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RSA Conference 2018: See You Next Year

Every year, RSA Conference 2018 is a fast-paced, high-energy gathering for cyber security discussion, networking, innovation and learning for attendees, panelists, speakers and exhibitors alike. It’s almost impossible to see and hear all the show has to offer.

To help, we’ve collected all the interesting events and news from the week. It was an amazing four days — or eight days if you are part of our event staff — and we thank everyone for visiting us.

Endpoint protection still top of mind

While endpoint protection was a major theme at RSA, the technology partnership between SonicWall and SentinelOne stole the show with a modern take on endpoint protection. Throughout the week, SonicWall and SentinelOne collaborated to show off the new SonicWall Capture Client and integrated SentinelOne capabilities, like continuous behavioral monitoring and unique rollback capabilities.
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Awards and honors deserve a ‘thank you’

The CRN accolades noted above were just the start for SonicWall, which collected eight awards, including Gold in the CEO of the Year and Security Marketing Team of the Year, at the 2018 Info Security Product Guide Global Excellence Awards ceremony Monday in San Francisco. Also at RSA, SonicWall was named Cybersecurity Company of the Year in the Cyber Defense Magazine InfoSec Awards 2018.

These honors were the result of true dedication from our amazing SonicWall SecureFirst Partners and loyal customer base that spans 200 countries across the globe. Sincerely, thank you.

Streaming RSA Conference live

No matter your good intentions, sometimes it’s impossible to make it out to RSA every year. But that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on SonicWall’s presentation on the cyber arms race. That’s why we streamed a session from SonicWall malware expert Brook Chelmo on Facebook Live. Relive his presentation again and again, or watch it for the first time.

Music to inspire

While this musical inspiration was published before RSA kicked off, we had so much fun with our RSA Conference 2018 playlist on Spotify we’d be remiss in not offering it up once again.

Worn out

By the final day of RSA Conference, we’re spent. Our presenters logged dozens of hours presenting during the week. Their voices tired. Their legs weak. And some couldn’t even wait to get back to the hotel for some much-needed rest. And you know what? We can’t wait to do it again next year. See you at RSA Conference 2019, March 4-9.

Farewell, RSA Conference 2018

SonicWall Announces New “Reward for Value” for Channel Partners

I like cars. All kinds of cars. From high speed racers, to utility pickups and even classics like the 1961 Corvette I’m looking to restore in my spare time. Partner programs are a lot like cars. Some are basic and get you from point A to point B. Others are high performance vehicles designed to thrill. As we announce the new  SonicWall Secure First partner program and Reward for Value incentives at our PEAK16 conference this week in Las Vegas, we’ll unveil a program that I’d like to believe has a lot of horsepower, gives its drivers great controls, and is a dependable ride.

At the heart of the new program are our partnering engines designed to help our partners deliver the best security possible to protect their customers while creating more value for their business. We’ve tuned up all the partnering engines Incentives, Enablement, Support and Services.

For the incentive engine, “Reward for Value” recognizes and rewards partners for the full value they contribute to selling and supporting SonicWall solutions across the entire customer lifecycle. Whether it’s hunting a new sales opportunity, delivering a proof of concept, attaching incremental security services subscriptions to a sale or demonstrating vertical market expertise, Reward for Value delivers balanced up-front discounts and back-end rewards.

We’re also revving up new partner sales and SE trainings and accreditation tracks all built on a new partner enablement platform that delivers rich media training content and sales tools designed around the customer lifecycle. The new accreditations will provide valuable general knowledge on the threat landscape and cyber security, as well as on the latest SonicWall solutions like SonicWall Capture our new advanced threat protection offering.

Additionally, the Authorized Support Partner program is being announced to help partners builds out profitable support and services practices with their SonicWall solutions. Rich with support and services enablement that will ensure together we deliver customer success, this new program will recognize and reward Partners for owning their customers through deployment, support, optimization and upgrades. We’re also highlighting the momentum we’re building with our Security-as-a-Service and how partners can deliver managed security services on the SonicWall platform.

With close to 750 Partners attending from across the Americas, this is our largest and most successful partner event in the history of SonicWall. In fact, I’ve talked to Partners here who have attended every Peak we’ve hosted over 14 years! Talk about a loyal and dedicated Partner base. It’s humbling and an honor to count these companies among our Partners. And speaking of great Partners, I want to thank our platinum sponsors for co-sponsoring this annual event Tech Data, D&H Distributing, Securematics, SYNNEX and Ingram Micro. Without them none of this would have happened.

Our Americas business is running on all cylinders, the partnering engines are revving up and we’re thrilled to launch our Secure First partner program and Reward for Value. With the partner feedback and validation we’re receiving at PEAK, we’ve got our eyes focused on the road ahead and together with our Partners are speeding toward even greater success.

“SonicWall has proven to be a winner for us in our security practice. We have had a number of wins against other security products because of the support provided by SonicWall. PEAK16 is in that it enables me to engage with peers and enhance my skills,” says Jeffrey Grant, vice president of Tri-Delta Resources Corp.

