Monday Morning Impact – February 7

Fortinet: Most Organizations Face Gaps in Their Zero-Trust Implementations

Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, California-based cybersecurity company, has unveiled a survey reporting that while most organizations have a vision of Zero Trust, or are in the process of implementing Zero Trust initiatives, more than half of organizations cannot translate this vision into practical solutions. According to Fortinet’s “Global State of Zero Trust Report,” those organizations are lacking basic core fundamentals of Zero Trust.

“With the evolving threat landscape, transition to work-from-anywhere, and the need to securely manage applications in the cloud, the shift from implicit trust to Zero Trust is top of mind for organizations,” said John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet. “Our survey shows while most organizations have some form of a Zero Trust strategy in place, they fall short of a holistic strategy and struggle to implement some core Zero Trust security basics. An effective solution requires a cybersecurity mesh platform approach to address all Zero Trust fundamentals across the infrastructure, including endpoint, cloud, and on-premises, otherwise the result is a partial, non-integrated solution that lacks broad visibility.”

A FortiGuard Labs Threat Landscape Report demonstrated an increase in the volume and sophistication of attacks targeting individuals, organizations, and increasingly critical infrastructure. Organizations are looking for solutions to protect against these evolving threats and Zero Trust is top of mind, but for multiple reasons. Additionally, the shift to work-from-anywhere has put a spotlight on Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) in particular, as organizations need to protect important assets from workers connecting from poorly protected home networks.

The report illustrates some confusion about what comprises a complete Zero Trust strategy. Respondents indicated they understand Zero Trust (77%) and ZTNA (75%) concepts and over 80% reported already having a Zero Trust and/or ZTNA strategy in place or development. Yet over 50% indicated being unable to implement core Zero Trust capabilities. Nearly 60% indicated they do not have the ability to authenticate users and devices on an ongoing basis and 54% struggle to monitor users, post-authentication.

The Zero-Trust Report is based on a global survey conducted in September 2021 with 472 IT and security leaders from 24 different countries, representing nearly all industries, including the public sector.

Channel Impact^®
The data underscore channel opportunities in helping customers to understand, and get the most out of, Zero Trust.

ServiceNow Rolls out Digital Transformation Platform

ServiceNow, of Santa Clara, California, has announced “ServiceNow Impact,” a solution designed to help customers accelerate the return on their digital transformation investments. The platform combines AI‑powered recommendations, expert guidance, premium tech support and tools.

“You can only improve what you can measure,” said CEO Bill McDermott. “ServiceNow Impact is an intuitive, consumer‑grade mobile application that visualizes the value from transformation investments in real‑time.”

Customers can leverage the platform to personalize their digital transformation experience with peer and industry benchmarks; to align strategy to business outcomes with prescriptive guidance, tools, and technical support; and to develop internal expertise.

As part of ServiceNow Impact, the company today also released a major update to its Now Learning training and certification platform offering on‑demand, instructor‑led, and custom training and certification programs.

Participating customers include Anaplan, NewsCorp, Infor, and the State of Montana.

Channel Impact^®
ServiceNow Impact is intended to accelerate return on large-scale technology investments.

Pure Storage Updates Partner Program to Further Align with as-a-Service Model

Pure Storage, a Mountain View, California-based storage as-a-service vendor, has announced a series of new partner program updates intended to enhance flexibility, agility, transparency, and simplicity for partners.

The program now provides specific requirements and benefits for partners whether they are reselling or offering managed services, as-a-service solutions, or cloud native architecture. The company is also introducing new benefits, including incentives, discounts, and marketing resources for Elite-level partners. In addition, a new service specialization program enables partner-branded professional and support services around Pure technology. Pure has also introduced a formal program to support distribution partners.

These changes also include a simplification of the requirements by aligning to solutions, further enabling partners to invest in multiple routes-to-market enablement.

“As the only storage vendor delivering subscriptions fully through the channel, our partners are essential to achieving our mission of meeting global business and technology needs, which is why the modernization of our Partner Program is moving in lockstep with Pure’s evolution as a services-led company,” said Wendy Stusrud, VP of Global Partner Sales. “We’re proud to set the bar for partner programs, delivering unmatched simplicity, flexibility, and value to our partners so we can continue growing together.”

Channel Impact^®
The updates include the capacity for partners to participate in one-to-many routes to market, differentiated benefits based on tier, and other criteria.