CRN Intelligent Edge SI Issue#1416

Page 1

SPECIAL ISSUE 1416 • NOVEMBER 2022

crn.com

NEW USE CASES ABOUND

Here’s where solution providers are finding success with IoT deployments PAGE 10

EDGE COMPUTING 100

The market is booming as these companies put innovation to work PAGE 12

THE CUTTING EDGE Future-minded solution providers know that edge computing is only going to become more pervasive, and they also know that now is the time to get in on the action. Here are eight key opportunities that should not be overlooked. PAGE 6


Keeping the Women of the Channel Community Connected Is Our No. 1 Priority The Women of the Channel Leadership Network is an online community that brings together the most prominent and rising women in the IT channel to connect and learn from one another, as well as build new relationships. This community unites women from all career levels and delivers the content and connections they need to thrive in their organizations and achieve their personal and professional goals.

Take advantage of the following membership benefits: Access interactive peer networking groups, live Q&A sessions with industry experts, webinars, podcasts, trainings, mentorship, and education Network and enhance relationships with women from across the tech industry Be inspired by best-in-class thought leadership, including Women of the Week (WOW) interviews with members Gain connections and content to advance your career and your business Discover how to improve company culture, while unleashing the power of inclusion Automatic participation in our Loyalty Program — a tiered rewards program based on members’ engagement

Join Today! Individual and Group Packages Are Available. www.TheChannelCoCommunities.com

508.416.1175 | thechannelcompany.com

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. The Channel Company logo is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.


CRN Intelligent Edge SPECIAL ISSUE The Cutting Edge Solution providers with an eye toward the future know that edge computing is going to impact every corner of our lives, and they also know that the time is now to get in on the action. Here are eight key opportunities solution providers can leverage, from security to IoT as a service to distributed storage and more.

4 A Letter From The Editor Coming in the December issue:

Be sure to check it out!

6 IoT Time IoT is one of the underlying technologies driving edge solutions. Here’s how savvy solution providers are helping customers use troves of data to realize their desired business outcomes.

For reprints and plaque requests, please contact The YGS Group at 800.290.5460 or http://crnlicensing.com CRN (ISSN 1539-7343), also known as Computer Reseller News, is published 14 times a year (February, April, June, August, October, December and 8 Special Issues) by The Channel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581, and is free to qualified management personnel at companies involved in the reselling/distribution of computers/ networking systems, software and services. One-year subscription rates for all others in the United States are $209.00; Canada $234.00. Overseas air mail rates are: Europe $380.00; Mexico/South America $380.00; Africa $380.00; Asia/Australia $480.00. Please mail all subscription inquiries along with checks or money orders to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581. For renewals or change of address, please include the mailing address label appearing on the front cover of the publication. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA, (and additional offices, if applicable). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Channel Company, 100 Crossways Park Drive West, Suite 300, Woodbury, NY 11797. FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES go to crn.com/subscribe Copyright ©2022 by The Channel Company. All Rights Reserved. Registered for GST as The Channel Company, GST No. R13288078, Customer No. 2116057, Agreement No. 40011901. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: APC Postal Logistics, LLC PO Box 503 RPO W Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill ON L4B 4R6

10 Edge Computing

100

12

Check out who is putting innovation in high gear as edge computing becomes one of today’s hottest markets. Our Edge 100 list spans hardware, software and services, IoT and 5G, and security companies.


A Letter From The Editor As the economic pressures heading into 2023 continue to mount, businesses of all sizes are looking for ways to optimize. At the same time, the Internet of Things market is growing, 5G connectivity is gaining ground and “big data is the new oil” has become a popular phrase, meaning its raw form isn’t that useful, but those who can harness and refine it to make meaningful business decisions will gain a vast competitive advantage. It’s no wonder, then, that edge computing is in the channel spotlight as we head into the new year. Edge computing itself is also morphing as new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning bring new data analysis capabilities to the fore, and emerging business models such as IoT as a service enable solution providers to deliver innovative offerings in new ways. Connected Solutions Group, Richmond, Va., is among the many solution providers betting big on all things edge, reports Senior Editor Gina Narcisi in our cover story on p. 6, which takes a look at eight key edge trends driving channel opportunity. “The real power of the edge is when it reaches normalcy in your daily life,” said Mike Pittman, founder and CEO of CSG. “And we’re just scratching the surface there.” Solution providers have a bevy of options when it comes to which technology suppliers to team with when building out edge projects. In our third annual Edge Computing 100 list on p. 12, we spotlight the industry’s key channel-focused players when it comes to edge hardware, software and services, IoT, 5G and security. We also checked in with a few IoT-focused solution providers to find areas where they see opportunities for success in the coming year, be it bolstering IoT security, focusing on the manufacturing vertical or looking for small, simple wins to ease customers into the benefits IoT brings. You’ll find that story on p. 10. I hope you find something inspirational in this issue to help you achieve success in the abundant edge computing opportunity.

Best regards,

Jennifer Follett VP, U.S. Content, Executive Editor jfollett@thechannelcompany.com

4

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022


SIMPLIFY THE EDGE. Help your customers generate insights where they matter most so they can act faster to improve outcomes such as efficiency, profitability, and safety. Learn More at Dell.com/Edge & Dell.com/OEM if you’re designing solutions for the Edge.