“SonicWall understands partner challenges, enabling us to deliver thousands of customer centric solutions over the 25 years,” said Joseph Tassia, president of Nuoz.

I am meeting one-on-one with our partners this week to listen and help them further with their security mission. Follow @SonicWall on Twitter and SonicWall on Facebook with #YesPeak16 to join in the conversation and get updates. We want to hear from you.

Dodging the Next Hack with Dell Security: Wrap Up of NRF’s BIG Show in New York

Back from NYC, where I attended last week’s National Retail Federation annual conference, “The Big Show.”It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a major event like this one, but retail continues to be important to SonicWall and is now part of what I do here at SonicWall Security, particularly for our SonicWall network security offerings.

So what’s new in the retail industry? Judging from all I saw, tons, of course. Retailers are all in on getting the most out of their brick-and-mortar locations as well as their various online and social outlets. Multichannel and omnichannel are retail’s new normal. New technologies continue to emerge, starting with information technology, which drives the customer experience with data analytics, to in-store beacons and other Internet of Things devices, store, website, and fulfillment design, POS systems, targeted marketing the list goes on and on, testament to the hundreds of vendors exhibiting at the NRF show.

We had plenty of visitors to the SonicWall Security booth, and good conversations with all. Some visitors and customers joined us for happy hour and a very elegant dinner Monday evening at Colicchio & Sons, in what we used to call the Meatpacking District when I called New York my home. A part of Manhattan that was almost desolate in the evening has become very much alive. The dinner gave me a chance to listen to what customers were thinking and providing a SonicWall perspective on how we can help.

You’d think that with all the attention to hacks and breaches of major retailers, security would be a major focus of an event like this, but I didn’t find that to be the case, and was, quite frankly, surprised. Our presentation by Kent Shuart, Dodging the Next Hack, How to Protect Your Business, was one of only two conference sessions with a security focus. You can read more about Kent’s presentation in SC Magazine. Of special note is Kent’s point that small and medium size retailers may be an even bigger target in 2916 than their larger retail counterparts. Many of these small and medium sized retailers have not updated their protections while hackers continue to get more sophisticated. The black market value of credit card records is such that even a small business’s account data can be a major hack windfall.

Me, I don’t believe that the retail industry doesn’t want to talk security. I think that the industry as a whole understands that without a secure network infrastructure, the customer and business data that is their lifeblood is at risk. Whether in a store or online, businesses large and small need solid, secure, scalable, beyond-PCI-compliant network security that doesn’t just protect them from cyber criminals, but gives them a leg up on their competition.

Although the booth was small the message was big: SonicWall would like to be your trusted partner in all things IT. We can help build your retail business in a secure way without breaking the bank. Learn more about our retail solutions, or visit us online.

SoincWall Security Helps Partners Fight Malware Economy with Innovation at SoincWall Peak Performance

Today, at SoincWall Peak Performance 2015 in Las Vegas, I am zeroing in on the most important information for our SoincWall Security channel partners.

A lot has happened in the last year across SoincWall Security Solutions. In fact, as of this month, we have quite literally completed a complete refresh of our SonicWall TZ Wireless firewall product line from top to bottom while expanding the portfolio with the introduction of new platform form factors and performance capabilities. We’ve innovated with the software, with features, with performance, and with value for every size company from small businesses to distributed enterprises. We continue to fight the malware economy by improving our threat research, our Deep Packet Inspection Engine, and we’ve dramatically increased security for our customers by enhancing our DPI SSL capabilities and overall support from top to bottom.

Just today, we announced a phenomenal customer and partner success with Time Warner Cable Wireless and our premier partner Secure Designs, Inc. It is inspiring to learn how our partner integrated the latest  SonicWall solutions to support Time Warner Cable to protect schools and provide a better, more secure learning environment in order to facilitate the education of children nationwide.

And, there is always the new new threat! At Peak Performance, I’m discussing the new threats. What’s new in the overall security industry? What are some of the shocking evolutions in hacking? What is new in our SonicWall threat research? And of course, what are we doing about it and what does that mean for our product roadmap?

So, at this year’s Peak Performance, I am charting our future with you, our partners. Hearing what you like, and what you still need is what I value most about this week and is the reason why our entire team is here to support you. And to this point, remember, you help us build our roadmaps. We refine what we build and what we don’t by listening to you.

That is not bull. That is a fact.

We can’t and don’t want to build every product in the world. We do want to build the right products and features that will protect your customers. You have that knowledge. So attending SoincWall Peak Performance is not just an opportunity to receive info on what is happening. It is an opportunity to change our roadmap. To change the industry. To change security for your partners. We are here to give and to receive. I look forward to both! Just today we have received great support from our partners and customers on-site.

Joe Gleinser, president of GCS Technologies, a premier partner, was interviewed onsite:

“I have used SonicWall for nearly a decade and have 500 clients deployed across Texas and my clients learn to depend on the SonicWall brand.”