Dell Says Partners ‘Paramount’ To Success Of New Security Offerings

‘It allows partners to easily transition from an infrastructure to a security conversation while remaining within the Dell ecosystem. As an exclusive Dell EMC partner, our sales reps will now easily be able to have a security discussion around every infrastructure deal that we’re working,’ says Gary McConnell, CEO of Dell Platinum partner VirtuIT Systems.

Dell Technologies is upping the security ante with a new set of products aimed at helping the channel fill the IT security skills gap with Dell managed services.

Dell Managed Detection and Response Pro Plus and Dell Product Success Accelerator for Cyber Recovery are part of an overall girding of Dell’s security offerings that the Round Rock, Texas-based company unveiled Wednesday.

Managed Detection and Response Pro Plus is a fully managed security operations product that helps organizations prevent and respond to attacks across endpoints, network and the cloud, the company said. The offering is aimed at filling the skills shortage in the midmarket with Dell’s experts, Mihir Maniar, vice president of Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group, edge and security services, said in a briefing.

“Customers have a skills shortage, especially in the midmarket,” he said. “We are expanding our managed detection and response as part of our overall managed security services portfolio with the Pro and Pro Plus. This provides significantly higher protection for our customers. It provides response services and recovery functionality to support our customers’ zero trust journey. It also increases their security posture.”

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Included in the MDR product is a curated vulnerability assessment across endpoints, network and the cloud and prioritized patching. Also included are breach attack simulation, manual penetration testing, the simulation of attacks to help customers find loopholes before criminals do, and employee awareness training around topics such as phishing.

Meanwhile, Product Success Accelerator for Cyber Recovery, also offered through the channel, comes as a good, better best offering that at the low level provides an educational component with skills training and can grow into having Dell provide an operational run book as well as a KPI-based success plan. It can also include services up to daily assistance from Dell with 8x5 operations.

Under this program, Dell can have an expert on the phone with a customer in two hours following a breach to discuss response planning, a resellable service it calls Proactive Incident Response Care. Maniar said Dell is counting on the channel to help with the rollout of these services.

“Channel partners are super important for our success, and we provide our MDR Pro Plus, which is the expanded MDR services direct as well as through our channel partners,” Maniar said. “It was absolutely paramount for us to do that.”

Gary McConnell, CEO of Dell Platinum partner VirtuIT, said the MDR offering in particular addresses one of the challenges facing his customers.

“There are so many different platforms it can be difficult to identify the right one to utilize,” he said. “For those who are a part of the Dell ecosystem, this gives them an MDR option that natively ties to their current tech stack.”

McConnell said he sees Dell’s foray into MDR as improving the quality of discussions his sales reps can have with customers around the ability to upsell existing solutions.

“It also allows partners to easily transition from an infrastructure to a security conversation while remaining within the Dell ecosystem,” he said. “As an exclusive Dell EMC partner, our sales reps will now easily be able to have a security discussion around every infrastructure deal that we’re working. Most importantly, it’s simple for the customer in the sense where they don’t have to deal with multiple vendors.”

McConnell said this was a big step for Dell to add MDR to its portfolio.

“Many customers will still default to what they know best and are sure will work,” McConnell said. “Initially, I anticipate that Dell sees success among their current customer base for those that haven’t already implemented MDR but are already a part of the Dell ecosystem.”