SonicWall’s Total Transformation Takes Shape
Three years and as many strategic acquisitions after Bob VanKirk became CEO, the vendor’s vision for turning siloed appliances into a platform foundation is now fully in focus.
SonicWall CEO Bob VanKirk had way more than MDR TAM in mind when he engineered the vendor’s acquisition of Solutions Granted, or its separate purchase of Banyan Security and Trapmine, within the same four-month window. Like so many other top executives in security, he was thinking platform, and we got our first and most complete manifestation of his vision last week.
Last Monday, to be precise, when SonicWall introduced two new firewalls, the NSa 2800 and 3800. Generally speaking, there’s nothing terribly revolutionary about one of the most familiar names in firewalls shipping two new models. What makes these particular devices an exception to that rule is less about the firewalls themselves than what they come with:
Outsourced configuration and management from SonicWall’s SonicSentry NOC team
Embedded zero-trust network access functionality
Cloud-based, multi-tenant management
Annual and month-to-month subscription licensing options
Those third-party integrations I just told you about
Up to $1 million of cyber warranty protection via Cysurance
Add in the firewall hardware itself, and what was once an essentially siloed appliance suddenly becomes the foundation for a multi-component platform targeted quite consciously at a very specific demographic.
“What we’ve been doing over the course of the last three years—the total transformation of SonicWall—really started with a relentless focus on our partners, with a key focus on MSPs,” said VanKirk (pictured) from the RSAC show floor.
The managed security element of the solution is especially relevant to that audience, VanKirk continues. “The threat actors are moving on new CVEs in days. You need Mike [Crean, SonicWall’s EVP of managed security services] and his team behind you as an MSP, as an MSSP, constantly looking at any configuration 24x7 and providing monthly help checks.”
There’s more coming, including (as we told you last summer) SASE functionality based on SonicWall’s Cloud Secure Edge service. Due “very soon,” according to VanKirk, that functionality was less urgently in demand than the capabilities released last week. “We’re not seeing or hearing that as a core requirement across the SMB space,” he says.