New hire underlines Cloud Distribution’s commitment to deliver ‘value-add’ in distribution

Reading, UK, 9^th April 2013 - Security and networking Value Added Distributor, Cloud Distribution, has strengthened its team with the appointment of channel veteran, Andy Fidgeon.  This appointment comes on the back of the company’s sustained growth, its expanding partner base and its growing vendor portfolio.

Reporting to sales director, Greg Harris, Andy joins Cloud Distribution in the newly-created role of Southern Sales Manager.  His remit covers two separate, but directly-related, areas: the company’s vendor portfolio and its reseller base.

Andy will be responsible for growing Cloud’s existing southern-based sales team, expanding its reseller partner base and generating sales of the company’s growing portfolio of next-generation security and networking solutions.

He will also build on the success of the company’s complementary virtual market-making service known as Altitude.  He is tasked with creating a dedicated telemarketing and lead-generation team that will deliver accelerated, qualified pipelines by feeding enduser leads to the company’s growing reseller community.

Greg Harris, sales director, said: “We’re very excited to have Andy on board. Cloud’s mission is to bring innovative security and networking technology solutions to the UK.  We are filling a much-needed gap for a distributor that understands how to help vendors and resellers build markets around next-generation technology offerings. Our relationships with disruptive technology vendors demonstrate our commitment to delivering on our mission.  Andy brings first-hand experience of partnering with innovative, fast-growing technology vendors, delivering value-add and creating a solid sales pipeline for them.  To that end, Andy is the perfect fit for us.”

Andy’s IT Career began over 15 years ago when he joined networking reseller, LAN2LAN.  He subsequently joined Graham Fox at Fresh Egg Network Technologies, one of the UK’s first ‘boutique’ distributors to focus on the ‘value-add’ element of distribution.  After Fresh Egg’s acquisition by Voice Comms Warehouse (VCW), Andy spent three years helping to build the company’s success which was based primarily on evangelising emerging technologies and building brand names for new vendors to the UK.  A 4-year stint at VADition with Neil Ledger followed, before its 2011 acquisition by Exclusive Networks.  Andy left Exclusive in June 2012 and went full circle to re-join LAN2LAN. 

-End-

About Cloud Distribution

Cloud Distribution is a value-added distributor of disruptive next-generation security and networking solutions that VARs can take to market quickly and easily. It currently distributes Meraki, Vyatta, PepLink, Talon Storage Solutions, Lastline and Tanaza in the UK. Its portfolio of disruptive security and networking solutions helps resellers to differentiate themselves from the competition and create new markets to sell in.

The company was founded in 2009 by senior executives with a wealth of experience in the security, networking and optimisation space. Its philosophy is to take innovative, cutting-edge vendors into the UK market by recruiting and working together with skilled, reputable, market making partners.

For further information please visit www.cloud-distribution.com.

DDoS attack strikes JPMorgan Chase website

A representative of JPMorgan Chase confirmed to CNET Tuesday that its consumer banking website had suffered a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

During that time customers were greeted by a message on the site that stated it was “temporarily down” and to attempt to access it later. The representative of the banking giant did not state how long the site had been inactive and how long it would take to get the service to resume.

In recent months, major U.S. banking institutions, including Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, have been the targets of cyber assaults.

There has been debate on whether the attacks have been launched by a hacktivist group calling itself Martyr Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters or by Iran.

Read more

Inside The Cloud - 60 Minutes: Weekly Technology Seminars

INSIDE THE CLOUD - Weekly Technology Webinars

Cloud Distribution invites you to discover the latest technologies in the UK market by attending our "Inside The Cloud" interactive webinars. We will be hosting a series of weekly webinars to introduce or update you on our  Security and Networking vendor solutions.

Each webinar will introduce the Vendors value proposition; the business drivers; a technical overview and interactive demonstration.  

Each lasts one hour and will showcase new & exciting solutions, delivering  superb margin opportunities. 

Visit www.cloud-distribution.com/events for the up to date schedule.

CRN Says "Cloud makes a good point"…. The UK needs a Next Generation Distributor.. and we have arrived….

No room at the inn?

Doug Woodburn asks if VADs have become too successful for their own good, leaving some vendors out in the cold

Value-added distribution is normally the first port of call for any overseas vendor looking to break into the UK with disruptive new technology.

