Barracuda's Intronis brand launches firewall for MSPs

Industry Editor

Barracuda Networks Inc. is pushing forward with its managed service provider strategy, which kicked into higher gear with the company’s October 2015 acquisition of channel-oriented data protection vendor Intronis.

Barracuda on June 27 launched a firewall appliance geared toward managed services providers (MSPs) under the Intronis label. Barracuda NextGen Firewall — Intronis MSP Edition is “designed for businesses with multiple locations,” noted Neal Bradbury, senior director of business development for Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda, Barracuda’s MSP technology brand.

Bradbury said the firewall offering also offers single-pane-of-glass management. The NextGen Firewall provides integrated wide-area network optimization and centralized management of appliances through the Barracuda Control Center. Other product attributes include application visibility, user-identity awareness, intrusion prevention and advanced threat detection, according to the company.

The firewall’s pricing conforms to MSPs’ monthly billing model.

“Instead of paying upfront for a piece of hardware … they can buy from us the way they sell to end users,” Bradbury said. “We package it as a monthly subscription.”

Barracuda took a similar approach with its Barracuda Backup — Intronis MSP Edition, which offers data protection hardware on a subscription basis. The product was unveiled in March 2016.

The NextGen Firewall offers MSPs accustomed to selling Intronis backup and data protection products a security offering to broaden their portfolios. Bradbury said few Barracuda/Intronis MSPs have been selling Barracuda’s firewall products, which aim at mid-market accounts. For MSPs yet to move into the firewall business, the Intronis offering provides one on-ramp for doing so.

The arrival of an MSP-centric firewall product within Barracuda’s MSP product line points to a convergence of data protection and security offerings. Datto provides another recent example: The company, which provides backup and disaster recovery hardware, software, and a hybrid cloud, announced availability of its Datto Network Appliance, a router-firewall. Both Barracuda and Datto have been expanding their partner programs.