineering. This program aims to make it easier for enterprises to access a designated team of experts. These experts deliver on four core capabilities that are critical in today’s maturing cloud environments: agile management, cloud platform engineering, DevSecOps and containerization.

Through this offering, users will be able to access a range of engineering capabilities and cloud specialists. Ensono intends this to provide greater levels of project output and faster business outcomes. This new service extends an organization’s development and engineering efforts. Drilling down into the benefits, users can unlock a number of things:

• Agility through continuous automation. Scale cloud operations through automation to reduce costs, manual tasks, and human error.
• Developer productivity and speed-to-market. Identify and remove bottlenecks to improve velocity, quality, and cycle time in development projects.
• Support for evolving business priorities. Engineering capabilities and resources that adapt to the client’s dynamic backlog with ability to flex hours up or down.
• DevSecOps Maturity. Eliminate months of trial and error by leveraging global DevSecOps expertise to mature development pipelines and processes.

Expanding Portfolio

The new service expands on Ensono’s portfolio of digital transformation, migration, and 24×7 cloud operations services. It is available to clients leveraging any of the three major public cloud providers: AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and GCP (Google Cloud Platform).

Ensono’s Duan Van Der Westhuizen

“Business needs change and organizations struggle to keep pace with the increased demand put on highly skilled resources to enable continuous improvement and digital transformation,” said Duan Van Der Westhuizen, senior vice president of cloud at Ensono. “We built Ensono Flex Cloud Engineering to bridge the gap between an organization’s current capabilities and their cloud ambitions. We make it easy for organizations to tap into cloud talent to help achieve their business outcomes faster.”

Nvidia is moving to bring development of “metaverse” applications to the mainstream with its launch of Omniverse Cloud. The collection of cloud services, revealed on Tuesday at Nvidia’s annual GTC developer’s conference, is the company’s first SaaS offering.

Omniverse Cloud services are designed for developers to design metaverse applications and users to utilize them on any device. Nvidia describes the metaverse as a progression of the internet enhanced by 3-D that simulates environments, structures and people. Driving the metaverse are real-time workflows of 3-D digital wins, virtual replicas of structures, environments and individuals.

Nvidia is pushing the Universal Scene Description (USD) language as a de facto standard for sharing 3-D graphics and data. In his opening GTC keynote, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang explained why that’s important.

“Today’s internet connects websites described in HTML and viewed through a browser, the Metaverse, the 3-D internet, connects virtual 3-D worlds described in USD and viewed through a simulation engine,” Huang (pictured above) said. “Omniverse is a platform for building and operating metaverse applications. Omniverse is useful wherever digital and physical worlds meet.”

The launch of Omniverse Cloud aims to broaden the reach of Nvidia’s Omniverse Enterprise platform. According to Nvidia, it will let more developers build and share 3-D workflows without requiring a GPU-powered client.

SaaS-Based Tools

Nvidia’s Omniverse Cloud services includes specific SaaS-based tools for developers of robotics to train, simulate and deploy AI-capable machines. It includes tools for engineers designing autonomous vehicles to generate telemetry such as sensor data, traffic and weather simulations.

“Nvidia Omniverse cloud is an infrastructure as a service that connects Omniverse applications running in the cloud on prem or on a device,” Huang said.

The initial launch of Omniverse Cloud consists of six services:

• Nucleus Cloud for 3-D designers to access and work with shared USD-based 3-D scenes and data.
• App streaming for users with computers not equipped with Nvidia RTX GPUs to stream Omniverse reference applications.
• Replicator for building custom synthetic data generation tools.
• Farm for scaling Omniverse functions like rendering.
• Isaac Sim, a scalable robotics simulation tool and Nvidia Drive Sim, a simulation platform for running multisensor simulations.
• Drive Sim, a simulation autonomous vehicle development platform for building and simulating multiple sensors.

Three of the services – Omniverse Farm, Replicator and Isaac Sim containers – are available on Nvidia’s GPU Cloud (NGC). NGU is Nvidia’s suite of managed cloud services consisting of AI solutions. Developers can provision the new Omniverse Farm, Replicator and Isaac Sim for self-service deployment on AWS using Amazon EC2 G5 instances with Nvidia A10G Tensor Core GPUs.

Alternatively, developers can deploy select self-service simulators, modelers and data-generation tools on AWS with Amazon EC2 G5 instances with Nvidia A10G Tensor Core GPUs. Nvidia is also offering Omniverse Cloud as managed services by those applying for early access.

First Omniverse Cloud Implementations

Among the first customers using Omniverse Cloud  are RIMAC Group, WPP and Siemens. WPP, the global conglomerate of advertising and marketing agencies, is the first to launch auto marketing services on Omniverse Cloud. Nvidia said WPP is using Omniverse cloud to provide custom 3-D content to its automotive clients.

“This includes creating programmatic contact content that is more personalized, and perfectly photo real content of your virtual sets, which will save automotive companies an order of magnitude and costs,” said Nvidia Omniverse VP Richard Kerris during a briefing with media and analysts.

Advancing Digital Twin Simulation

Nvidia also announced the second version of Nvidia OVX, its GPU architecture designed with advanced network capabilities. Nvidia designed OVX to provide real-time graphics and digital twin simulations within its Nvidia Omniverse Enterprise platform.

The new OVX uses Nvidia’s latest L40 GPUs, based on its enhanced GPU architecture, designed for creating industrial digital twins. Besides the new L40 GPUs, Nvidia said OVX will include three of its ConnectX-7 SmartNIC network adapters to provide up to 400 Gbps network throughput. For higher performance workloads or those which require more scale, customers can deploy the servers in OVX POD and SuperPOD configurations with Nvidia’s Spectrum-3 Ethernet network interface.

“OVX is the Omniverse computer, an ideal way to scale out metaverse applications,” Huang said. Kerris added: “The new OVX systems are designed to build virtual worlds using leading 3-D software applications from our many software partners and to be able to operate immersive digital twin simulations.”

BMW and Jaguar Land Rover are the first customers Nvidia revealed that have receive OVX systems. According to Nvidia, Inspur, Lenovo and Supermicro will ship the first OVX servers in early 2023. Gigabyte, H3C and QCT will follow.