Converging networking and security breaks down silos and encourages collaboration across the network

The convergence of security and networking offers significant opportunities for partners to meet their customers’ demands for performance and protection. RAJESH MAURYA, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet in an interview with VAR India explains why partners should embrace security-driven networking.

How can partner secure customers networks that are fragmented and now include new unique edges?

Establishing a flexible and adaptive network that connects in-person and remote workers is challenging. Similarly, managing security in a continuously evolving threat landscape becomes increasingly difficult, especially for organizations using legacy solutions and strategies.

Partners can help their customers address these issues by working with them to implement a security-driven networking strategy. Converging networking and security breaks down silos and encourages collaboration across the network. When networking and security are integrated into the IT infrastructure, the organization can take various crucial factors into account, including the network, endpoints and devices, the cloud and applications. Further, security can take key networking functions into account, enabling them to more appropriately adapt configurations, policiesand programs for more consistent protection.

Additionally, partners can help customers ensure consistent security and performance spanning from edge to edge with comprehensive, deeply integrated solutions. By converging security and networking security teams can keep pace with shifts between the two, offering comprehensive visibility across the entire IT infrastructure, including hybrid hardware and software deployments.

How can partner achieve Shortand Long Term Success with the Right Security Platform?

A unified, centralized source of threat intelligence enables a more collaborative response to emerging threats, making it easier for security teams to mitigate network security gaps and improve overall response protocols.

Modern business requires advanced, modern solutions that flexibly respond to changes. The right platform should continuously adapt to the digital threat landscape and digital attack surface changes facing the organization. With a broad, integrated security platform, partners can more easily maintain and even improve their customers’ cyber health, enabling them to take advantage of digital innovation without compromising security.

What are the Partner opportunities around Security-Driven Networking?

Security-driven networking enables partners to offer customers greater levels of protection while growing their own businesses. Helping customers establish a security-driven networking strategy also gives partners a way to demonstrate value by providing guidance when addressing hybrid IT challenges.

There are several reasons to adopt and recommend a converged security and networking approach that prioritizes a hybrid infrastructure, flexibility, and performance. Companies today rely on the cloud and data centers to conduct business, giving rise to hybrid IT environments. Even if a customer is cloud-focused, they still have endpoints that must be protected, especially with the wide-scale adoption of remote work. To address these changes, partners must shape their product and service offerings around this type of convergence.

Flexibility is another key component to security-driven networking. With flexible infrastructures, organizations can quickly adapt to shifts in the IT landscape, allowing them to provide cutting edge services and stay ahead of the competition. And because customers expect quick and effective solutions, security must match the speed of the network. Securitydriven networking also gives customers the performance they need without sacrificing security.

How is Fortinet helping partners to address changing market needs and further enabling them to have the resources to meet customer needs?

The Fortinet Engage Partner Program helps partners develop the expertise needed to deliver digital transformation through customizable programs with business opportunity and infrastructure in place to accelerate their growth. Partners are also provided flexibility to engage on three business levels: Integrator, MSSP, or Cloud, which provides multiple opportunities to grow different segments of their business, as well as multiple ways to differentiate their offerings with specializations.

Fortinet introduced four specializations last year, including Secure SD-WAN, Data Center, Adaptive Cloud Security, and LAN Edge and SD-Branch. We have now added three more specializations based on areas driving customer demand. The introduction of these new specializations is representative of the rapidly growing market areas that customers are searching for expertise on. Fortinet’s new specializations are focused on high growth areas with additions including: Zero Trust Access, Operational Technology and Security Operations. They will further enable partners to differentiate their skillsets and knowledge in these fast-growing areas.

Tell us more about Fortinet’s Open Fabric Ecosystem.

With over 400 technology integrations, Fortinet’s Open Fabric Ecosystem is one of the largest cybersecurity ecosystems in the industry. The ecosystem is comprised of Fabric-Ready technology alliance partners, collaborations with threat sharing organizations and other technology integrations, delivering comprehensive end to end security. These ecosystem integrations enable threat intelligence sharing to detect, monitor, block, and remediate attacks across the entire attack surface, ensuring rapid and coordinated policy enforcement. The integrated platform approach helps streamline and automate security, enabling customers to respond to today’s most sophisticated threats rapidly and effectively. Partners are provided with program infrastructure, resources, and tools to integrate with the Security Fabric, develop joint solutions, and become part of the ecosystem. Fortinet’s open ecosystem approach extends the capabilities of the Security Fabric to the FabricReady partner solutions and enables integration of new solutions into the Fabric.