Monday Morning Impact – June 29

Study: SD-WAN is the Solution of Choice for Securing Public Cloud Deployments

When it comes to maintaining security within the public cloud, SD-WAN is emerging as the most popular option. That’s according to a recent market research report released by Barracuda Networks, a cloud security company based in Campbell, California.

The report entitled, “Secure SD-WAN: The Launch Pad into Cloud,” indicates that while adoption rates for public cloud continue to grow, security is still the number one roadblock.

The report says that 23% of respondents have already deployed SD-WAN, with another 51% either in the process of deploying or expecting to deploy within the next 12 months.

SD-WAN is being used by more than half of those who have added security to their public cloud. The financial services industry has the most SD-WAN adoption, with 35% of respondents saying it is already in use. Another 41% are in the process of deploying SD-WAN or expect to do so in the next 12 months. The public sector has the lowest amount of SD-WAN deployment. Only 7% currently have SD-WAN deployed, and another 36% are in the process of deploying SD-WAN or expect to do so in the next 12 months. More than half (52%) of respondents want to acquire an SD-WAN solution through a cloud provider. In comparison, 16% prefer to get SD-WAN from an independent vendor, while 15% would opt for a telecommunications partner, and 12% would choose a value-added reseller. Microsoft Azure is 50% more preferred than Amazon AWS and 125% more preferred than Google GCP. Responses indicate that Azure is perceived to be more secure and more user friendly than AWS and GCP.

“As more organizations move to public cloud, SD-WAN technology is a critical part of securing these cloud deployments,” said Klaus Gheri, VP, Network Security at Barracuda. “By deploying an all-in-one, secure SD-WAN solution natively built into the public cloud network, organizations can reap the full benefits of public cloud.”

The survey, which was conducted by an independent market researcher included responses from 750 executives, individual contributors, and team managers with responsibility for or knowledge of their organization’s cloud infrastructure. They came from organizations of all sizes and across a broad range of sectors, in EMEA, APAC and the US.

Channel Impact^®
The data demonstrate the uptake of SD-WAN, which is viewed in some circles as a replacement for MPLS, which nonetheless continues to post solid numbers at the cores of large enterprise networks.

Check Point Software Launches New Cloud Security Solution

Check Point Software Technologies has introduced CloudGuard Cloud Native Security, an automated cloud platform that enables customers to protect all of their cloud deployments and workloads, as well as manage security through a single pane of glass.

“Security is continually cited as a barrier to enterprise cloud deployments, because traditional security controls are not agile enough to handle the cloud’s speed and scale,” said Itai Greenberg, VP of Product Management at Check Point. “CloudGuard solves this problem, giving organizations the most advanced cloud-native security across their cloud estates, together with holistic visibility and easy, automated management and enforcement of security policies.”

Features include advanced threat prevention against advanced persistent threats and zero-days, workload runtime protection, firewalling, IPS, Application Control, IPsec VPN, Antivirus and Anti-Bot. The platform also promises unified visibility across multi-cloud environments.

CloudGuard promises cloud-agnostic security, enabling organizations to automatically secure any workload, anywhere with auto-provisioning, auto-scaling and automated policy updates in support of serverless and container-based applications in multi-cloud environments.

Channel Impact^®
The platform is intended to unify security across private and public cloud implementations.

Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace Offers Salesforce Solutions for Small Businesses

Ingram Micro Cloud announced that its Cloud Marketplace will include key solutions from Salesforce, including Salesforce Essentials, a solution for small businesses.

“Salesforce Essentials is purpose-built to give small businesses access to the tools they need to better connect with customers,” says Meredith Schmidt, executive vice president and GM of Essentials and SMB at Salesforce. “At a time when small businesses are facing new and unfamiliar challenges, we hope to bring critical small business tools and resources to Ingram Micro Cloud’s community of reselling partners and small business customers.”

In addition, Ingram Micro Cloud will provide sales support, helping Ingram Micro resellers to more effectively position the Essentials solution for small business customers.

“These are challenging times for all businesses, but in particular, for small businesses,” said Nimesh Davé, executive vice president of Global Cloud Computing at Ingram Micro. “This agreement further strengthens our marketplace of cloud solutions addressing the unique needs of small businesses.”

Operating in 64 countries with more than 55,000 reseller partners, Ingram Micro Cloud offers more than 120 SaaS and IaaS cloud solutions with automated go-to-market and integration tools, technical expertise to support vendors, resellers and managed service providers.

Channel Impact^®
The expansion of Ingram Micro Cloud’s North America vendor portfolio is expected to empower small businesses with the Salesforce architecture to assist in sales and customer service needs.