COVE R STO RY

The Cutting Edge

Eight Trends Future-Minded Solution Providers Should Watch

BY GINA NARCISI

If the last two-plus years of creatively supporting unexpected IT use cases in the midst of a global pandemic has taught the industry anything, it’s that the network edge is where the action is. Businesses are searching for new ways to provide a more responsive end-user experience while preserving network performance. Bringing processing closer to the user through edge computing allows for quicker and more efficient operations, said Mike Pittman, founder and CEO of solution provider Connected Solutions Group (CSG). Richmond, Va.-based CSG is betting big on all things edge. The company’s mission is to help customers adopt edge processing, Pittman said, because edge computing is becoming increasingly influential in smoothing out the subtle realities of daily operations for many businesses. “The real power of the edge is when it reaches normalcy in your daily life,” he said. “And we’re just scratching the surface there.” According to research firm IDC, worldwide spending on edge computing is expected to reach $176 billion in 2022, an increase of 14.8 percent over 2021. Enterprise and service provider spending on hardware, software and services for edge solutions is forecast to sustain this pace of growth through 2025 when spending will reach nearly $274 billion, according to IDC. It’s safe to say that solution providers shouldn’t sleep on these emerging edge opportunities. For starters? Security. High-profile breaches and

6

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

ransomware attacks have long made the news and have been on solution providers’ radars. But thanks to the intelligent edge, the attack surface just gained a potential plethora of new entry points. Meanwhile, 5G will play a pivotal role in supporting brand-new edge and IoT use cases, such as autonomous vehicles, factory automation, remote health care and patient monitoring, and smart buildings and stadiums, according to IDC. Solution providers say that the link between 5G and edge computing can be boiled down to latency. The fifth-generation global wireless technology promises to fuel innovation at the edge by enabling more data collection and faster processing than ever before. “That’s what everybody’s looking for as we head toward this 5G revolution. Edge is going to help bring the performance of 5G to the masses,” Pittman said. Still in its infancy, the edge computing market is being impacted by a number of factors, including growth in IoT, distributed storage, AI, private networking and hybrid work, to name a few. Here are eight trends that will create edge opportunities for the channel in 2023. 1. Continued IoT Market Growth For enterprise adopters, edge use cases with the largest investments in 2022 include manufacturing operations, production asset management, smart grids, omni-channel operations, public safety and emergency response, freight monitoring and intelligent transportation systems. Use


AHEAD COVER OF STORY THE CURVE

cases that will see the fastest spending growth from 2020 to 2025 include public infrastructure maintenance, network maintenance, anatomy diagnostics and augmented-realityassisted surgery, according to IDC. What’s more, the research firm expects hardware and services spending will account for 85 percent of all edge spending in 2022 with the remainder going to software. Hardware spending will be led by investments in edge gateways, which require low-power components designed for running limited or single functions in environments where power and cooling availability is limited. In other words, this is the perfect gear for many IoT environments. For CSG, IoT is a big part of its future, Pittman said. The solution provider is launching a sensor division and an IoT endpoint management platform, which Pittman said is crucial for getting actionable data into the hands of customers. And that’s just the beginning, he added. “We’re developing the platform, and we are absolutely bundling solutions around it every day,” he said. 2. The Case For IoT as a Service First comes IoT, then comes IoT as a service. The emerging trend is an important one that solution providers said will help increase IoT adoption. That’s because IoT as a service presents an attractive buying model for customers and a way for the channel to create a winning template for secure IoT use cases that can be scaled up or down easily. Altaworx, a Fairhope, Ala.-based solution provider that was recently named to CRN’s 2022 IoT Innovators list, seized on the IoT opportunity early. Then, the company’s CEO, Rickie Richey, challenged his employees to look at IoT through an as-a-service lens. Richey and his team have been busy in recent years developing an IoT platform. They started by creating an algorithm that allowed Altaworx to bill customers based on consumption of AT&T’s—and now, T-Mobile’s—LTE services if a customer failed over to cellular connectivity. The platform has since grown way beyond its initial scope, Richey said. “I said to my company, ‘Look, I want you guys to go back and think about how somebody could build a managed service with this platform,’” he said. Today, the Advanced Management Operations Platform (AMOP) is a tool that allows users—namely, other solution providers as well as enterprises—to fine-tune how their end customers manage and use data. The platform offers features such as packet filtering and private WAN services and lets users build customized business rate plans that can be throttled by the partner to decrease the risk of expensive overage fees. AMOP integrates with the Cisco Jasper platform for IoT cellular connectivity management. The mature platform counts some of the country’s largest solution providers as users, Richey said. One California-based solution provider that’s using AMOP handles LTE failover and Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) line replacements for service provider giant Lumen Technologies, the company’s largest customer. Still another AMOP customer, business LTE provider For2Fi, is using the

