Bringing It All Together: Tech Data Expands Recon Security Suite With Wide-Ranging Services

Distributor Tech Data on Thursday unveiled a new suite of security offerings aimed at helping solution providers and MSPs bring a wide range of security technologies to clients on a subscription basis.

Tech Data's new Recon Security Suite brings together technologies from a number of independent security software vendors who might otherwise have escaped the notice of channel partners, said Alex Ryals, vice president of security solutions for the Americas business for the Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor.

"These are niche security offerings," Ryals told CRN. "The don't compete with the more traditional security solutions of our bigger security vendor partners. Instead, they fill in the gaps in the security business, and offer interesting and unique approaches to the market."

[Related: CRN Exclusive: Outgoing Tech Data CEO Dutkowsky On Distribution Evolution, The Avnet TS Buy And Why Rich Hume Has Earned His New Role]

The core of the Recon Security Suite stem from Tech Data's Recon SOC, which is based on the Cybershark technology from Piscataway, N.J.-based BlackStratus. Recon SOC brings partners an outsourced security operations center on a subscription basis, Ryals said.

They are backed by Recon ProServe professional services capabilities provided to partners as required by Tech Data's own teams, Ryals said.

New to the suite are five other offerings.

Recon Policy, based on the Security Colony technology from Australia-based Hivint, allows the sharing and access of a library of security policy documentation.

Recon Radar brings partners the ability to manage and monitor all connected IT and IoT devices and look for behavior that shows whether those devices were sabotaged, based on the Boston-based Pwnie Express' technology.

Recon Priority from Phoenix-based Cyr3con Reconnaissance, which leverages machine learning to prioritize vulnerabilities based on data from the deep and dark web.

Recon Risk offers quantitative modeling of security risks to help show the financial impact of mitigating those risks, based on technology from Chicago-based Arx Nimbus.

Recon Restore brings together technology from multiple vendors that provides data protection and recovery, along with the ability to restore systems from ransomware or malware attacks.

Going forward, Tech Data plans to add two to three new services to its Tech Data Recon Security Suite per quarter, Ryals said.

The vendor behind each service partner with solution providers via Tech Data, Ryals said. "Most of our partners have not heard of them," he said. "We want to provide them a choice. There might be some overlap with offerings from larger vendors, but none of those larger vendors have the same focus."

The suite is positioned in the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, a government framework of standards, guidelines, and best practices for managing cybersecurity-related risks, Ryals said.

"Partners will not just sell things like firewalls," he said. "We are helping them address a wide range of requirements."

The Recon Security Suite are not necessarily aimed at SMB customers, but it is aligned with SMB requirements, Ryals said. "Small customers want subscription-based security," he said. "And these offerings are typically lower in cost than those from larger vendors."

Tech Data has done an intriguing packaging of security capabilities around the NIST framework, said Steven Sutton, CEO of Techbundle, a College Station, Tex.-based MSP and Tech Data channel partner.

"This is packaging a lot of new security players, and its nice to have this opportunity to work with newer companies," Sutton told CRN. "And it's nice that they have been filtered by Tech Data. We don't want to take on new providers and not know whether they will be around next year or not."

John Dowling, president of Steadfast Networks, an Amarillo, Tex.-based MSP and Tech Data channel partner, told CRN that there is really no single solution that provides the full range of security offerings, and bundling multiple offerings that work together to provide multiple layers of security is difficult for many MSPs.

"Tech Data's bringing these offerings together is a big help to partners," Dowling said. "This takes a lot of the guess work out of the process."