Alterego has set-up a Fortinet Demo and Experience Zone in Ahmedabad and Vadodara to showcase new security technology 

Can you tell us about the business vision of Alterego and the long association you have forged with Fortinet?  

Alterego Technology was established in 2009 to help organizations in their Digital transformation efforts. With a presence in the UK, Australia and Singapore, Alterego Technology works towards bringing a new perspective to IT infrastructure management and Application Development. It aims at alleviating the complexity of managing IT assets to enable efficient User Experience and Performance Management.  

We provide solutions for dynamic network environments where business and technology strategies converge. Our approach focuses on new ways of business enablement combining IT innovation and Technology adoption while leveraging an organization's existing IT assets. 

We began to work with Fortinet in 2009 and over the decade we have expanded our security services beyond appliance selling to provide Managed Services in order to reduce security complexity for customers.

How is the security market evolving from a SI/MSSP perspective? 

Industry 4.0 is ushering in a fast-paced digital revolution. Customers are now focused more on enhancing their business productivity by proactively adopting digital transformation and in the process are adding complexity to their networks. Cloud-based services, multi-cloud environmentsand increased reliance on IoT bring challenges such as reduced visibility, complicated integrationsand new attack vectors to customers’ networks. Consequently, they oftentimes do not have the security infrastructure or personnel to keep up and they look towards a MSSP to help them manage their security. 

Moreover, due to the prevalence of high-profile security breaches, business leaders are increasingly making network security a top priority. CISOs also have an inadequate supply of high-level security skills to deal with the threats and manage multiple point solutions. As a result, many organizations are looking to migrate the risk out of their IT departments to MSSP partners.This is a huge opportunity for us to grow our business and with our expertise and resources we havecreated an advanced SOC that offers diverse security services. 

How is Fortinet helping you add value to your services? 

We believe in keeping pace with the digital revolution by elevating ourselves to what we call “Success Partners” to services our customers. Alterego Technology has a continued momentum in building and maintaining demo lab infrastructure with as “Near-to-Real-World”. Over the years we have made Technology and Expertise the two pillars of our business. 

In addition to best in class solutions, Fortinet’s Network Security Experts program gives us the skills and first-hand experience required to secure customers’ networks from existing and evolving threats. Our sales is driven by a team of NSE level 3 certified engineers who understand customers’ problem areas to suggest the right fit solution. Post sales for advanced customers support our NSE 4 to level 7 engineers configure, install, troubleshoot and integrate network security controls in a live environment across Fortinet technologies.

Fortinet NSE certification helps us to showcase value to customers, assist us with customer acquisition and retention, accelerate sales process, determine where vulnerabilities exist within networks, deploy the controls necessary to mitigate those vulnerabilitiesand manage the solution. 

How are you promoting new security technologies like SD-WAN, SIEM, Access Control, WAF and helping customers reduce their CapEx? 

Alterego has set-up a Fortinet Demo and Experience Zone in Ahmedabad and Vadodara to showcase new security technology for customer adoption. At this demo zone we have showcased technologies like Web Application Firewall, Connected UTM, Fortinet Security Fabric, SD-WAN and SIEM where we provide POC to customers. To align with customer needs for operationalizing the technology deployments, Alterego also offers SoC and SIEM as a Service to customers.Rather than devoting extensive resources to build out security teams and SOCs in house, we help organizations to reduce upfront CapEx, subscribing to security services on a monthly basis using OpEx funds. In addition to facilitating the creation and maintenance of an effective SOC, the Fortinet MSSP partner program helps us offers specialized support, service creation assistance and technical guidance on Fortinet products.

Fortinet Partner Synergy in Mumbai unveils new business opportunities and solutions for 2020

Fortinet conducted its Partner Synergy conference at the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai to give partners visibility into how to offer their customers the most comprehensive protection while growing their security business in 2020. The conference hosted 180 partners who gained insights on how to shorten the sales cycle and on how to differentiate business in a competitive market with an SD-WAN specialization.

From machine learning to the multi-cloud to the unprecedented rate of adoption of IoT devices, digital transformation and technological improvements require new strategies and solutions for managing cybersecurity. These new strategies were the focus of intense partner sessions at the Fortinet Partner Synergy conference. In these sessions partner attendees learnt ways to improve their current support strategies to better secure their customer’s networks and help them effectively plan for the future.

Presenting to partners, Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC at Fortinet said “This is a huge opportunity for our partners to grow their businesses while increasing the value they offer their customers. Going into 2020 partners can embrace a strategy focused on our third-generation of security and should look beyond perimeter defence to protect data that spans different users, clouds and the convergence of digital and physical networks.”

Fortinet Technical Experts emphasised on the importance of building a security architecture around a framework that not only ensures interoperability, but also increases performance. Automation that can span a variety of third-party solutions enables a proactive posture that accelerates detection, quarantine and detonation. Moreover, total cost of ownership goes down while security effectiveness increases. And when combined with real time cyber intelligence reporting and advanced behavioural analytics, integrated systems can find and defuse an attack before it can impact live operations. 

The conference recognized Fortinet partners in the West with awards for their contributions in the year 2019 –

-    Best Partner MSSP    Netmagic Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
-    Best Partner SD-WAN    Bharti Airtel Ltd.
-    Best Partner SMB    Mass Infonet Pvt. Ltd.
-    Best Partner Enterprise    Logix Infosecurity Pvt. Ltd.
-    Best Partner Government    Insight Business Machines Pvt. Ltd.
-    Best Partner Cloud    Orient Technologies Pvt. Ltd.