5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending June 10 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending June 10

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Cisco Systems for providing a comprehensive blueprint for its security cloud offerings.

Also making this week’s list are Pure Storage and Nvidia for launching the next generation of their AI-ready infrastructure and Palo Alto Networks for providing a look at its new autonomous Security Operations Center technology.

Data security startup Immuta is on this week’s list for a successful funding round. And cloud giant Google makes the list for the ongoing expansion of its network of data centers to meet customers’ growing cloud application needs.

Cisco Unveils Security Cloud Strategy, Cisco Plus SASE Offering

Cisco made several significant moves in the security realm this week, detailing its strategy to help enterprises connect their entire security architecture via a new platform and debuting the highly anticipated Cisco Plus XaaS SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) offering.

Cisco unveiled those and other security capabilities and services at this week’s RSA 2022 conference.

The Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, open standards-based platform, is the basis for the company’s future security architecture. The platform will include threat prevention, detection, response and remediation at scale and will integrate with third-party technologies. It’s intended to ensure security across hybrid and multi-cloud environments with capabilities for securely connecting people, applications and devices located anywhere.

The new Cisco Plus Secure Connect Now, a unified security and network offering, provides partners and customers with a turnkey SASE system. Built on the Meraki platform, Cisco Plus Secure Connect Now is the latest offering in the company’s Cisco Plus as-a-service strategy.

Pure Storage, Nvidia Unveil Next Generation Of Their AI-Ready Infrastructure

Flash storage developer Pure Storage and technology partner Nvidia this week unveiled the next generation of their AIRI AI-ready infrastructure that combines Pure Storage’s new FlashBlade//S: array with Nvidia’s DGX A100 GPU systems.

The companies said the new AIRI//S provides the compute and data storage muscle needed for heavy-duty AI workloads.

Pure Storage and Nvidia touted the AIRI//S as a simple, on-demand system aimed at accelerating AI initiatives, particularly projects that traditionally required discrete server clusters for data analytics for AI development, model training and inference—tasks that a single system running the DGX A100 can do.

Pure also unveiled the new FlashBlade//S: at its Pure//Accelerate Digital techfest22 in Los Angeles this week. The modular version of the company’s FlashBlade file and object storage array for the first time disaggregates compute and capacity to allow customers to scale each as needed.

In addition, Pure made a move to expand its Evergreen storage subscription service by offering customers the ability to buy separate subscriptions for the company’s hardware and software.

Immuta Raises $100M—With Help From Snowflake—In New Funding Round

Data security and access technology developer Immuta raised an impressive $100 million in a Series E funding round this week, boosting its total funding to $267 million.

The round was led by venture capital firm NightDragon. But also notable was the fact that Snowflake Ventures, the venture capital arm of data cloud company Snowflake, was a new investor in Immuta.

The funding comes as Immuta prepares to accelerate deployment of its technology across all the prominent cloud platforms. The company intends to apply the new funding to possible acquisitions, research and development, expansion of sales and marketing teams, and deepening strategic partnerships within the cloud-data ecosystem.

Palo Alto Networks Debuts New ‘Autonomous SOC’ Technology

Cisco wasn’t the only company making big announcements at the RSA Conference this week. At the event Palo Alto Networks said it has developed “autonomous SOC” technology that will make Security Operations Centers more automated and less reliant on humans.

Speaking at the conference, Palo Alto Networks founder and CTO Nir Zuk (pictured) said the company is working with about 10 early adopter design partners that have installed the new technology within their SOCs.

Zuk said the system relies on AI and machine learning technology—and less on human oversight—to detect and prevent cyberattacks. Palo Alto Networks is using the new system in its own SOC where it has dramatically reduced the number of duplicative alerts about possible security breaches.

Google Cloud Accelerates Data Center Push With New Texas Facility

Google Cloud launched a new data center in Dallas this week, marking the company’s 11th region in North America and its 34th availability zone across the globe.

The new Dallas facility is part of Google Cloud’s $9.5 billion commitment to boost its data center footprint, a key component of Google Cloud’s cloud computing growth strategy that also includes a cybersecurity road map, revamping the Google Cloud Marketplace and eradicating channel partner conflict.

The new Dallas data center will boost Google’s ability to support high-performance applications and workloads from partners and customers and improve service availability and business continuity.

Customers can integrate their on-premises workloads with the data center using Cloud Interconnect or multi-cloud options using Anthos. They also gain access to such systems as Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk, Cloud SQL and Cloud Identify.