Cisco, at a Cisco Partner Connection Week! event, today extended its alliance with ConnectWise into the realm of cybersecurity. Cisco last year partnered with ConnectWise to create a ConnectWise Unite with Cisco cloud service through which managed service providers (MSPs) can manage Cisco networks directly from within the ConnectWise professional services automation (PSA) platform.
Today Cisco and ConnectWise unfurled ta a ConnectWise Advanced Security Dashboard through which they can now also manage Cisco security technologies, including Cisco Meraki MX firewalls, Umbrella, Stealthwatch Cloud, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASAs), Cisco Next-Generation Firewall (NXGF), and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) for Endpoints.
Separately, Cisco at the RSA Conference 2018 event today also announced it is employing machine learning and other advanced analytics to provide more robust capabilities within the Cisco AMP for Endpoints cloud service.
Since forming the alliance last year there are now 400 MSPs participating in the program serving over 1,000 customers, says John Graham, senior director for software and collaboration within the Cisco Global Partner Organization.
Many of those MSPs, adds Graham, are now full-blown managed security service providers (MSSPs). Rather, they are traditional MSPs looking to add some base level managed security services in a way that requires much less upfront capital expense, says Graham.
“It’ll be a lower barrier to entry,” says Graham.
The alliance with Cisco is part of a larger ConnectWise mission to connect everything to its MSP platform, says ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini.
MSPs need to support heterogeneous environments because each customer engagement is different. The Cisco Unit platform provides a homogeneous approach to managing heterogeneous IT environments, says Bellini.
“As an MSP you’re never going to get all your clients to standardize on one set of products,” says Bellini.
In general, Cisco is trying to tap into one of the fastest growing segments of the channel. The overall size of the MSP market is expected to be $257.84 billion in 2022, representing a compound annual growth rate of 11.1 percent.
Naturally, Cisco isn’t the only IT vendor with similar ambitions. But as more traditional resellers continue to extend their reach into the realm of managed services, it’s clear Cisco may be one of the ways to capitalize on that shift at a level of scale few can match.
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