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EDITOR ’ S
As businesses have transitioned to a new normal , the cultural impact of widespread remote work seems to be gaining momentum for the foreseeable future . Companies have expanded their remote work policies . For MSSPs , this presents an opportunity to support their customers ’ remote work initiatives while ensuring that they have programmes in place that allow for on-going Business Continuity .
As more customers adopt longer term remote work policies , MSSPs are in a prime position to enable secure transitions to fulltime telework environments . MSSPs should
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS Issue 36Q &
SHANE GRENNAN , CHANNEL DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST , FORTINET
focus on providing customers with services that secure hosted applications and work from home users . During these times of uncertainty , MSSPs can also offer insights to help customers scale their remote workforce without compromising security . This can be achieved by expanding their current SD-WAN , SD-Branch and public cloud service offerings .
Over the past few months , customers have had to modify their networks and cut costs to ensure Business Continuity . With the groundwork now laid , customers must take additional steps to convert their makeshift solutions into reliable and secure businessready strategies .
There are three ways MSSPs can leverage security solutions to help their customers address key challenges with remote work :
To account for new working conditions , many customers accelerated their transition to the cloud without adequate planning . This resulted in organisations connecting to cloud environments without proper visibility , access control or data protocols in place . Another area of concern is how customers transferred their workloads to the cloud . Many relied on the ‘ lift and shift ’ approach , which can result in long-term security and compliance issues . By offering their expertise in this area , MSSPs can help customers avoid potential vulnerabilities within cloud migrations .
When implementing cloud solutions , customers must be able to protect against the risks associated with application and infrastructure configuration and the use of APIs . The problem is that many organisations do not have access to the talent or resources needed to identify or address vulnerabilities in their cloud systems . To address this challenge , MSSPs can offer cloud security assessments as a service . By using assessments to evaluate data security , threat detection and compliance processes , MSSPs can provide customers with visibility into the strength of their cloud security programmes .
With SD-WAN , customers can enable integrated operations that bolster security and performance across multiple remote locations . When working from home , customers are likely to rely on branch networks that may have not been secured to company standards . MSSPs can take advantage of this opportunity by leveraging SD-WAN , combined with Fortinet switches and APs to enable security functionality within existing branch Edge hardware . This will enhance work from home and branch security while also presenting customer executives with opportunities to lower costs .
SD-WAN and cloud connectivity solutions provide partners and MSSPs with a great opportunity to assist their customers looking to establish , maintain or extend their remote workforce . With Fortinet , partners have access to the resources they need to establish integrated cloud and SD-WAN operations across their customers ’ distributed networks . •
To account for new working conditions , many customers accelerated their transition to the cloud without adequate planning .
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