15 Hot Products And Services For The Midmarket

Vendors covering everything from cloud to data center to security showcased new solutions at the Midsize Enterprise Summit.

Hot Products And Services

Midmarket customers have their own set of needs, different from those of large enterprises and small businesses. An array of IT vendors looking to embrace the midmarket took part in the Midsize Enterprise Summit: Fall 2019, including through showcasing their solutions that are primed for midmarket customers. The conference, a gathering of midmarket CIOs and senior IT leaders, took place this week in Phoenix (and was headed up by CRN parent The Channel Company). Security was a major focus of the summit, with a multitude of vendors offering next-generation solutions for cyber protection. Other key themes included technologies to enable improved data center operations, as well as cloud and edge computing.

What follows are 15 hot products and services for the midmarket in 2019.

StorageCraft Ransomware Protection

Data protection technology developer StorageCraft used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to showcase its solutions for ransomware protection. StorageCraft offers a converged data platform bringing together data protection with scale-out storage. In the event that an organization's "first line of defense" ransomware prevention efforts fail, StorageCraft's data-protection solutions ensure that ransomware cannot impact backups, the company said. Key capabilities include taking immutable snapshots of an organization's complete data set, which are not affected in the event of a ransomware attack, according to StorageCraft.

Citrix Workspace Microapps

Citrix is aiming to tackle the future of workspaces with a number of new solutions, including the addition of improved integrations to its Workspace offering. Starting in the fourth quarter, Citrix Workspace will be populated with "microapps"—integrations with common cloud-based apps such as Salesforce, Concur, SAP and Microsoft applications. There will be 40 major apps included in all, Citrix representatives said during the Midsize Enterprise Summit. "Leveraging publicly available APIs within SaaS, web, legacy, and homegrown applications, we can allow users to view information and — more importantly — perform actions without requiring a full launch of the application or the need to switch your screen," Citrix said in a recent blog post. "This results in the streamlining of routine tasks for frequently performed actions and provides users the ability to perform those actions within their Citrix Workspace app without having to toggle away."

Connection - No-Fee Assessments

Solution provider Connection was at the Midsize Enterprise Summit promoting "no-fee assessments" that it's offering to midmarket customers. The free assessments cover two different key areas--security landscape optimization and Microsoft landscape optimization. The goal is to provide greater clarity and control in those areas to midmarket customers, many of which do not have a dedicated CISO, the company says. The two-week assessments cover everything from determining where customers are at with Microsoft or security technologies, to reviewing a list of options for next steps--and ultimately landing on a potential best choice for new technology investments.

Cisco Umbrella

Cisco Umbrella, the company's cloud-based secure internet gateway, has seen a number of recent upgrades, including an integration with Cisco SD-WAN. Combining Cisco's Viptela-powered SD-WAN solution with Cisco Umbrella enables customers and partners to secure their SD-WAN from the cloud. The combination eliminates the need for the security team to worry about the networking involved with tunneling, while the networking team doesn't have to worry about security matters such as upgrading and patching, the company says.

WatchGuard DNSWatchGO

Currently in beta and launching Oct. 1, WatchGuard's DNSWatchGO solution is a network security solution providing DNS layer protection against cyber threats such as phishing and malware, WatchGuard representatives said during the Midsize Enterprise Summit. The protection is available "regardless of the connection type, protocol or port. You can protect any network or device with consistent policy enforcement and protection against malicious domains and phishing attempts," the company says on its website. "With DNSWatchGO Client, you can extend the protection of DNSWatch when your users leave the safety of your network."

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1

Dell Technologies used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to show off key notebooks in its premium commercial lineup, including the flagship Latitude 7400 2-in-1. For the device, Dell switches out the usual black carbon-fiber body for brushed aluminum. The screen on the Latitude 7400 2-in-1 has narrow bezels on all four sides for a nearly "edge-to-edge" display. That slim-bezel design goes a long way toward helping to reduce the overall size of the notebook, which Dell is touting as the smallest 14-inch 2-in-1 on the market by volume. Dell's other biggest accolade for the Latitude 7400 2-in-1 is its battery life, which can reach up to 24 hours on a charge. That gives the notebook the longest battery life for a 14-inch 2-in-1 right now, according to Dell.

