SonicWall & ConnectWise Simplify Security Management for MSPs

When it comes to running a well-organized managed security service business, managed security providers (MSP) demand effective, repeatable processes and continuous operation optimization as a key part of their business strategy.

Evaluating and deciding on a wide-range of important operational capabilities are important to developing and delivering the right services — at the right time and for the right cost. These include choosing the right:

• Technology partner
• Staff
• Data center architecture
• Contractual terms
• Service-level delivery
• Go-to-market strategies
• Back-office automation tools that power the business

To enable this strategy, MSPs face a myriad of business, economic and technical decisions associated with the infrastructure they’re going to develop and business management software they’re going to employ. Establishing a high-valued managed security service requires a solution that integrates modern security with rich management, monitoring and reporting capabilities with leading professional services automation (PSA) software.

“Establishing a high-valued managed security service requires a solution that integrates modern security with rich management, monitoring and reporting capabilities with leading professional services automation (PSA) software.”

This integration should give MSPs visibility and control of their multi-vendor solution environment and help them streamline business operations and reduce operating costs.

To properly empower MSPs, SonicWall introduces Global Management System (GMS) 8.7, bringing greater visibility, manageability and serviceability of network security solutions via integration with industry-leading professional services automation (PSA) tool ConnectWise Manage^® software.

With more than 27,000 SecureFirst global channel partners, the GMS-ConnectWise integration is driven by the collective inputs from many years of partner collaborations. The benefits to MSPs are increased visibility into their customers’ data, improved productivity and better overall efficiency.

The combined solution gives MSPs single-portal experience for automated service ticketing and asset synchronization. MSPs can easily and quickly perform and administer these important operational tasks natively within the ConnectWise Manage portal based on set priority and/or severity level.

So, how does this improve MSP operations? Consider the four ways GMS 8.7 and the ConnectWise integration can simplify security management for your customers.

Company Mapping

MSP partners can share selected clients’ profiles between SonicWall GMS and ConnectWise Manage and map all managed SonicWall firewall assets associated with each client within the ConnectWise portal for management and monitoring.

Auto Asset Synchronization Integration

Automatically update the SonicWall security appliances mapped to a client’s account in the ConnectWise Automate portal for asset tracking and usage. Give visibility to client names and device details, such as model, serial, version, active subscription, enrolled dates, service expirations, IP/MAC address and more.

Asset Synchronization

MSPs also gain visibility into asset inventory inside ConnectWise for easier device management. Whenever a new unit is added, a configuration is created for that unit through ConnectWise and the same is stored in GMS. Reversely, whenever a unit is deleted, the configuration created in ConnectWise is deleted and the same is removed from GMS.

Auto Ticketing Service Integration

Create GMS-generated alerts automatically in the ConnectWise Manage ticketing system. Track, document and communicate all open tickets during the correction process until they are resolved and automatically closed.

Ticketing is mapped between the systems. When they are created in GMS, GMS synchronizes to reflect changes to both systems.

Automated Ticketing

ConnectWise can also send status alerts to the stakeholders using various communication tools until a service ticket is acknowledge or closed. These include email, text messages (SMS), phone calls and even iOS & Android push notifications.

With SonicWall, MSPs are partnering with a technology partner with deep expertise in security technology, operations and processes. Because a vast number of SonicWall partners rely on the ConnectWise Manage for their business-management platform, the GMS-ConnectWise integration is the first of many future product integrations to continue servicing our MSP business requirements.

SonicWall Staff