platform to enable cellular as a primary internet connection for retail environments. “We’re trying to get to where this becomes a platform that someone can use to manage all their customers and all their SIMs, whether they bought them from us or they bought them directly from AT&T. So now, they could either do a managed service with their SIMs or [our] SIMs, and it doesn’t really matter,” Richey said. “That’s what we’re really going to be pushing hard for in the next 12 months—building IoT as a managed service.” 3. 5G Gains Ground Solution providers say 2022 was the year that 5G went from an exciting prospect to a mainstream offering. Carriers have been diligently building out their footprints, which are now ready for prime time in many areas of the U.S. 5G can enhance edge computing applications by reducing latency, bettering application response times and improving businesses’ ability to collect and process data. The global 5G services market size was valued at $48.25 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 56.7 percent from 2022 to 2030, according to Grand View Research. Small businesses and rural environments that have been relying on LTE are already starting to enjoy the benefits of 5G, while some enterprises are even willing to test and trial 5G as their primary form of connectivity for certain applications. It’s a request that CSG’s Pittman said he and his team are running into more and more every day. “It’s a wireless solution that is relatively easy to manage, and they can get the signal from the air instead of running cable and wire everywhere. They’re all about it—they just want to see it work,” he said. Altaworx’s Richey said 5G represents a new connectivity option for customers that may have a challenging location that can’t be reached via broadband. “We’re seeing more and more customers that are comfortable with it now,” he said. Richey said that while the networks are robust enough to handle 5G or LTE failover, 5G-capable devices haven’t quite caught up yet. “There’s still a little bit of hype there. I think devices are still way behind the networks,” he said. 4. The Rise of Edge AI Tantalus Systems, a smart grid solution provider for public power and electric cooperative utilities, is focused on modernizing utility infrastructure for a more sustainable, decarbonized future for about 260 public power utility providers in North America. That modernization involves empowering customers to leverage data for greater “command and control” at the grid edge, said Michael Julian, CRO of Burnaby, B.C.-based Tantalus. “Our view is that utilities are going to have a tremendous amount of difficulty in decarbonizing their generation sources and keeping up with the demand associated with electrification unless, of course, they’ve got assets on their grid both digitized and under their control,” he said.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

7


COVER STORY

That’s where the company’s partnership with Cisco comes into play. Cisco brings the IoT edge devices and computing hardware on which Tantalus’ software resides. Combined, the solution gives end users granular visibility and control over distribution and automation assets, including voltage regulators and capacitor banks. Digitizing and managing these assets are becoming more critical, especially as providers look to accommodate renewable energy sources that are not always available, like solar and wind, he said. Once utility customers have access to data coming in from the edge, AI is playing an important part in providing “actionable intelligence” based on real-time data that might

“With AI, we can provide real visibility to a utility to tell them that, for example, ‘Hey, we noticed these anamolies in this part of your service territory at a time when the winds were extremely high.’ Or, ‘There’s potentially vegetation overgrowth that’s coming in contact with distribution lines.’” —MICHAEL JULIAN, CRO, Tantalus Systems

be happening at the meter, substation or distribution asset, Julian said. AI can help detect previously undetectable anomalies, like changes in voltage or issues caused by weather. “With that AI, we can provide real visibility to a utility to tell them that, for example, ‘Hey, we noticed these anomalies in this part of your service territory at a time when the winds were extremely high.’ Or ‘There’s potentially vegetation overgrowth that’s coming in contact with distribution lines and very likely during the next wildfire, or during the next ice storm, it’s a very likely place for a failure or an interruption that could be avoided,’” Julian said. By 2027, machine learning in the form of deep learning will be included in more than 65 percent of edge use cases, up from less than 10 percent in 2021, according to research firm Gartner. 5. Taking Networking Private Many businesses are turning to private networking for their IoT use cases using LTE. The rise in interest around private networking has even sparked a new market opportunity for startups like Celona, an enterprise private 5G provider that was founded in 2020. Cupertino, Calif.-based Celona has an OEM partnership with Aruba Networks, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, that is helping partners include cellular as another connectivity option in their toolkits. Pier Group, a Jasper, Ind.-based solution provider and

8

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

Aruba partner that’s using Celona’s offerings, is focused on serving customers in the education and research verticals. The company is connecting, securing and managing new kinds of endpoints for its campus IT customers that are getting requests for IoT “thrown into their laps” every day, said Jason Coclanes, named account manager for Pier Group. One such use case involves connecting sensors in a cornfield so that a university research group can measure humidity, water and sunlight for its crops. Pier Group is working through the proof-of-concept project with the university, which will rely on private cellular to cover a very large agricultural area, Coclanes said. “[Private cellular] is a very cost-effective model that can then be used to backhaul to their traditional campus infrastructure. That’s something completely private that is a use case that we’ve started to see pick up reasonably,” he said. “Some of these places are 40 to 50 miles outside of central campus, and there isn’t much of an alternative. These use cases are really paving the way for what will ultimately become an enterprise use case in the future.” Altaworx for its part uses private networking because many existing IoT management platforms don’t allow users to cull or throttle data or build VPNs back to the customer, Richey said. “We built that into our private network, and it was a little bit of a struggle getting with the carriers where we could recognize the devices and create rules. But that’s getting a lot of traction now because that’s really one of the ways you can secure some of this stuff,” he said. Getting devices off the public internet is one of the few ways partners can secure IoT endpoints, Richey added. “If you can’t upgrade the software and people don’t want to replace them, send them to a private network,” Richey said. Private networking initially can be more complicated to build than relying on public connections, but it makes security easier in the long run, he said. Another bonus? Private networking for IoT use cases also can help to unclutter increasingly convoluted corporate networks, he added. 6. Securing The Edge Solution providers in the past focused on securing the walls of the enterprise campus. It’s an approach that doesn’t work in today’s multi-cloud world with a global workforce, solution providers said. Vendors and solution providers alike are investing millions in launching and deploying new edge security offerings to combat the growing attack surface spurred by the COVID19 pandemic, as well as the uptick in public awareness around ransomware attacks. These offerings include new innovations around Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) technology, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), SD-WAN with built-in security, and threat detection, response and prevention capabilities. Securing WAN edge infrastructure is a big requirement for businesses that are dealing with distributed workloads and users, said Bill Tracy, vice president of technology solutions


