5 Channel Ops: Microsoft Goes Big, Security Mashups
Neither Apple’s WWDC nor Cisco Live produced seismic news for channel pros (or, in Apple’s case, for most anyone). From WWDC comes word that, when an unknown number rings your iPhone, Siri will search email to determine if the caller is a contact. Of course, if your email looks anything like mine, by that time the caller has hung up. One item of note for partners that support retail customers is that Apple Pay will launch in the U.K. next month. More here from NextWeb.
At its Live conference, Cisco unveiled some updates to its ACI and SDN strategies, with a welcome focus on open APIs. More here. Cisco also talked about a new Security Everywhere initiative that forwards its IoT– and solutions-centric focuses. In a briefing on the news, Al Jacobellis, director of security solutions strategy for the Worldwide Partner Organization, said partners can increase the size of deals and establish themselves as trusted security advisers by leveraging existing networked devices to detect suspicious activity and even block it using segmentation. If this sounds like NAC, you’re right. Active threat detection and access control was a good idea five years ago, just ahead of its time and suffering from being seen as a standalone product. Now, standards have advanced, and with this initiative, Cisco’s embedding the functionality in the network. Find technical details on using the network as a sensor and enforcer here.
An item in last week’s column, stating that Dimension Data found that 74 percent of wireless access points are still 802.11g and older, raised some eyebrows, so I circled back with the company. Andre van Schalkwyk, Dimension Data’s global lead for the Network Barometer Report, says that while wireless bookings have increased year over year since 2008, that year saw an initial adoption spike of 802.11a/g, and many orgs are sitting tight, despite the launch of 802.11n in 2010.
“The general deployment of 802.11n was indeed quite wide, but we saw a very large portion of clients that did not switch to 802.11n and skipped a generation, waiting for 802.11ac to be released before starting on a general wireless refresh,” says van Schalkwyk.” He notes that the data in the report is based primarily on large enterprise clients, where hardware refresh cycles are typically five years.
“In the public sectors we’re seeing this refresh cycle increase to seven or even 10 years,” he says.
That certainly explains why one can’t get decent Wi-Fi at city hall.
Sneak Peek: AccelOps Launch
Next week AccelOps will launch enhancements to its channel program as well as to its analytics-driven network performance and security intelligence management platform for cloud, virtualized and legacy infrastructures.
John Allen, channel sales director at AccelOps, said in a briefing that solutions providers will enjoy two key benefits. First, the new system provides a “single pane” for monitoring customer networks.
“We have one partner that supports about 200 customers,” said Allen. And, the company protects commissions on second-year recurring revenue, so partners can worry less about monetizing any training investment. Resellers, systems integrators and managed security service providers (MSSPs) can now sell AccelOps as a value-added service; high-volume partners will earn increased discounts as they achieve sales milestones, deals are protected for 90 days, and partners with active deal registrations are eligible to receive a free limited internal-use license for demos and training.
Essentially, AccelOps melds security information and event management (SIEM) and network-performance monitoring in a single interface. When installed, it automatically crawls the network, across the data center and cloud services, to discover servers, storage, networks, security, applications and users. The analytics engine uses cross-correlation and statistical anomaly detection to detect security or performance problems in real-time and alert the service provider.
New features include:
- A threat intelligence center that aggregates, validates and shares anonymous threat data gathered from the AccelOps customer base; companies or MSSPs can also pull in and cross-correlate other public or private threat feeds using the open external threat feed API.
- A bi-directional workflow API that hooks into leading ITSM and ticketing systems including ServiceNow and ConnectWise.
- Windows agents that can process as many as 1800 events per second per server (the system is mostly agentless).
Security Bundling
The trend of baking security into other IT functions doesn’t stop with performance monitoring. Kaspersky Lab this week announced that it is now bundling its security software with backup services provided by Acronis. The bundles are available to channel partners in the U.S. exclusively through Ingram Micro and are optimized for both virtual and physical environments. More here. Mark Bermingham, director of global B2B product marketing at Kaspersky Lab, cites ransomware as a case where having bundled backup could mitigate the damage of a successful attack.
Meanwhile, Sophos announced this week that it has acquired Reflexion Networks, which sells cloud-based email security, archiving, email encryption and business-continuity services exclusively through about 2,000 managed service providers. Sophos plans to add the cloud-based email security to its Sophos Cloud offering, to complement its on-premises Secure Email Appliance. In a statement, Kendra Krause, vice president of global channels, sales for Sophos, said that Reflexion, like Sophos, has a 100-percent channel sales model.
