CRN Exclusive: VeloCloud Adds New Providers To Its Integrated Security, SD-WAN Solutions
SD-WAN startup VeloCloud has added several new solutions to its SD-WAN Security Technology Partner Program, an ecosystem that tightly integrates VeloCloud's cloud-delivered SD-WAN offering with best of breed security solutions.
The new security solutions will help VeloCloud's partners protect SD-WAN users across their branch office infrastructure, data center, and cloud networks. At the same time, the program gives partners access to lucrative security solutions they may not have otherwise been selling, Steve Woo, vice president of product and one of VeloCloud's co-founders, told CRN.
"This close cooperation and integration between these best of breed security solutions and our SD-WAN platform is a huge win for partners," Woo said.
The program's newly-minted members on the network security side include Palo Alto Networks, with its virtual firewall that is being added to VeloCloud's SD-WAN platform, and VMware, with its NSX platform. The two new cloud security partners are Symantec and ForcePoint.
In April, Mountain View, Calif.-based VeloCloud unveiled its SD-WAN Security Ecosystem. The existing partner lineup at the time included network security partners Fortinet and Check Point. On the cloud security side, partners included Zscaler and Palo Alto Networks, which just joined the network security list, and management security partner IBM Security.
Also, existing member IBM Security has also added its IBM QRadar SIEM solution to VeloCloud's managed security services portfolio.
VeloCloud is a 100 percent channel-driven provider that does its business through VAR, MSP, and system integrator partners. The combination of security and SD-WAN allows partners to upsell either a security solution or SD-WAN solution on top of an existing security sale, Woo said.
"If the partner can get one SD-WAN sale, the time to upsell to add a security service is much faster with this combination. It's a click of a button, and it's done," he said. "It makes for a more integrated pitch for partners and an expansion of business opportunity for them, too."
The combination also gives partners a more integrated networking offering that is easier to manage. At the same time, customers don't have to buy as many boxes in multiple locations, he said.
QOS Consulting, an El Segundo, Calif.-based based solution provider and VeloCloud partner has been selling the provider's SD-WAN solutions because, it said, VeloCloud makes it easy for partners to implement their technology within existing solutions.
"We can consolidate a lot of different network functions very easily for our customers using VeloCloud, and we are doing it at a cost that is affordable," said Frank Cittadino, CEO of QOS Consulting.
The latest integrations with best of breed security vendors have been especially beneficial for QOS, which can now add and report on security incidents for its end customers. This process, Cittadino said, was previously harder to manage and required the attention of a full network security team.
"Now, can add these popular security providers onto the VeloCloud platform and we can consolidate down hardware, like the firewall, for the customer," Cittadino said. "It really reduces complexity."
VeloCloud today is an integration partner of the Palo Alto Networks NextWave Technology Partner Program. The provider is also part of Symantec's Technology Integration Partner Program (TIPP).