AHEAD COVER OF STORY THE CURVE

for Structured Communication Systems, a Clackamas, Ore.based solution provider. “It’s definitely a hot topic,” he said. “Customers are asking, ‘How do I transform and simplify security? And what do I do with CASBs and SASE to complement that?’” Edge security involves a blend of security strategies, and planning visibility is key, Tracy said. “First, we have to help [customers] get their heads around where their traffic and data is going and what we need to secure. It might be a combination of things like secure edge appliances, maybe it’s cloud-based technologies that are sitting more adjacent to where the user is, and sometimes even agent-based technologies at the user level to protect them wherever they may be working from.” Still, the edge needs the same systems in place for access and control that traditional IT environments require, including multifactor authentication, zero trust and access management, said Joel Grace, senior vice president of IT infrastructure and cloud practice for Sayers, a Vernon Hills, Ill.-based solution provider. From a networking standpoint, encryption and network segmentation are just as important at the edge, Grace added. “You want to extend the policies that you implement in the core network as far as you can out to the edge,” he said. With the edge acting as multiple potential entry points into the network, Grace said that securing the edge as IT environments become more complex is “absolutely critical.” It’s something businesses can’t afford to overlook. “With complexity comes risk,” he said. “You could put up a firewall for a perimeter at your corporate network, but at the edge, you’ve got wireless networks, potentially physical access issues and devices moving around the environment. Edge expands the attack surface for your enterprise, and unless it’s done properly and you get the security teams involved in these edge deployments, it could be very risky and should make any security [professional] nervous.” 7. Distributed Storage Instead of storing data in one data center or public cloud location, distributed cloud storage is data stored on clusters of storage nodes that are geographically dispersed. The approach is becoming critical for not only edge computing, but local data processing and strict data security and privacy requirements. By 2025, Gartner estimates that 75 percent of data will be processed at the edge, outside traditional centralized data centers and the cloud, resulting in faster response time and reduced latency. “There are global brands and global companies that are [saying], ‘We are going to be out of our data center in the next 12 months, and we need a simpler strategy for managing our WAN edge and our branch infrastructure,’” Structured Communication Systems’ Tracy said.

Businesses are concerned about latency and transaction time. “As such, it doesn’t make sense to bring all those users back to a central hub to access the applications that might be located 30 miles away from them in an AWS data center,” he said. Structured Communication Systems has seen a big revival of the storage market over the last 18 months, Tracy said. Customers are demanding hybrid cloud storage environments that put data close to their end users with network-attached storage for archiving and backup. “We’ve seen the storage environment really changing over the last seven or eight years with storage declining, but now we’re starting to see a resurgence in that conversation,” he said. “I think what most people are finding is even just a generic [Microsoft] Azure or AWS storage volume is not meeting the needs of their users to access that data.”

‘Edge expands the attack surface for your enterprise, and unless it’s done properly and you get the security teams involved in these edge deployments, it could be very risky and should make any security [professional] nervous.’ JOEL GRACE, SVP, IT Infrastructure, Cloud Practice, Sayers

8. Hybrid Work There’s no question that the distributed enterprise is pushing more computing to the edge. For Structured Communication Systems, 30 percent to 60 percent of customer conversations right now revolve around branch, small-office or home-office user edge strategies, with WAN edge driving the majority of those discussions, Tracy said. “And that’s not us driving the conversation like it was a few years ago. Now, the conversation is coming to us.” The company is taking a consultative approach to hybrid work and is finding ways around simply doing an “untenable” rip and replace of existing infrastructure for its small-business customers. “We say, ‘Let’s review what you have in your environment and where do you want to be in three years? Then, what’s the path to get there? How do we maximize what you have? And where do we add strategic solutions to get you on that path?’” Tracy said. For its customers with existing wireless infrastructure, for example, the next step may be adding SD-WAN for smalloffice locations, Tracy said. “We feel like cash flow is becoming a premium in a lot of organizations, but too many people have put off projects. Now, they just have to do it.” 

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

9


NEW US E CAS ES ABO UN D

magnitude that we will think of it as an act of war,” Lynch said in October during a keynote address at the 2022 XChange Best of Breed Conference hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company. “I think we are on the verge of seeing one in Europe faster than that, perhaps the first quarter of 2023.” While many solution providers are more comfortable working in the IT market as they have done year in and year out, Lynch cautioned that those who ignore the OT security space will miss out. “In 2023 and beyond, if you don’t have a strategy for playing in this space and winning in this space, you will be left behind,” Lynch said. “This market is going to wake up, and it’s going to be enormous.”

Solution Providers Reveal The Hottest Areas For IoT Investment BY JENNIFER FOLLETT

As one of the underlying technologies driving the rollout of edge solutions, the Internet of Things market is expected to soar, creating massive opportunities for savvy solution providers that can help customers use troves of data to achieve their desired business outcomes. Gartner forecasts that the number of IoT devices will triple from 2020 to 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent to reach nearly 18 billion devices over that span. The fastest-growing segments are expected to be manufacturing, health care and smart cities, according to the research firm. Meanwhile, McKinsey & Co. projects that the potential economic value that IoT could unlock globally by 2030 from both consumers and customers of IoT products and services will reach $5.5 trillion to $12.6 trillion. While those projections won’t materialize immediately, solution providers that made our 2022 IoT Innovators list pointed to several areas they plan to focus on for IoT success. 1. IoT Security Is Key, Particularly In OT By 2025, 25 percent of edge networks will be breached, up from less than 1 percent in 2021, a trend driven by the continued convergence of enterprise IT and OT environments, according to Gartner, and much of that convergence is being delivered through IoT. For Kevin Lynch, CEO of Denver-based security-focused solution provider Optiv, the prospect of a high-profile OT attack in the U.S. looms large. “My prediction is we will actually see an OT [security] attack in the United States, certainly within 2023, of a

