CDW is Palo Alto Networks’ largest channel partner in Canada, and the two companies already have a broad relationship, but the new extension of that with Prisma SASE has the companies confident it will take the relationship to a new level.
Theo Van Wyk, CDW Canada Head of Solutions Development and Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity provider Palo Alto Networks and solution provider CDW Canada have expanded their existing partnership. The two companies will now collaborate to bring Prisma SASE, which combines Prisma Access and Prisma SD-WAN, to their joint customers.
CDW Canada has been Palo Alto Networks’ largest partner in Canada for the last couple of years, but this announcement drives their relationship forward significantly.
“Our relationship with Palo Alto Networks was traditionally focused around next generation firewalls and gateways, and we are an authorized training centre in Canada for them,” said Theo Van Wyk, CDW Canada Head of Solutions Development and Cybersecurity. “As the perimeter has moved to cloud and endpoint, this takes us to the next level of offerings, and a whole new domain where we can bring our managed services expertise.”
Van Wyk said that CDW Canada has always had a particularly strong relationship with Palo Alto Networks in Canada, even compared with the relationship in the U.S.
“It is really advanced compared with what we are doing in the US,” he said. “A lot of our services have been built around providing strong support and value, and we are the leaders on that,” he added. “We always built our relationship with Palo Alto Networks off of professional and managed services, and we see ourselves as thought leaders there.”
Prisma SASE is the kind of platform solution that logically extends these relationships, said Ivan Orsanic, Palo Alto Networks Canada Regional Vice President and Country Manager.
“It’s very strategic because it covers all different types of organizations,” Orsanic said. “It’s not specific to ones like banking or public sector. Because it covers all sectors, we are already seeing a lot of really good success. Because it also addresses the requirements to differentiate our partners in the market, this takes our relationship with them to the next level.”
That extent to which the Prisma platform adds significant strength to partner offerings is something that Orsanic said Palo Alto Networks really hasn’t talked about sufficiently.
“As we continue working with customers in Canada, we have noticed that it is equally important to work with partners to fully operationalize the technology which comes with the SASE solution,” he stated. “I don’t think that message has gone out enough.”
Ivan Orsanic, Palo Alto Networks Canada Regional Vice President and Country Manager
Orsanic said that Palo Alto Network’s acquisition of Bridgecrew earlier this year has greatly strengthened the Prisma Cloud platform, because Bridgecrew’s Infrastructure as Code technology enables “shift left” security, by helping developers discover issues earlier in pipeline. This enables the platform to deliver security across the full application lifecycle.
“The Bridgecrew acquisition was a big differentiator for us,” he indicated. “Two months ago, the largest Azure company in Canada adopted our cloud technology as their primary one. Our adoption rates overall are very high compared to pre- Bridgecrew, making us become more relevant to the market on the cloud side, Everything boils down to our platform and how we position it. For example, we launched a Prisma Cloud instance to address cloud data sovereignty issues in the federal government.”
Orsanic said that there had already been hockey stick growth around the Prisma Access product, one of the two components of Prisma SASE, but the adoption of Prisma SD-WAN in this next-gen product, replacing the more expensive MPLS networks, is leading to hockey stick growth there as well.
“This will accelerate decision making at the customer level, and will help organizations make decisions quicker around SASE and Zero Trust Strategy,” he stressed. “There is also an economic component. Our platform differentiates us from the market globally because there is not just a technical upside to working with us, but also a financial and economic upside.”
“We just launched Prisma SASE two weeks ago and demand is already outstripping supply,” Van Wyk said. “We have already seen strong interest – and wins. There is a strong need in the market for an industry-leading solution to meet these challenges around implementing procedures in the new cloud realm. That’s especially important in hybrid. There is some ‘born in the cloud’ business, but the majority is hybrid, and that is where this is very valuable. As with any security solution, it is critical that it is right-sized and deployed in an appropriate manner, and at CDW we can bring those to bear and help them fit properly in organizations.”
