Veteran channel leader Eyal Adanya was brought in from Amdocs to redesign the program as part of a general drive to strengthen Reblaze’s long-term relationship with key partners.
Eyal Adanya, VP Channels and Partnerships at Reblaze
Today, Sunnyvale CA-based Reblaze, a cloud native, fully managed application security solution provider, is announcing the relaunch of their global channel partner program. The upgraded program is designed to provide more organizational structure, and to forge much deeper relationships with key partners.
Reblaze was founded in 2012 in Israel, and first brought product to market in 2014.
“We provide cloud native web security, protecting any customer that has a significant critical presence on the web,” said Eyal Adanya, VP Channels and Partnerships at Reblaze. “This includes web sites, applications and mobile applications, with one unified product that handles Web Application Firewall [WAF] and Access Control. It runs on the cloud, for customers in either private and public clouds, or who are planning to migrate there. We implement as a single tenant in the cloud, and have more than 200 customers globally.”
The Reblaze portfolio consists of a single solution, and its strength lies in its being a unified solution. Curiefense, the next generation of the solution, is completely new and containerized, and reached General Availability in March.
“The technology itself is not radically new, although there are some aspects of containerization that are new to the market,” Adanya said. “It’s a unified solution built from scratch. While some competitors started as WAF and acquired another company for DDOS, we have the advantage of having one unified solution with one set of code, which can deploy as a single tenant in a dedicated environment with full privacy. That’s different from other players in the market. We also provide a full managed service.”
Reblaze’s customers extend from small businesses to very large, with the key factor being the importance of their Web digital assets.
“We have small SMB customers as well as enterprises,” Adanya indicated. “We have customers in Europe, the U.S., Canada, South America, and Asia Pacific, and in all sorts of verticals. Everyone has a critical digital asset on the web, and you need more than a WAF to protect it.”
While Reblaze has worked with channel partners almost from the beginning, Adanya said it was really limited to the sales side, and did not involve more structured relationships.
“I was brought in a little more than six months ago from Amdocs [where he had been for over 13 years, the last four as VP and Head of Partners] to build the right channels and the right partnership with the ecosystem,” he stated. “That involved making the channel program a very structured program.”
Adanya described the changes to the program as an upgrade.
“We wanted to make sure that different processes are there,” he said. “Working with partners is a unique skill, and requires unique resources. The goal is to build a long-term relationship with the partner, so that a deal is not just a one-time activity. The partner play is a long play and is about building a relationship.”
The program has separate tracks for different types of partners.
“The track for loud resellers is completely different than the one for security services or for MSSPs,” Adanya noted. “We created different tracks, with greater rewards going to partners with more deals and pipeline, and more capabilities, and the level of services the partner is committed to do on top of our product, such as offer Level 1 support. The margins and benefits are determined by that commitment.”
Adanya said that this is a somewhat informal process.
“We are trying to be flexible, and we recognize that most partners want to start slow and build up a practice.”
The Reblaze program requires showing skills as part of the demonstration of partner commitment.
“It’s not a formal technical certification, but they do have to pass certain technical and sales training and show hands-on experience in our environment,” Adanya said. “We support them with technical and commercial training videos, and a hands-on demo environment.”
The program also has deal registration in place. MDF isn’t formally part of the program, but it is part of the engagement with specific partners.”
The program has approximately 50 partners today.