10

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

2. Helping Manufacturing Customers Do More With Less The revitalization of manufacturing in the U.S. has been in the spotlight this year in the wake of product shortages driven by the pandemic and the passage of the CHIPS Act, which aims to bolster stateside semiconductor manufacturing. While some solution providers told CRN they expect to see a boom in IoT business as those new plants start to come online, the factories already here are also rife with opportunity for solution providers, said Sam Hoff, president and CEO of Patti Engineering, Auburn Hills, Mich., an OT-focused solution provider that expects to see 15 percent to 20 percent annual growth in 2023. Shortages of skilled workers are driving demand for manufacturing robots in markets that haven’t traditionally used them, such as food and beverage, Hoff said. In other cases, customers want to get more data and more life out of existing equipment, he said. “There’s a lot of old equipment in these facilities, 20- to 25-year-old equipment that’s running a lot of these manufacturing systems, and they were never built to spit out data,” Hoff said. “What you’ll find is that the equipment might work fine, but the control system or the [programmable logic controllers] need to be upgraded. … So for pennies on the dollar, rather than buying a brand-new machine, you can upgrade your machine.” 3. Looking For Smaller Projects That Demystify IoT In many cases, getting started with IoT isn’t as complicated as it seems, said Andy Timm, digital orchestrator at New Vision, a Bloomington, Minn.-based solution provider. Customers don’t need millions of dollars and long, expensive engagements with a global systems integrator to roll out IoT solutions, he said. For example, a quick-serve restaurant that loses $5,000 worth of roast beef every time its finnicky refrigerator goes out could benefit from a $20-per-month solution that utilizes a sensor to send a text when the temperature gets too high, he said, noting that “there’s an infinite number of those little solutions that either exist or could exist.” “People are starting to realize that this isn’t some mystical new shift that we have to think about in business. It’s just recognizing that there are use cases everywhere,” Timm said. “Sensors can be put on just about anything, and the return can be very quick and simple, so I think the demystification of IoT is starting to happen.” 



TH E KEY PL AYE RS

Edge Computing 100

BY CRN STAFF

EDGE HARDWARE, SOFTWARE AND SERVICES

Edge computing continues to be one of the biggest investments companies are making today to drive sales and help customers as the explosion of data increasingly requires new ways to monitor and analyze it all. Some of the biggest emerging trends in the edge computing market include innovation around artificial intelligence, data analytics software and SD-WAN networking performance improvements. By 2025, IT research company Gartner predicts that more than 50 percent of enterprise-managed data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud. CRN highlights 50 companies leading the way in edge computing with hardware, software and services, 25 that are driving IoT and 5G, and 25 that are tackling the security challenges associated with edge computing.

12

Amazon Web Services

Adapdix

Adlink Technology

Anthony Hill Founder, CEO

Jim Liu Chairman, President, CEO

Adapdix’s EdgeOps platform helps enterprises maximize yield, minimize downtime and reduce maintenance costs at the edge. With a unique edge-optimized architecture, EdgeOps delivers powerful AI and machine learning that is secure, scalable and rapidly deployable.

Adlink provides edge AI offerings to connect people, places and things faster with its line of edge software, hardware and services. The company recently launched its first embedded MXM graphics modules on Nvidia Ampere to accelerate mission-critical applications at the edge.

BMC Software

Cato Networks

Cisco Systems

Ayman Sayed President, CEO

Shlomo Kramer Co-Founder, CEO

Chuck Robbins Chair, CEO

BMC’s Helix Edge offerings collect, aggregate and analyze OT data at the edge. The company’s IoT Edge offering, meanwhile, funnels data into data management systems to combine IT and OT data and allow customers to monitor all critical systems and predict failures.

Cato Networks specializes in edge SD-WAN computing and Secure Access Service Edge. Cato has converged its SD-WAN and cloud-native security service edge technologies together to provide global cloud edge services that enforce access policies, protect against security threats and prevent sensitive data loss.

Cisco’s hardware has been critical in driving edge computing, including edge-optimized servers, storage and switches. Cisco also has a long list of edge software and services, including Intersight for management and Cisco ACI for software-defined networking.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

Adam Selipsky CEO

The worldwide cloud leader continues to innovate with software to help customers build, deploy and manage devices and infrastructure at the edge such as with AWS IoT Greengrass. AWS offers edge services for data processing, analysis and storage.

AMD

Aruba, an HPE Company

Lisa Su Chair, President, CEO

Phil Mottram EVP, GM, HPE Intelligent Edge

AMD is increasingly embedding its chips into more edge hardware, such as its Compact Industrial AMD Ryzen Edge server and 4U rackmount AMD EPYC Edge server. AMD’s SoC offerings bring data center features required to scale cloud solutions to the edge of the network leveraging the same IP and software.

Citrix Systems, part of

Cloud Software Group

Tom Krause CEO

Citrix brings security features into a unified edge stack that includes networking offerings like SD-WAN and Secure Access Service Edge for deep visibility and cloud-based management as well as secure internet access to protect users and applications at the edge.

Aruba is a major player in edge networking for hardware, software and services. The Aruba Edge Services Platform enables companies to accelerate digital transformation through automated network management, edge-to-cloud security and predictive AI-powered insight.

