Arcserve and Sophos are expanding their business cybersecurity protection partnership to give business users new security capabilities.

The expanded partnership brings together data protection for every infrastructure, including on premises, cloud and SaaS-based workloads, according to the companies.

Under the deal, Arcserve brings its data and ransomware protection capabilities together with Sophos’ cybersecurity tools for all-in-one application packages. The new products include Arcserve Cloud Backup for Office 365 and Arcserve UDP Cloud Hybrid Secured by Sophos.

The expanded collaboration aims to simplify cybersecurity application deployments for customers by eliminating complexity. The products combine antiransomware and other threat prevention technologies with backup and disaster recovery capabilities for increased protection. By bringing the technologies together, customers can be better protected from cyberattacks, major disasters, human error or other unplanned outages. The new products are available in cloud and SaaS versions to meet customer requirements.

Both products leverage AI-powered system protection with deep learning technology to detect known and unknown malware. The malware protection is provided without relying on signatures, exploit prevention and antiransomware capabilities. The products protect against data loss and downtime using agentless and agent-based backup. Customers can do the disaster recovery onsite or to public and private clouds, or local and remote virtual standby. Also included is AES encryption, role-based access control and SLA reporting.

Arcserve Cloud Backup for Office 365 Secured by Sophos protects users’ Microsoft Office 365 data. It includes cloud-to-cloud backup for Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. Arcserve UDP and Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server power the service.

The goal of the Arcserve UDP Cloud Hybrid Secured by Sophos service is to protect workloads for cohesive cloud security. Offered as a fully managed service extension to Arcserve UDP software and appliances, it provides cyber protection and policy-based management.

Both business cybersecurity protection products are available for an annual subscription.

Arcserve’s Oussama El-Hilai

“This extension of Arcserve and Sophos’ alliance provides channel partners with the industry’s only means to combat cyberattacks with solutions that intelligently integrate cybersecurity and data protection to prevent data loss of on-premises, cloud and SaaS workloads,” Oussama El-Hilali, Arcserve’s CTO, told Channel Futures. “For over a year, we’ve seen an escalation in ransomware attacks not only on businesses, but on MSPs and IT services providers, too. Ransomware gangs have also been changing up their tactics, attacking data backups and workloads stored in the cloud to force victims into paying ransoms.”

Partner Opportunity

For channel partners, the products deliver Arcserve and Sophos developers’ knowledge to help protect customers, El-Hilali said. “Further, they can remove multivendor complexity and support evolving IT challenges, such as quickly standing up remote workforces and protecting increasingly distributed data.”

The alliance also enables partners to access a larger portion of customer IT budgets to increase profitability, said El-Hilali.

“It also allows them to win more deals against both pure backup and security solutions, which they can attach to renewals to eliminate churn.”

El-Hilali says channel partners are asking for combined services such as these and customers want them.

Palmiq’s Khaja Naseer

“Since then, we announced our alliance with Sophos [last] September and are now extending that alliance to make it easier for channel partners to protect workloads in the appliance as well as in the cloud,” said El-Hilali.

Khaja Naseer, executive director at Palmiq, a reseller and Arcserve partner, said the new offerings are “monumental steps” for partners.

“Partners will be able to …

… provide more value to their existing pipeline by differentiating themselves from the competition,” he said. “Their customers will benefit not only from the additional layer of added security, but also from the easy-to-use suite of solutions.”

Customers and partners will also benefit as they support ever-growing remote workforces due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Naseer.

“As a customer-focused business, Palmiq aims to provide our customers with the best technologies to solve their toughest technology problems. Ransomware is and continues to be a threat to businesses today, and by bringing AI-powered cybersecurity to the table, it makes it a simple choice when evaluating backup and disaster recovery.”

Charles Bass, vice president of new business development for Climb Channel Solutions, an Arcserve distributor, said the new business cybersecurity protection offerings allow partners to have deeper conversations with customers about security and data resiliency.

Climb Channel Solutions’ Charles Bass

“By being able to offer them the combined technologies from Arcserve and Sophos, we’re better equipped to help them protect every kind of workload, whether it’s on premises, cloud, our SaaS,” said Bass. “That’s huge for customers who have all three. Our partners are consistently looking for solutions that offer a multilayered approach to ransomware readiness. Broad offerings like these help our partners stand out and better meet today’s complex customer needs.”

Most businesses don’t back up their SaaS applications and assume Microsoft has it covered for them, said Bass. But in reality, that’s not the case.

“And many might not be protecting backups as rigorously as they should. This is a great chance for us to educate customers on both issues and present tangible and easily deployable solutions,” he said.

Seeing Arcserve and Sophos, who already have partner relationships with his company, work together on this is great, said Bass. “This helps us combine data security and protection so we can holistically aid our customers in keeping their data safe.”