Barracuda’s new platform gives partners a strong network security offering that many Barracuda partners are not selling today.

Barracuda Networks has announced a new SASE platform, Barracuda SecureEdge. It rethinks the SASE model Barracuda has been bringing to market the last few years, and includes an integration of Barracuda’s Secure SD-WAN, Firewall-as-a-Service, Zero Trust Network Access, and Secure Web Gateway capabilities, all delivered as a service.

“We have had SASE for a while, and for us it been a nearly four year long journey,” said Klaus Gehri, Vice President of Network Security Product and Engineering  at Barracuda. “In some places the original SASE was somewhat lumpy, and it can’t be redone in a hurry because it’s not something that you can quickly build. But we have added a couple of reinforcements over the last 15 months.”

Gehri said that COVID hurt the original SASE product.

“Our original offering was very heavy on SD-WAN and that part of the business was really hurt by the lockdown,” he said. “We added remote access support, and then, going into 2022, we added support for industrial IOT. We then took another 15 months to make it multi-tenant capable, and then we added some back end connectivity pieces that allowed connections from anywhere. We then added a secure edge service. Customers and partners have been asking for it to avoid having any on-prem if they didn’t want it.”

What Barracuda SecureEdge still lacks is a full-scale CASB.

“It is there to some extent, but it is not a full-fledged CASB,” Gehri said. “A full CASB is in the road map. There are also a couple more capabilities that the tech stack has to add, such as payload detection in terms of what content is there and what is required. It’s sort of in the box, but what we don’t yet have is the API based around it.”

What is in the platform today is designed to be ultra-simple because it addresses the part of the market where that is important.

“We showcased this at our recent Dubrovnik event in Europe for partners,” Gehri noted. “It works really nicely at the SMB low end, and for mid range customers of about 50-100 units. These buyers don’t have the appetite for anything convoluted, and our SASE is aimed at these. As the customer gets larger, to the point where they likely have a CISCO, the simplicity doesn’t help sell it to the same degree.”

The simplicity makes it especially easy for partners to manage.

“With this new SASE, you can drop ship the appliance to one location, at the customer’s location,” Gehri said. “The only thing that the partner has to do, through the magic of SD-WAN, is turn it on. Everything is out of the box. The partner can customize it if they want, but they don’t have to. SASE fits issues like the shortage of skilled labour, because for a service provider, cost is everything.”

Gehri expects the hybrid model to be significant for a long time.

“We have managed services business growing significantly, and a lot of them cater to the SMB part of the market,” he said. “Some do evolve to where the market is headed, slowly growing into the cloud universe, but many customers aren’t ready for that, and this area will remain hybrid for a long time for many of them.”

Not all the customers for this will be small however.

“We have some MSSPs that are boutique but who cater to very large customers who hand off their IT management to a partner,” Gehri said. “The largest customer being managed by an MSP has about 8000 locations, a lingerie company  operating in 26 countries.”

Gehri also emphasized that Barracuda SecureEdge can open up new types of opportunities for many partners.

“This is an opportunity for partners because of the use cases,” he said. “Partners have provided lots of services around endpoint, but less around network security. This is a great way to get going with very low complexity and overhead.”