ClearBlade Eric Simone Co-Founder, CEO

ClearBlade’s Edge Platform gives users the ability to deploy a common software stack across an environment. Using the platform, the user’s code travels where it is needed, making it possible to develop applications in the cloud and push them to the edge or develop them at the edge itself.


Edge Computing 100

Dell Technologies

Eaton

EdgeConneX

EdgePresence

Edgeworx

Michael Dell Founder, Chairman, CEO

Craig Arnold Chairman, CEO

Randy Brouckman Co-Founder, CEO

Doug Recker Founder, President

Kilton Hopkins Co-Founder, CEO

Dell Technologies just unveiled Project Frontier, an initiative that delivers an edge operations software platform. Its goal is to unify edge operations across infrastructure and applications in any industry as it addresses the complex nature of the edge by reimagining a better way to do edge operations.

Eaton provides power infrastructure and software monitoring and management to enable edge computing. The company’s edge-optimized UPSes, power distribution units and power management offerings help keep edge applications and devices running longer and prevent data loss.

EdgeConneX, which offers global hyperlocal-to-hyperscale data center solutions, said in September that it would offer Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute service in its Portland Edge Data Center. Azure ExpressRoute lets users create private connections between their IT infrastructure and Microsoft’s global data centers.

EdgePresence designs, deploys and manages edge data centers located anywhere. The company’s purpose-built edge data centers are compactly designed to include critical power, monitoring, physical security, cooling and interconnections that can be deployed within 12 miles from end users.

Edgeworx’s Darcy AI empowers developers to build artificial intelligence for collecting data in real time at the edge. The company’s Darcy Cloud helps customers orchestrate and deploy edge applications and devices for full life-cycle management.

Equinix

Extreme Networks

Gigamon

Google Cloud

Graphiant

Charles Meyers President, CEO

Ed Meyercord President, CEO

Shane Buckley President, CEO

Thomas Kurian CEO

Khalid Raza Founder, CEO

Equinix provides services including visibility into core operating data and on-demand storage to manage data. Equinix’s Network Edge services run on a modular infrastructure platform, optimized for deployment and interconnection of network services while reducing complexity and cost.

Extreme Networks is a provider of edge networking hardware, software and services, including its Extended Edge Switching por t folio. The company ’s ExtremeCloud SD-WAN unifies disparate IT into a centralized network to give customers control of their edge networks.

Gigamon provides edge hardware and software, including edge traffic aggregation nodes, switches and network monitoring. The GigaVue TA Series of edge network packet brokers aggregates multiple network links and feeds the combined traffic to Gigamon products or directly to security and monitoring tools.

The cloud giant has extended its infrastructure and services to the edge with Google Distributed Cloud on-premises, enabled by Anthos. The company’s Google Distributed Cloud Edge offering aims to make Anthos the foundation for running 5G infrastructure and critical workloads such as data analytics and AI.

Graphiant offers customers a next-generation network with the performance to replace MPLS and SD-WAN. Graphiant is built on a private network that allows it to deliver enterprisegrade speed and scale. These functions are delivered as a service through the channel.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hitachi Vantara

HP Inc.

IBM

IGEL

Gajen Kandiah CEO

Enrique Lores President, CEO

Arvind Krishna Chairman, CEO

Jed Ayres CEO

Hitachi Vantara has an edge portfolio of hardware, software and services including IoT gateways and its Lumada Edge Intelligence management software. Hitachi Vantara’s edge gateways connect devices, video and other data through a configurable platform to enable data-driven outcomes.

HP Engage Edge accelerates edge deployments to support sensor and cloud frameworks to make data ingestion easier for on-site processing. The offering deploys sensors to automatically track and manage inventory with preinstalled software.

IBM provides edge hardware and software around application management, network automation and data analytics. Its Power Systems and storage offering put AI models to work at the edge, while IBM Cloud Pak for Data extends applications and models to the edge without the need to move the data.

IGEL’s next-generation edge operating system for cloud workspaces, IGEL Workspace Edition, offers software-defined endpoint optimization and control over those workspaces. The platformindependent, Linux-based OS turns any compatible x84-64 device or thin client into a secure, managed endpoint.

Antonio Neri President, CEO

HPE is a global market leader in edge computing hardware and software—from servers to storage and more. HPE’s GreenLake offering helps customers unify data at the edge by securely integrating all applications and infrastructure together.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

13


2021 RISING FEMALE Edge Computing 100STARS

14

Intel

Juniper Networks

Kerlink

Lenovo

LogicMonitor

Pat Gelsinger CEO

Rami Rahim CEO

William Gouesbet CEO

Yang Yuanqing Chairman, CEO

Christina Kosmowski CEO

Intel injects its processors such as Core and Atom into smart IoT devices, while Intel Xeon Scalable chips provide high performance for rapid data transfer in edge server deployments. Intel’s Network Builders Edge Ecosystem drives development of edge-centric technologies.

Longtime networking specialist Juniper offers a slew of switches, routers and software targeting edge computing. The Juniper Mist Edge extends its microservices architecture to the campus, bringing agility and scale while enabling new applications at the edge.

Networking and IoT company Kerlink off ers edge hardware, software and services to enable customers to design and operate wireless networks. To that end, Kerlink provides IoT gateways, modules, connectivity and device management at the edge.

Lenovo’s ThinkEdge SE450 runs AI workloads at remote locations due to its compact size, while the ThinkSystem SE350 virtualizes IT and OT applications while supplying compute power and networking capabilities. The ThinkEdge SE70 deploys compute power to the edge where people connect with the network.

