The support for OT integrations is something Tenable had not been able to offer technology partners until recently, because they are very different from IT integrations, but the technical obstacle to achieving this has been overcome.
Ray Komar, vice president of technology and cloud alliances, at Tenable
Today Tenable is announcing enhancements around their Technology Ecosystem Program, the component of their broader partner program specifically focused on strategic relationships, particularly integrations. For the first time, they are making it possible for partners to write these integrations to Tenable OT Security themselves, overcoming some technology limitations which had been an obstacle to this previously. They have also added benefits on the IT side for strategic partners, particularly adding Medallions from the broader program to provide differentiation and more appropriate rewards to more active partners, and adding new Go-To-Market benefits.
“We do have a very broad channel program, Tenable Assure, with most of the ‘little c channel’ being served by a Tier 2 distribution program,” said Ray Komar, vice president of technology and cloud alliances, at Tenable. “The Technology Ecosystem Program is us working with ISVs as part of the security and IT system to protect their organization or ensure data flows. It’s important for our customers to have an integrated solution which stitches the best of breed ones together. Doing it on their own takes a lot of time and energy. We have over 125 out of the box integrations for this.”
Tenable has also expanded its integration support to include Tenable OT Security their own operational technology [OT] solution.
“OT is not the majority of our business, but it is growing,” Komar said. “Individual plant personnel may not see the advantages of IT in their area, but folks within OT who have a broader perspective recognize the changing dynamics that are taking place. For a fleetwide approach, it’s another part of the attack surface that needs to be managed by IT.”
“OT Integrations are different because OT refresh cycles are very different from IT,” Komar stated. “A retooling plant, for example, has a very different pace and cadence. We were having many companies come to us to integrate that capability.”
This was not, however, something that Tenable could do adequately until fairly recently.
“It’s all about ease, accessibility and repeatability, and we were being asked to refine and package capabilities to make them available to third parties,” Komar indicated. “We didn’t have a way for them to write integrations to write it themselves. Now that falls into our self-service model, although some technical plumbing needed to be done to make that work, particularly at scale.”
Tenable also announced new enhancements specifically around the enablement support they provide to their Technology Ecosystem partners.
“One of the things we are introducing now is medallion levels – like Silver, Gold and Platinum,” Komar said. “That wasn’t something that we believed we needed before. However, partners wanted more of a line of demarcation to reward those who had proven to be of more value to the company.”
The enhanced program also provides improved technical sales and marketing benefits to deliver improved go-to-market support,
“We wanted to be more data driven, so we added more structure to provide more advanced Go-to-Market opportunities for our partners,” Komar noted. The availability of OT support within the Technology Ecosystem program is a part of this as well.
