Networking News
Gina Narcisi
May 15, 2023, 03:57 PM EDT
‘We need to make sure that Cisco is not only looked at as a strong networking company, but also the No. 1 security company on the planet. Our solutions, our investments in our partners, are all about bringing that all together and making sure that we are approaching our partners in the market in the way that they’re looking to receive security,’ Cisco’s Shawn Yuskaitis told CRN.
Cisco Systems has been on a mission to become just as well-known for its security offerings as it is for its networking portfolio.
The tech giant at the RSA Conference 2022 revealed that it would be approaching the security market from a platform perspective, rather than promoting its point security products. To that end, Cisco Security Cloud was unveiled, the company’s security plan for the future made up of an open-standards-based platform that works across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with capabilities for securely connecting people, applications and devices located anywhere. The platform includes threat prevention, detection, response and remediation at scale, with no vendor lock-in.
At RSAC 2023 last month, Cisco wanted partners to see that it was still moving down the platform path by highlighting its Extended Detection and Response (XDR) strategy that converges the company’s expertise and visibility across the network and endpoints into one risk-based offering. It uses Cisco’s own telemetry and integrates with leading third-party vendors to share telemetry and increase interoperability. Cisco XDR is now in beta with general availability coming in July 2023. And earlier this month, Cisco launched a new security specialization around XDR, bringing the total number of Solution Specializations to seven.
On the company’s path to unifying its cybersecurity portfolio and boosting its market share in the security space, Cisco is simplifying and investing heavily in partners, to the tune of an incremental $100 million in its channel base around security in the second half of the company’s fiscal year 2023, said Shawn Yuskaitis, Cisco’s director of global security go-to-market strategy and sales acceleration.
Yuskaitis caught CRN up with the Cisco XDR offering, the new offers and incentives available for partners, and how partners are responding to Cisco’s platform approach to the security market.
Here are excerpts from the conversation.
