Martello adds next-gen firewall bundle with WatchGuard
by Mark Cox • November 15, 2019
Martello is looking to WatchGuard to add a one-stop shop security element to Martello’s service optimization story.
Ottawa-based Martello Technologies Group has announced a strategic partnership with network security vendor WatchGuard Technologies. The deal will make a bundle of Martello’s SD-WAN solution and WatchGuard’s Firebox firewall available as a physical, virtual or cloud offering to the channel partners of both companies.
Martello started in 2009 as a network performance analytics vendor, and added an SD-WAN component in January 2018 with the acquisition of SD-WAN company Elfiq Networks. They went public later that year to take their unique unified communications/SD WAN offering to market. Shortly after that, they beefed up their analytics capabilities further, buying IT operations analytics vendor Savision.
What Martello has not had to date, and what they are adding with this partnership, is a next-generation security component.
“We have some security features built into our SD-WAN but they aren’t considered next-gen,” said Rob Doucette, VP Product Management of Martello, who put the deal together on Martello’s end. “We found in dialogues with partners and customers that many of them wanted a security solution as well as a network security solution. Getting them together generally means a trade-off on one. We initiated a dialogue with WatchGuard and we saw a good fit that would provide a strong security component without any trade-offs.”
WatchGuard, a Seattle-based company that has been in business since 1994, for years sold an SMB physical appliance that was attractive in the more price-sensitive parts of the market. The company has largely reinvented itself for today’s market requirements, however.
“They made strides in having a true next gen firewall, as well as intrusion and threat detection,” Doucette said. “They now have that credibility in the space which is so important in security.”
Doucette said that the two companies also have a lot in common.
“We found that there was a tremendous amount of overlap in terms of the size of companies that we sell to, and the verticals we are involved with. They aren’t chasing large deployments – the same markets we aren’t chasing. Like us, they are almost all channel, and many of the same channels.
“In addition, neither of us are encroaching on each other’s market place,” Doucette added. “WatchGuard has had vendor partners whose business evolved to encroach on the network security space.”
Doucette said that the WatchGuard bundle makes it easier for their customers to add network security to their WAN optimization solution.
“Customers want that security and it’s a distraction for us to do that,” he stated. “This gives them a solution with credibility, and given that we do a lot of business through the channel and customers have relationships with the partners, it lets them get both through a single source.
“This helps us because we are very much focused on our service optimization story,’ Doucette continued.” Our SD-WAN plus analytics with security is a unique story for optimizing service performance. Their Firebox cloud offering provides a secure way to access those services as they traverse across the Internet. Realistically, we are looking to use their technology in our service optimization offering. As we get joint customer success stories under our belt, we expect that this will get many of WatchGuard’s channel partners to take a look at us as well.”
“Some of our clients in places like hospitality are looking for an easy way to secure what they already have,” said John Proctor, Martello’s President and CEO. “Knowing that our appliance will work with WatchGuard and they can procure them through us is important to them. Any time you can make that simpler, especially for SMBs, you and the client will be better off.”
The bundle is available through physical, virtual and cloud options.
Martello provides the only end-to-end Microsoft Teams performance monitoring tool that Microsoft recommends to their customers to maximize employee productivity. Our solution Vantage DX proactively monitors Microsoft 365 and Teams service quality, enabling IT with complete visibility of the user experience to ease troubleshooting of issues before they impact users. Find out why Martello is Microsoft’s go-to-solution for Microsoft Office 365 Monitoring >>