Barracuda’s Latest Platform Plays
BarracudaONE, the vendor’s answer to the security segment’s platformization craze, now includes outsourced vulnerability management and Entra ID backup.
We talk fairly regularly here about the power and appeal of platforms, especially in security. One of the many things I couldn’t talk about during my recent absence was that Barracuda has now joined everyone from Acronis and SonicWall to Trend Micro and WatchGuard in having a platform.
Called BarracudaONE, it looks newer than it really is, according to Brian Downey, Barracuda’s vice president of product management. “We’ve had a platform forever, even if at times we haven’t come out and said it,” he notes. Now that platform has a name, plus single sign-on and a shared portal that an increasing share of Barracuda partners have access to at no extra cost.
More recently, it has two new member solutions as well. The first, introduced late last month, takes aim at the scary fact that there were more than 40,000 new CVEs published in 2024, per Cisco’s Talos intelligence unit, and another 131 on average have been showing up every day this year. Keeping up with that onslaught takes time and expertise many MSPs lack and others have better uses for.
Hence the logic of outsourcing the job to something like Barracuda’s new Managed Vulnerability Security solution. According to Greg Saenz (pictured), Barracuda’s vice president of channels for the Americas, the new offering gives smaller MSPs an easier way to add an important service than investing in new tools and people.
“You can provide more value to your customers faster by partnering with somebody like Barracuda,” he says.
MSPs with the skills and resources to do vulnerability management stand to benefit as well, he continues. “Even if you have a developed practice, we can make that practice more cost-effective.”
MSPs of all sizes and sophistication levels are likely to get project work out of the service too, Saenz notes. “The readout from it and what comes back is a lot of recommendations that need to be actioned,” he says.
The other, more recent, addition to BarracudaONE takes aim at another scary fact: Microsoft retains the mission-critical data in Entra ID directories for a grand total of 30 days. That’s kind of a narrow window, especially for businesses in regulated industries that are required to retain the data for varying amounts of time that can all safely be characterized as longer than 30 days.
Barracuda’s new Entra ID Backup Premium subscription lets businesses meet such requirements for a couple of bucks per user per month. The service supplements an earlier edition that protected users, groups, roles, and other basics with coverage of audit logs, BitLocker keys, Intune policies, and more.
Saenz, without providing specifics, says there are more solutions coming to BarracudaONE in the future, through a combination of internal development and third-party alliances. And maybe acquisitions as well, to round out the “build, buy, and partner” trio?
“They’re all open,” Saenz says.