But like a Torquay B&B in high season, have some VADs effectively placed a "no vacancy" sign over their doors as they focus their resources on the successful franchises they have built up, or retrench back to their core business?

According to Adam Davison, director of products at Cloud Distribution, start-up vendors looking to take their first steps in the UK currently have few places to turn.

"The VADs out there are adding value to the vendors they have taken to market but unfortunately they are full and any new vendor coming along has a challenge," he said.

This could be particularly critical given the new wave of technology surfaing in areas such as cloud, BYOD and software-defined networking (see panel, bottom).

Davison (pictured below), who joined the distributor last month following stints at start-up vendors including Expand Networks, Meraki and Exinda, argued that the clutch of VADs that were formed in the noughties no longer have the bandwidth to take on new technologies, branding them victims of their own success.

"The resource and marketing gets sucked into their original vendors that have got big and need their numbers done," he said, adding that this had caused him "consistent frustration" during his vendor career.

"From a vendor perspective, I think there is a need for an evangelistic, next-generation, innovative distributor to help them create a market from scratch," he said

On the face of it, Davison has a point. After all, it has been about five years since the likes of Cohort Technologies and VADition - now Exclusive Networks - burst on to the scene. And many of their key vendor partners have matured into lucrative franchises demanding substantial manpower, for instance Palo Alto and Fortinet in the case of

VADition, and PGP - now owned by Symantec - in the case of Cohort.
At the same time, there are signs that the bleak economy has forced some of the larger, more established VADs to place fewer bets on emerging technologies in favour of fortifying market share with their top vendor franchises.

According to Stuart Reay, who ran distributor Arc before it was acquired by Exclusive Networks in 2009, this has left a vacuum in the distribution sector.

"From the outside looking in, vendors are finding it very tough to find appropriate distributors in the UK," said Reay, who has been out of the industry since he left Exclusive two years ago.

"I have been contacted by seven vendors desperate to know if I am coming back because they have nowhere to go."

Paul Judd, who recently founded security and networking distributor Heatherside, agreed: "Salesmen will always sell whatever they think is easiest to sell. I think there is a gap at the level of introducing shiny new products that need to be evangelised and have a market built for them."

Change of focus

Unsurprisingly, this is not a picture recognised by all established VADs.

Computerlinks director Dave Ellis said the distributor, which now turns over more than £150m in the UK, formed a new technologies unit in 2010 to ensure it could give sufficient focus to emerging, disruptive technologies.

The business unit now has about 15 dedicated staff and carries about nine vendors, including mobility platform vendor Globo, software-defined networking specialist Arista and datacentre management outfit Raritan.

"What Cloud Distribution said pays credence to what we did two to three years ago," he said.

"We want to leverage the footprint we have in the wider business as a lot of these technologies work well with the core vendors, but we felt they needed a dedicated level of push. We may have fallen into the trap of becoming less entrepreneurial if we had not done this."

Ellis said Computerlinks will continue to throw its muscle behind new technologies due to the higher margins and cross-sell opportunities on offer for resellers.

"It would be a dangerous game to refocus on the 80 per cent of business that comes from 20 per cent of your vendors and customer," he said. "From an end-user perspective, if resellers are providing them with a view of the whole market, they will be viewed as a strategic partner.

"There have been a number of distributors that have retrenched and almost gone the other way, which is surprising given there is a lot going on in the market."

Barrie Desmond, group marketing director at Exclusive Networks, accused some of the newer VADs of lacking an identity or sufficient market knowledge.

"There are a lot of people out there stating the obvious," he said. "There are disruptive technologies looking for market acceleration - that is obvious. What is not obvious to a lot of people shooting from the hip is that you have to have the contacts and the know-how and the investment in heavy-duty resources to make that happen if you are to act as a true proxy for those vendors."

Desmond added that the vendors recognised that everything that Exclusive Networks does must tally with its vision around very specific concepts such as the "smarter social enterprise".

"If you look at some of these newer VADs, they are not lighting up the world with strong propositions," he said.

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill, agreed that the market is already served well by the current crop of VADs.

"The death of new product distribution has been greatly exaggerated - there are a reasonable number of small VADs out there. But there is a strong case that a lot of vendors who come to distribution should not be in distribution in the current state of their development.

"Distribution is cheaper than direct sales but they would be better served first doing some early sales engagement with a couple of resellers and then going to distribution once they can show they have a working business model."