More Logical Pricing
LogicNow this week announced new pricing for its MAX Backup disaster recovery service; customers will now be charged per device for both servers and workstations, rather than by data usage. In the age of big data, that should help channel partners keep monthly costs under control, and in fact, LogicNow GM Alistair Forbes told Channel Partners that a fixed-price, all-you-can-eat model allows MSPs to offer a known price to their customers without the risk of their costs increasing over time, with resulting erosion of margins.
The company will continue to offer a flexible usage model for customers backing up smaller amounts of data that may not require a per-device pricing structure.
“For smaller volumes of data, the pay-as-you-go model will offer lower costs, but for larger opportunities the fixed-price model will allow the MSP to offer a lower total cost-of-service to their customers,” said Forbes. “As data volumes grow, so will the benefits of the fixed-price model, so we hope that this will enable our customers to be more and more successful with large customers.” More than 4,500 IT service providers use MAX Backup.
Latest in Room-Size Gadgetry
Microsoft has finally released details about the Surface Hub room-size collaboration system it announced earlier this year. The system is available beginning July 1 through resellers in two main configurations: the Surface Hub 55-inch, for $6,999, and the Surface Hub 84-inch, for $19,999. For customers that have held off on room-size videoconferencing, the fact that the Hub can display Windows 10, Skype for Business, Office, OneNote and Universal Windows apps to both in-room and remote attendees might tempt them off the sidelines.
Plus: Microsoft also launched a browser-based beta of Skype. It’s available in the U.S. and U.K. for Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari and Firefox. For now, Chromebook users are out of luck.
Guest Satisfaction in a Box
Solutions providers serving the hospitality industry may want to check out Proxce’s new Starter Kits that let hotels get started with mobile check-in. The kits cost $2,999 and can be installed in minutes. Once up and running, guests can check in using their smartphones and pick up pre-printed keys from the front desk. Proxce’s main business is a mobile-compatible identity management software system for hotels; it also offers white-labeled apps, keyless entry, indoor navigation, and custom app design and development. The company says hotel chains including Starwood and Marriott are experimenting with mobile check-in and that the program can build loyalty and improve the guest experience. Proxce’s system can also integrate with a hotel’s existing mobile app.
Bits & Bytes
Network functions virtualization for delivering edge functions in a virtual model is picking up steam. Even though virtual routers, like Brocade’s Vyatta vRouter, made their debut in real-world use cases only in the last few years, that slice of the NFV market will grow 125 percent from 2015 to 2016, says IHS, and 35 percent of operators surveyed will deploy NFV by year’s end, according to the analyst firm.
If you want in on the action, check out Anuta Networks’ new global channel partner program. Anuta provides end-to-end network services virtualization for large and midsize enterprises and service providers and partners with the likes of Cisco Systems, F5 Networks, Hitachi, NTT-AT, Telstra and VMware. This week’s announcement is around the addition of U.S. system integrator Abacus Technical Services, as well four global channel providers, to its partner program.
Riverbed Technology announced this week its new SteelCentral AppInternals 10 application performance management system that keeps tabs on applications on and off the cloud. AppInternals 10 provides end-to-end performance visibility into hybrid IT environments by tracing every transaction from the end user device or browser to the application back end, capturing second-by-second system metrics for root cause analysis. SteelCentral AppInternals 10 integrates with the SteelCentral Portal, and sales primarily go through partners, with direct options available, said Krish Badrinarayanan, senior product marketing manager at Riverbed. SteelCentral AppInternals 10 starts at $5,199 per agent, with volume pricing available.
ActiveState announced this week that it’s joined Cisco’s ISV partner ecosystem, opening up availability of Stackato Private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) on Intercloud. With the launch of the Cisco Intercloud Marketplace, due this fall, partners will be able to run Stackato Private PaaS direct on Intercloud from their own marketplaces.
Webinar: RightScale’s VP of marketing Kim Weins is hosting A Framework to Measure and Maximize Cloud ROI next Wed., June 17, 2015. Register here.
WAN Outlook: Last week I missed the release of Aryaka’s 2015 State of the Enterprise WAN report. Some stats: HTTP traffic continues to dominate, likely due to heavy cloud adoption; 88 percent of Aryaka’s enterprise customers send HTTP traffic over the WAN, while 80 percent send HTTPS. Speeds are up, with 67 percent of enterprise customers globally using links of 10 Mbps or better over the last mile. And, total global enterprise traffic grew at a mean rate of 236 percent in 2014. EMEA grew the fastest, at a mean rate of about 399 percent, while traffic in North America grew 190 percent.
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