Illumio Named CRN UK Emerging Vendor

Over the years, the balance between the vendor and partner has flipped back and forth. At the moment, a partner’s ability to integrate multiple solutions and work closely with the customer is growing in importance. In short, the need for skilled and experienced partners is greater than ever for most customers.

Although at Illumio we have been working with channel partners in EMEA since 2017, we recently built a new and active channel strategy with top security and networking partners. As a result, we’ve experienced a 100% year-over-year growth in new projects sourced by partners and a 124% growth in bookings from partners.

With the recent addition of our endpoint offering, Illumio Edge, we’re finding new ways to engage channel partners more meaningfully and look forward to building on this momentum moving forward.

With this in mind, we are proud to have been made the Emerging Vendor of the CRN UK Channel Awards 2020. This acknowledgement not only illustrates Illumio’s commitment to the channel, but it also speaks to our success and fast growth in EMEA more broadly.

A year of recognition

Today’s news comes at the heels of Illumio’s announcement as a leader in Forrester’s Zero Trust wave report. This placement is especially important for our partners as they help their customers adopt a Zero Trust architecture.

Illumio received the highest marks possible in eleven of the evaluation criteria, including ‘Future State of Zero Trust infrastructure’, which appraised vendors on their ability to enable Zero Trust (ZT) for remote workforces and distributed environments, and ‘ZT Mission Completion’, which assessed vendors on whether or not they facilitated the successful completion of ZT goals for their customers.

According to the report, “reference customers indicate that the platform is able to ‘bolt into’ organizations’ existing security tooling and up level the capability significantly.”

Adjusting to the new work environment

Whenever there is a major event that affects the global balance, the way we work leading up to that event drastically differs from the way we work after it. The situation we now find ourselves in, with employees across the globe continuing to work from home indefinitely, generates new challenges for our customers that our partners are ready and able to address. It is unlikely that we will ever completely return to “normal”, and we’re working closely with our partners to determine how best to fulfill company needs as we all adjust.

As you likely know, many employees will never return to the office full-time. This creates a new challenge as employee systems are no longer locked in secure areas, they can move to environments that are potentially very dangerous, like home networks.

We generally feel quite safe at home, but there is no physical entry system to track who enters and leaves. We share the network and workspace with games consoles, CCTV, music systems, other unprotected workstations and a whole host of potential threats.

Ideally, a home worker would keep their work laptop in a locked room, hardwired into its own network on a separate broadband connection connected via a secure VPN. Unfortunately, this is generally not the way things go, so the concept of Zero Trust, especially as it pertains to endpoints, is now more relevant than ever before.

Implementing all of the technologies required to enable work from home can be costly and time consuming. With the increased use of remote technologies, we have seen the true value that partners can provide in integrating all the necessary products and offerings.

Compliance breeds opportunity

Whether driven by the NIS Directive, LPM, Cyber Essentials, SWIFT, PCI, or a security audit, many organisations are currently reviewing their security compliance strategies. One of the common requirements across these mandates: the need for micro-segmentation.

But a solution is never just about one product. Solutions are often dependent upon how each technology can add value to complimentary products and how easy integrations can be.

For example, every time Illumio detects and authorised communication attempt, it generates an alert. When you pair with SIEM products, like QRadar, you can take alerts and simply convert them into actions, meaning you can now detect potential malware in the system.

Our channel partners have been key in helping customers meet the latest compliance requirements. The years of knowledge and experience that our partners have accumulated make them a key part of any security strategy.

Investing in the channel now and in the future

The confluence of all of the above shows the value of a reliable and knowledgeable partner when executing a security strategy. A partner who can look at his or her entire portfolio and offer an integrated Zero Trust solution is going to be in a prime position for success. The easier it is for that partner to integrate different products from vendors, the better.

It is for these and other reasons, our channel partners are incredibly important to us. Today’s recognition from CRN speaks to our ongoing commitment to channel partners in EMEA, and we look forward to the next chapter on this journey.

For more information about Illumio’s channel program, please visit: https://www.illumio.com/partners.