IT channel consultant Bruce Hockin agreed that emerging VADs must pick an area on which to focus.

"They must be known for excellence in a particular area, and be the best in that space," he said.

Technologies of tomorrow

Where the VADs are placing their bets in 2013?

SDN

Sales of software-defined networking - where control is decoupled from hardware and given to a new layer of software - are set to mushroom from $360m (£225m) this year to $3.7bn by 2016, according to IDC. This growth potential convinced Juniper to shell out a whopping $176m on newborn SDN outfit Contrail Systems in January, on the heels of VMware's $1.26bn acquisition of Nicira last summer. Dave Ellis, director of new technologies at Computerlinks, said: "SDN appears to offer real benefits for end users in terms of flexibility and business agility. It should be able to reduce management costs and overheads."

Wireless networking

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of Wick Hill, said the imminent arrival of wireless networking standard 802.11ac would be a "game changer" for the channel. Although sales of devices with the specification - to be ratified this year - are not set to reach full swing until 2015, 802.11ac will in theory enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least 1Gbit per second. "This will lead to a significant shift in businesses moving to a true wireless environment as you will be able to deliver WAN-quality performance over wireless," said Kilpatrick. "Instead of people having wireless in the office, the office will be wireless."

Health and fitness technology

Devices that measure patients' exercise, consumption of tablets or blood pressure will take off in 2013, according to Widget chairman Mark Needham. Widget already works with fitness tracking vendor Fitbit and Needham predicted that health fitness technology would become a category that many retailers will form over the next year. "I have friends who are doctors, and they say one of the biggest problems right now is patient compliance," he said. "It is certainly a channel opportunity on the retail side or for anyone who sells into medical."

Flash storage

Flash array is the buzzphrase currently taking the storage channel by storm as advances in solid-state storage technology enable emerging vendors to challenge the age-old economics of storage. Take Whiptail, a flash array start-up which has just received $31m in funding and claims to have grown revenue fourfold last year.
Channel consultant Bruce Hockin said: "Over the next three years the enterprise market will witness a seismic shift as flash technology matures from a tier 0/1, optimisation play to a bulk storage alternative. Vendors focusing on building all-flash arrays will emerge as serious alternatives to established players in their traditional markets."

Data transparency

The big data market is set to swell by seven times the rate of the overall ICT market over the coming years, according to IDC, and will hit $23.8bn by 2016. But Chris Patton, sales director at VAD CDG, picked out data transparency as a related sector that is set for frenetic growth, pointing to the recent IPO of Splunk as a testament to its potential. "It is about getting insights into your business at a machine level but also from the huge amounts of data the business creates," he said. "It's going to be massive and it should be an area resellers are embracing as there is a lot of opportunity out there."

Read more: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2242917/no-room-at-the-inn#ixzz2KbwDNcaw
CRN - Essential information for VARs, integrators and converged resellers. Claim your free subscription today.

Cloud Distribution Signs Lastline Inc. - Next Generation Anti-Malware Specialist

Lastline Inc offers a Cloud powered as well as an “On Premise” anti-malware solution to combat today’s sophisticated Advanced Persistent Threats, Zero-Day Exploits and Targeted Attacks

Reading, UK – 5th February 2013 – Security and networking value added distributor, Cloud Distribution, has today announced an exciting new partnership with Lastline Inc., a company at the forefront of advanced malware protection. With global cyber espionage estimated to cost companies $114 billion annually ($388 billion when you factor in downtime), this agreement offers the channel a high margin next generation solution specifically designed to combat today’s new class of sophisticated, stealthy and targeted cyber threats. 

Luca Simonelli, VP World Wide Sales of Lastline, comments on the new partnership: “When looking to introduce our anti-malware offering to the UK market, Cloud Distribution was at the forefront of our minds due to the company’s proven track record of successfully launching innovative solutions into the marketplace. We are confident that the team has the capabilities, connections and proven experience to develop our UK channel presence and add value to the ecosystem.”

Adam Davison, Director of Product Development at Cloud Distribution, comments: “Lastline offers unparalleled threat intelligence that is invaluable to security teams who are potentially vulnerable to the ever changing threat landscape. Our channel partners have been looking for a cost effective solution like this which leverages the power of the Cloud. The subscription pricing model means customer’s investment is significantly reduced versus competitive offerings. We are also delighted to be able to offer the channel a solution that effectively addresses the challenges of today’s threat landscape particularly Advanced Persistent Threats, Zero-Day and Targeted Attacks.”

