Lacework has also added three new components to the program. Capture the Flag, a fairly complex enablement tool illustrating how the Lacework CNAPP works, and complimentary Cloud Security Assessments have already been used by some partners, and are formally being announced in the program. New post-sale services are in the process of development.
Brian Lanigan, Lacework’s VP, Worldwide Channels and Alliances
Lacework, which operates in the data-first security platform space driven by automation and machine learning, has announced a series of changes to the Lacework Partner Program. They have created a new MSP Program within the overall Lacework Partner Program. They have also announced three different enablement features. New certifications for partners are being developed as part of enhanced post-sale services. The two other tools recently were made available to partners and are being formally announced now. They are a sophisticated Capture the Flag game which is aimed at prospects, and a set of complimentary Cloud Security Assessments.
Lacework’s channel program is relatively new, being created last February. Brian Lanigan joined the company as VP, Worldwide Channels and Alliances in March after lengthy tenures at HP and then Splunk. He was responsible at both firms for strategic alliances with GSIs, SIs, and MSPs. His experience with MSPs is considerable and shaped the MSP program changes now being announced.
“I lived in the MSP and MSSP world for a couple decades, Lanigan told ChannelBuzz. “The mistakes most companies make with them is to try and stuff them into a reseller program. I brought in Tracy Ryan to help with this, and we have created a program designed around both fully managed and co-managed services, and which gives back end incentives.”
The agreement to get in the MSP program is part of the general partnership agreement, and Lanigan said that it is designed to not be overly cumbersome. The focus of the MSP and reseller components is different, however.
“When you enable resellers, it’s how to assist them to sell Lacework, while enabling MSPs is showing them how to build a service on top of Lacework,” Lanigan said. “We have had predominantly reseller partners before, although we do have multiple MSSP partners. eSentire launched us as part of their service, and they have been selling really well with us. Our co-marketing with them has been very strong. We are also entering Europe with some MSSPs.”
Capture the Flag is a new hands-on gamification and enablement tool that focuses on solving problems with the Lacework CNAPP to provide a test drive of the Lacework experience without having to deploy it.
“It is set up with a series of business and technical questions in which your team competes against others to see how far you can get in an allotted amount of time,” Lanigan indicated. “You get more points for solving technical questions than you do business ones. We have been using it with partners for a couple months, and are now officially announcing it on a more formalized basis.”
The Cloud Service Assessments are also operational and are just being announced now.
“We have several partners trained on it, and are now making it a formal part of the program,” Lanigan said. It provides complimentary one-week access to Lacework to complete a rapid risk-assessment in a customer’s environment to uncover and report on risks within an organization’s cloud posture. The assessment is available in the AWS marketplace.
“The report is typically generated in less than one hour,” Lanigan noted. “It shows the speed at which Lacework can do this. We make it available for a week so that it can be shown to others in the prospect organization who were not in the original meeting.”
“Both Capture the Flag and the Cloud Security Assessment are part of the sales process,” Lanigan continued. Rather than just give our partners a PowerPoint, they are more interesting ways of putting our technology in our partners’ hands.”
Unlike Capture the Flag and the Security Assessment, the new post-sale services are not already in the field, and in fact, are still in the process of development. They involve new partner certifications, and making it possible for partners to provide managed services for ongoing support to customers.
“These are new and we only recently began to talk about them,” Lanigan said. “We are still working on them. We are categorizing them as different packaged service offerings which fit into specific use cases.”