LogicMonitor—which aims to give customers seamless visibility into networks from the core to the edge—introduced LM Envision in June. The new offering is engineered to assess the health of thousands of assets and applications that generate the operational IT data points that make up the IT data supply chain.

Microsoft

Mimik Technology

Mutable

Nile

NetApp

Satya Nadella Chairman, CEO

Fay Arjomandi Founder, CEO

Antonio Pellegrino Founder, CEO

Pankaj Patel Co-Founder, CEO

George Kurian CEO

Microsoft offers high-performance edge computing services through Azure, including IoT Edge, which extends cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices; Stack Edge for compute and storage needs at the edge; FXT Edge Filer for HPC workloads; and Azure Data Box to move stored or in-transit data to the edge.

Mimik’s edgeCloud is a platform for decentralizing the cloud by enabling all computing devices via its edgeEngine to act as servers. This increases efficiency and processing while helping decrease the latency, cost and energy consumption of edge computing.

Mutable Cloud uses the ultralow latency of 5G networks to provide constant connectivity between wired and wireless devices locally and at the edge. The company spreads compute across multiple server and provider locations and transforms them into micro data centers.

Networking services startup Nile is aiming to re-engineer the network to deliver an automation-first wired and wireless experience. Its Network-asa-Service offering includes monitoring, analytics and automation as well as zero trust access security capabilities.

NetApp has tailored offerings for edge environments, built with decades of experience in the data center. It was among the first to develop technology for transparent migration and management of data from data centers to the cloud and to the edge. The company also offers storage hardware designed for edge deployments.

Nutanix

Nvidia

Ori Industries

Pure Storage

Red Hat

Rajiv Ramaswami President, CEO

Jensen Huang Founder, President, CEO

Mahdi Yahya Founder, CEO

Charles Giancarlo Chairman, CEO

Matt Hicks President, CEO

The Nutanix Xi IoT platform delivers local compute and AI for IoT edge devices, converging the edge and cloud into one seamless data processing platform. The platform eliminates complexity, accelerates deployments and helps developers focus on the business logic powering IoT applications and services.

Whether it’s in the enterprise, on the factory floor or embedded in autonomous machines, Nvidia is making the edge a more hospitable place for large, complicated workloads. Nvidia AI-on-5G is a unified platform that makes it easy to deploy AI-dependent applications over a mobile network.

Ori Global Cloud is a global platform that connects cloud estates and applications through a control plane. Ori’s distributed cloud platform automates application distribution across the cloud, onpremises and at the edge. It is used for orchestrating applications across multi-cloud, telco edge and enterprise edge environments.

Pure Storage’s FlashBlade is a unified fast file and object platform that can be used with AI workloads and heavy data processing requirements at the edge. FlashArray, meanwhile, puts VMware inside Pure Storage’s allflash storage to create a hybrid cloud product that supports a 5G multimode infrastructure.

Red Hat Edge brings Red Hat deployments to the site where the data is collected, taking the enterprise platform closer to the problems it solves. Red Hatvalidated patterns are detailed deployments that have been created for various edge use cases, giving customers a jump on their edge ambitions.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022


IOT AND 5G SERVICES

Edge Computing 100

SAP

Scale Computing

Schneider Electric

Splunk

Vapor IO

Christian Klein CEO

Jeff Ready Co-Founder, CEO

Annette Clayton CEO, North America

Gary Steele President, CEO

Cole Crawford Founder, CEO

SAP Edge Services deliver orchestration and life-cycle management of edge services from the cloud, boosting the speed and function of high-performance business processes. SAP also enables microservices with the local compute and the persistency to duplicate the processing power of the digital core at the edge.

Scale Computing unleashed HCI at the edge in a co-development project it spearheaded with Intel. The NUC EEC was unveiled in May, with partners praising its ease of deployment and price point. The company is bringing its low-profile devices to ultra-edge environments, from the factory floor to the desert for astrophotography.

Schneider Electric is innovating at the edge with its Smart-UPS Ultra, which it combines with its EcoStruxure edge remote monitoring, management and service offering. The company wants partners to sell managed edge power services through its Edge Software and Digital Services Partner Program.

Splunk Edge gives IT administrators the ability to put environmental sensor data into the Splunk platform without configuration. The Splunk Edge Hub is hardware that is configured by the company with built-in sensors that stream data to the Splunk-hosted Splunk Cloud platform.

Vapor IO delivers autonomous, intelligent inf rastruc ture edge-to-edge with its Kinetic Grid infrastructure. Vapor IO is building edge data centers in dozens of markets to deliver high-performance, automated and intelligent colocation integrated across the network.

Veeam Software

Vertiv

VMware

Wasabi Technologies

Zededa

Anand Eswaran CEO

Rob Johnson CEO

Raghu Raghuram CEO

David Friend Co-Founder, President, CEO

Said Ouissal Founder, CEO

Veeam’s backup offering for Azure Stack Edge equips partners for edge environments. Veeam’s technologies are deployed to protect data in remote and branch office environments and at the edge, while its Kasten Kubernetes backup and disaster recovery technology protects millions of containers in production.

Vertiv offers modular edge data centers capable of tailoring edge solutions for applications using SmartMod and SmartMod Infrastructure. Designs include hardware, software, analytics and services for running critical applications via Vertiv’s portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure products and services.

VMware is operating on the principle that digital transformation starts at the edge. Its Multi-Cloud Edge offering delivers scalable solutions across RAN, SASE and multi-access edge computing, while it also offers the VMware Edge Compute Stack to build and manage edge-native applications.

