Channel Veteran Finds New Life With Vendor

Naturally, then, when Dell jumped ship earlier this year to head up the U.S. channel efforts for Israel-based network discovery vendor Insightix, he knew exactly how he wanted to do things.

"Everything I ever learned, I learned it in the channel," said Dell, who will work out of an office in Atlanta as Insightix's new vice president of North America. "And everything I do now will be about [the channel]," he said.

Dell said he will drive all sales of Insightix's Dynamic Infrastructure Discovery (DID) solutions through the channel. The DID tool provides visibility into existing threats and vulnerabilities on a customer's network.

The solution includes software that works in conjunction with sensors that solution providers deploy throughout a customer network. The sensors collect data about the security posture of a network, then send that data to the software, which aggregates and analyzes it, and prepares a report in realtime.

"Today, if you ask any IT manager to tell you everything that exists on his network, he will give you a blank stare," he said, estimating that most administrators only know about 80 percent of the items on their networks. "We're out to change all of that."

DID also can be incorporated with other solutions as part of a managed services offering—a route that many of the company's 11 inaugural solution providers plan to take, Dell said.

Vigilar, Dell's former employer, is one such firm. CEO Palaniswamy "Raj" Rajan said he plans to incorporate the Insightix technology alongside the patch and risk management services that comprise the company's managed platform. "If we combine discovery with remediation, we have made the entire management process effective and optimized," he said. "The value of that would be enormous, both to us and to our customers."

Other solution providers expect to take a different approach. Sergio Heker, CEO of GLESEC, a solution provider in Princeton, N.J., said that while he may not incorporate the DID into any managed service, he will use it in coordination with other products to use it as part of a broader solution.

"Point technologies are no good unless you build them into something that can tackle a variety of problems," Heker said. "It's our goal to use this tool to help customers handle all of their security and networking needs."