Some of the new partner focused announcements , like the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction package, and the simplified compliance for working with the U.S. Department of Defense have been available to direct customers before, but have now been opened up to the channel.
Eric Anthony, Director of MSP Evangelism at Egnyte
This week at DattoCon 2022, Egnyte announced multiple enhancements to their packages for MSPs. These included new dedicated partner packages for industries such as Architecture, Engineering, and Construction [AEC]. They also included snapshot-based ransomware recovery and a new Egnyte for CMMC solution for simplified compliance
Egnyte, which has been in business for approximately 15 years, makes a cloud file sharing system which competes with rivals like Box and Dropbox.
“It’s really a Sharepoint replacement, so when you move someone from an on-prem environment, it is almost a one to one translation and you don’t have to teach them anything new,” said Eric Anthony, Director of MSP Evangelism at Egnyte. “Over the last couple of years, we have evolved and created data governance and security on top of this, and added very complex regulations required for industries like life sciences.”
Construction is the latest addition to this portfolio.
“We solve different problems for different industries, Anthony said. ”Construction involves a lot of collaboration, sharing plans and large files, and construction sites tend to have poor internet and to be located in venues like temporary job trailers. We developed some new features that talked to the AEC industry then packaged them up and sold them to MSPs. They had been available to some direct customers before.”
These partner packages fall into three types of buckets.
“All of these are sold through the channel,” Anthony stated. “The first are low end plans, which replace cloud file systems. The second type replaces workgroup system, while the third is focused around the enterprise. They all provide the compliance tools that the customer might need.”
Egnyte has a hybrid Go-to-Market model today, and the channel aspect is relatively recent.
“We’ve been direct for a lot longer than we had a partner focus,” Anthony said. “It was really only four to five years ago that we started developing a partner program and ramping it up. I came on board two years ago, and created a partner program that serves both larger MSPs and smaller MSPs. We really have a broad range of partners, from small MSPs to large, and which covers use cases from replacing a small workgroup server to replacing an enterprise server with sophisticated compliance requirements. Most of our business is still direct, but the partner program is growing very quickly.”
The goal is to expand the channel significantly.
“We really want as many partners as we can get,” Anthony stated. “It’s very simple until you get into complex compliance that will replace a file system.”
Egnyte’s new Snapshot-Based Ransomware Recovery tool lets customers “look back” at a file snapshot to determine exactly when ransomware infected a file and restore data to that particular point with a single click.
“What’s different with this now is that it is part of our platform,” Anthony said. “Most snapshot recovery in our area is an additional tool from an additional vendor. We also now have file versioning to roll back a number of files.”
The third part of the announcement, which will be of more interest to the American channel than to the Canadian, is simplified CMMC [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification] compliance for working with the U.S. Department of Defense. It shortens the time it takes to comply with CMMC standards, and is available through Egnyte’s partner referral program. It was previously available for Egnyte’s direct clients.
“This involves a relatively new set of compliances, and it will roll out in May when companies have to be compliant with these rules,” Anthony stated. “We can take a lot of that burden of marking sure this is set up correctly, and can reduce time to compliance by up to 50%. It allows a partner that may not be educated in CMMC to come up with a CMMC-compliant solution.”
Anthony said that Egnyte had a positive reception at the Datto event.
“The Datto attendance was absolutely strong – as busy as San Diego in 2019,” he indicated. We had a lot of people coming by the booth.”