An organisation’s most advanced security defences – next generation firewalls, next generation IPS, and heuristic based security solutions – are still no match for the polymorphic attacks being deployed today such as Advanced Persistent Threats, Zero-Day Exploits and Targeted Attacks. These new threats offer a broad spectrum of attack possibilities that enable attackers to break into systems, avoid detection and maintain long-term access to compromised networks using a combination of malicious evasion techniques that make detection and analysis extremely difficult. 

Lastline Inc. is the only technology on the market that has the ability to see through traditional evasion techniques and prevent false negatives in a unique way, by leveraging the Cloud to automate the systems and processes used to analyse incoming threats. Its Advanced Next Generation solutions can analyse binaries, web content and emails in real time as it enters the enterprise network, thereby allowing IT managers to map the malware threats quickly and efficiently with a level of accuracy not previously available. Up until now these threats have simply bypassed traditional signature based controls. At the same time Lastline’s solutions offer extremely competitive total cost of ownership as it leverages the Cloud infrastructure, which reduces CAPEX costs.

http://www.sourcewire.com/news/76269/cloud-distribution-signs-next-generation-anti-malware-specialist-lastline-inc-

must-watch security startups for 2013

must-watch security startups for 2013

Security ventures target cloud computing, mobility, malware detection, catching stealthy attackers

We'll see -- but how far can anyone legally go anyway to pursue an adversary across the Internet or even strike back? Alperovitch says CrowdStrike has had intelligence and response services available that have been used by large corporations and government agencies since the second quarter 2012. CrowdStrike is also developing what it calls a "big-data analytics platform" to identify and prevent damage from targeted attacks in real-time by monitoring, sharing and mitigating the adversaries' tactics, techniques and procedures. The technology is currently in beta and expected to be launched this year.

Fun fact: Knowing there are legal questions surrounding the topic of pursuing attackers to stop them, CrowdStrike likes to note that last April it hired Shawn Henry, retired executive assistant director of the criminal, cyber, response and service branch of the FBI, as president of its CrowdStrike Services.
ForgeRock

Headquarters: San Francisco
Founded: 2009 in Oslo, Norway
Funding: $7 million from Accel Partners, and an undisclosed sum from Sun co-founder Scott McNealy
Leader: Mike Ellis, CEO (former senior exec with SAP, Oracle, i2 Technologies) and Lasse Andresen, CTO (former Sun exec)

Why we're watching it: ForgeRock's software, Open Identity Stack, can be used to tie together a centralized provisioning and access-management system for enterprise, mobile and software-as-a-service applications. The company says it already has about 130 corporate customers for its subscription-based services. The startup has its roots in the open-source model, making use of the identity-management code base at ForgeRock.org community developer site to sell commercial products available at ForgeRock.com. ForgeRock vets the open-source code it uses for inclusion in its commercial products. The startup will be bumping up against the likes of IBM, Symplified and Symantec, among others in the identity-management space.

Fun fact: Much of the engineering and sales talent hail from careers in the open-source identity and access management division at Sun Microsystems, acquired by Oracle in 2010. ForgeRock's product finds its origins in the open-source IAM from the Sun era that was developed to adapt to a cloud environment.
Lastline

Headquarters: Santa Barbara, Calif.
Founded: 2009 by university researchers Giovanni Vigna, Christopher Kruegel and Engin Kirda
Funding: $3 million, including $1 million from E.ventures
Leader: Jens Andreassen, CEO (previously with Fortinet)

Why we're watching it: Lastline in November made its official debut with an anti-malware product and service called Previct which aims to prevent malware infections from entering the enterprise and also inspects and analyzes outgoing traffic. Though there's plenty of competition in malware detection today, the three university researchers (from UC Santa Barbara and Northeastern University) who developed it claim it's a better anti-malware mousetrap.

The technique Lastline came up with gets out in front of malware by using code emulation to securely analyze what effect the malware is trying to have rather than try to detect malware based on signatures as traditional antivirus would, says Christopher Kruegel, co-founder and chief scientist. In terms of competition, Lastline regards its approach as somewhat similar to that of FireEye, an earlier startup that's gotten plenty of attention for its anti-malware detection process.

12 must-watch security startups for 2013