HPE SimpliVity

Hewlett Packard Enterprise used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to share how its hyper-converged system, SimpliVity, is making an impact on midmarket customers and how it's differentiated from competitors. HPE has recently extended its InfoSight predictive analytics software, originally acquired through the Nimble acquisition, to SimpliVity. InfoSight enables HPE SimpliVity to make predictions and recommendations for a range of IT operations, the company said. Another key use case for SimpliVity is around data migration and the ability to move massive amounts of data with high efficiency, HPE said. Ultimately, SimpliVity is "fundamentally changing how you manage your data, how you support it, and how you're able to move it across different sites," said Marc Kravitz, hyper-converged category manager for HPE.

Bitdefender GravityZone

Bitdefender used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to promote its GravityZone business security offering. The endpoint security solution leverages threat intelligence to provide prevention, detection, remediation and visibility. Capabilities include patch management, full-disk encryption, web threat protection and device control, as well as automated actions (such as access blocking) and reports, notifications and SIEM integration.

Scale Computing And Lenovo Edge Solution

Scale Computing offered details at the Midsize Enterprise Summit about how its HC3 virtualization platform, paired with Lenovo hardware, can serve as a powerful enabler for edge computing. In particular, the Scale-Lenovo solution stands out by offering high availability at the edge, unlike other edge solutions that are typically not as highly available, Scale Computing representatives said during the show. HC3 customers also can benefit from ease of use and low entry cost on the edge, according to Scale Computing.

Symantec CASB

At the Midsize Enterprise Summit, Symantec focused on promoting best practices in the cloud access security broker (CASB) space. The security giant became a major player in CASB through the acquisition of Blue Coat Systems in 2016, and since then has been bringing continual updates to the platform. Symantec says that its CloudSOC CASB provides visibility, security and threat protection for any cloud application, including mobile and browser-based versions. CloudSOC also has an API offering that significantly reduces the time it takes to identify and remediate security incidents. In July, Symantec announced its CloudSOC Mirror Gateway solution, which leverages Symantec Web Isolation capabilities to "deliver the industry’s first robust set of [CASB] security controls for unmanaged devices, covering all modern SaaS applications," the company said.

All Covered Security Solutions

Solution provider All Covered, a division of Konica Minolta, used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to emphasize its security offerings including a comprehensive security strategy service. The services cover everything from establishing a security governance function to assessing the state of the current security program to developing a detailed plan for rolling out the strategy. In terms of security solutions, key growth areas for All Covered include vulnerability management and SIEM, said Jim Mullen, vice president of sales at All Covered. Key security partners for All Covered include Fortinet, he said.

ConnectWise Identify

MSP software specialist ConnectWise used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to draw attention to its lesser-known security offerings. ConnectWise Identify offers an assessment of customers' risk profiles, using the NIST Cybersecurity Framework as the basis. ConnectWise's assessment "enables you to proactively identify security risks across their entire business, not just on their network," the company says on its website. "The result is an easy-to-understand, customized risk report showing your customer their most critical risks and recommendations for you to address."

Aparavi Data Aware Cloud Backup

At the Midsize Enterprise Summit, unstructured data management vendor Aparavi promoted its Data Aware Cloud Backup offering. The multi-cloud solution provides both automated file protection as well as insights from unstructured data, in a simple and secure package, the company said. Aparavi manages everything from versioning to deduplication to file retention. "Files are always protected both in-motion and at-rest with encryption, and, with a secure permissions-based framework, Aparavi ensures that you can always access your data with no cloud or vendor lock-in," the company says.

SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform

SonicWall used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to tout its Capture Cloud Platform to midmarket customers. The platform combines threat detection, prevention and visibility with management reporting and analytics, ultimately offering automated real-time cyber protection. The company also promoted its Capture Threat Network, which "leverages real-time monitoring across the globe, using machine-learning algorithms to analyze data, then classify and block known malware before it can infect the network," the company says.

Mimecast API

Email security vendor Mimecast used the Midsize Enterprise Summit to spread awareness about the Mimecast API. Along with enabling many of Mimecast's services and applications, the Mimecast API is available to customers and partners "to take advantage of application data, integrate to existing applications and harness important email risk management services," the company says. Key use cases include surfacing security insights (such as accessing enhanced logging to download gateway and security log file data), archive querying (to quickly search the Mimecast archive and access content) and automation for common configuration tasks such as user and group management.