SonicWall is previewing a management dashboard specifically tailored to the requirements of managed security service providers, as well as MSSP-friendly monthly pricing.
The new offerings were announced on the same day as an updated release of SonicWall’s Global Management System (GMS) that integrates with the ConnectWise Manage PSA solution.
Named My Workspace and modeled after MySonicWall, a provisioning and administration portal for SonicWall resellers, solution providers, and end users, the new dashboard comes with a user interface and other features designed to help MSSPs sell and support products in the SonicWall Capture Cloud platform more easily.
“It gets them a lot more effective in terms of their administration and a lot more effective and efficient in terms of … all the kind of operational requirements that are unique for multiple products and multiple customers,” says SonicWall CEO Bill Conner.
The system lets MSSPs define “tenants” corresponding to their customers and assign managed assets to them. An automated wizard streamlines the tenant creation process, and the portal includes enhanced functionality for establishing policies and managing groups as well. A streamlined product registration workflow is designed to make adding assets easier, and bulk registrations allow users to onboard multiple assets for one or more customers simultaneously.
A centralized dashboard, meanwhile, provides a snapshot, cross-tenant view of system status, license status, pending updates, threat data, and more. Users can click through from there to vulnerable products and tenants to perform remediation.
A feature-complete pilot version of My Workspace is currently available by invitation only to a subset of SonicWall’s MSSP partners. The system will become generally available within roughly the next 90 days.
My Workspace integrates both with GMS, which is a locally-deployed product, and Capture Security Center (CSC), a cloud-based equivalent. Users of those platforms can add and run My Workspace at no additional cost. Future My Workspace releases will include integration with leading PSA platforms as well, though Conner declined for now to specify which ones.
The new monthly pricing program, which is also in pilot currently and set to roll out more broadly early next year, is a similarly important element of SonicWall’s efforts to attract MSSPs. Partners who utilize that option will make an annual advance licensing commitment in one of three sizes, with the ability to adjust consumption up or down halfway through that term.†
Version 9.2 of GMS, which SonicWall also unveiled today, is the first to feature PSA integration for ticketing, alerts, and asset synchronization. Support for additional, as yet unspecified PSA products, is forthcoming.
According to Conner, SonicWall plans to roll GMS and CSC together as a single solution next year.
Today’s announcements are yet another milestone in SonicWall’s evolution since former owner Dell spun it off as an independent business just over three years ago.
Earlier stages in that process focused on expanding beyond firewall hardware into a wider range of threat detection and response solutions spanning physical, virtual, on-premises, and cloud-based components. That effort, which entailed launching 24 products with 160 million lines of code in just nine months, won SonicWall a place on ChannelPro‘s list of 2018 All-Stars.
With its revamped product portfolio largely in place, Conner says, SonicWall is now working to optimize its offerings for cloud delivery and the swiftly growing MSSP channel. Businesses globally will spend more than $21 billion on managed security services, according to IDC, which expects managed security outlays to grow at a 14.2% CAGR through 2022.
Exactly how to define “MSSP” is a much-debated topic within and beyond the security market. Some industry watchers limit that term to large firms with expensive security operations centers and equally expensive in-house analysts. Others, at the opposite end of the spectrum, contend that almost any MSP with a security practice qualifies. SonicWall, according to Conner, leans slightly toward the latter, more inclusive definition.
“Clearly, the guys that are getting the notoriety are the big heavyweights,” he notes. “We see a lot of other MSSPs around the world that use our technology, and they’re doing quite well on a smaller geographic footprint because they understand that local market really well.”
That said, he continues, consolidation may be coming to some of the market’s smaller players. “You’ll start to see more master MSSPs start to roll up some of those other MSSPs, either geographically or by vertical,” he predicts.
SonicWall added an MSSP specialization to its SecureFirst partner program in March of 2018. Three months ago, it announced plans to revise the MSSP program’s incentive structure to reward partners for selling newer products alongside its more established firewall systems, and for investing in support capabilities. According to Conner, channel pros can expect the new measurement scheme to go into effect roughly in February of next year.