Wasabi’s Hot Cloud Storage for Smart Systems and IoT can store massive datasets, as might be needed in a central data repository for machine learning, business intelligence, at-rest analytics and data visualization applications. Wasabi partners with Equinix and Flexential to offer on-demand edge computing as a service.

Zededa makes cloud-based orchestration simple and scalable. It delivers visibility and control for the distributed edge, along with the authority to deploy and manage any app on any hardware. It works as a cloud-based service to deploy and manage any edge compute node and unlock IoT data.

Aarna Networks

Adaptiv Networks

AT&T

Cambium Networks

Celona

Amar Kapadia Co-Founder, CEO

Bernard Breton CEO

John Stankey CEO

Atul Bhatnagar President, CEO

Rajeev Shah Co-Founder, CEO

Aarna offers private 5G and enterprise edge computing application automation software. Aarna Edge Services, its SaaS platform, provides zero-touch orchestration as a service for edge infrastructure and public clouds. Aarna Edge Services supports compute, storage and network from the edge to the cloud.

Adaptiv Networks comes to market with its cloud-managed SD -WAN ser vice: Adaptiv Enterprise Connect. The offering lets enterprises target new applications and users at the edge while delivering exceptional user experiences across all business cloud services and private corporate applications.

AT&T’s Multi-Access Edge Comp u t ing of f er ing t ie s together the telecom giant’s cellular network architecture for real-time high-bandwidth, low-latency access to mobile applications. The company is helping businesses harness LTE and 5G at the network edge.

After going public and acquiring Xirrus in 2019, Cambium’s wireless technology became even more appealing to the enterprise. The company is focusing on bringing 5G connectivity to the masses and going after industrial IoT use cases.

Celona burst onto the scene in 2020 with a platform that lets enterprises create 5G/4G LTE private networks, filling a major gap in the connectivity market. The company in September unveiled a 5G LAN Device Certification Program to simplify deployment and adoption of private LTE/5G networks.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

15


2021 RISING FEMALE Edge Computing 100STARS

Comcast Business

CommScope

William Stemper President

Charles Treadway President, CEO

Cradlepoint, Part of

EdgeQ

floLive

George Mulhern Chairman, CEO

Vinay Ravuri Founder, CEO

Nir Shalom CEO

Co m c a s t B u s i n e s s ’ e d g e offerings play into its core competencies: telecom and voice. The company in 2021 acquired software-defined networking specialist Masergy, which has built up Comcast Business’ SDN muscle at a time when SD-WAN and cloud-based everything are in high demand.

CommScope, with the Ruckus portfolio it acquired in 2018, has been pushing the boundaries of wireless. Its 5G and LTE wireless network offerings are deployed in stadiums, campuses and public spaces, and it is delivering Network-as-a-Service offerings to address edge computing use cases to enterprises and people worldwide.

Cradlepoint, which was acquired by Ericsson in 2020, brought its wireless edge networking expertise to the telecom equipment giant. Cradlepoint is unlocking the power of LTE and next-gen cellular technologies with NetCloud Exchange, an extension of its cloud-managed Network-as-aService offering.

Two-year-old EdgeQ bills itself as a 5G systems-on-a-chip company that is bringing AI to the edge of the network with 5G. The company is entering trials with worldwide OEMs and operators with its 5G BaseStation-on-a-Chip technology and is selling its AI-powered chips to enterprises.

IoT technology startup floLive is enabling access to public and private spectrum for enterprise usage. The company offers cloud-based connectivity management, device management, billing and core network services with flexible deployment models to help enterprises kick off their IoT projects.

For2Fi Andrew Gregoire Co-Founder, CEO

Kore Wireless Group

Lumen Technologies

Macrometa

Qualcomm

Romil Bahl President, CEO

Kate Johnson President, CEO

Cristiano Amon President, CEO

For2Fi got its start two years ago when MSP-owner-turnedwireless specialist Gregoire identified a hole in the market around business LTE. The company brings wireless LTE and 5G connectivity to customers exclusively via the channel, specifically targeting retail and hard-to-reach businesses that need connectivity.

Kore specializes in IoT connectivity systems that help businesses scale, deploy and manage IoT without friction. The company in September joined Ericsson’s IoT Accelerator ecosystem to help global enterprises expand their IoT business in the U.S. market and beyond.

Lumen offers a secure platform for next-generation applications to harness data at the edge. The service provider announced Johnson as its new president and CEO effective Nov. 7, and she and Lumen will help customers leverage its platform to power digital experiences.

Chetan Venkatesh Co-Founder, President, CEO

Samsung Electronics North America

Sierra Wireless Phil Brace President, CEO

Sierra Wireless has been focusing on IoT software and managed services thanks to its 2020 purchase of M2M Group, a group of companies focused on IoT connec tivit y. The Canadian telecom equipment maker builds small embedded 5G-capable wireless modules for IoT applications.

KS Choi President, CEO

Samsung has a number of edge initiatives. It is collaborating with fellow IT leaders, including chipmakers and cloud providers, to expand the 5G vRAN ecosystem for the creation of a scalable and flexible network that delivers carrier-grade performance, management and reliability.

16

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

Ericsson

Macrometa is offering its Global Data Network and edge computing platform. The company in September revealed a partnership with DevCycle to launch Edge Flags, what the two companies are calling the world’s first ultra-low-latency global feature flags solution for developers.

Qualcomm is leveraging its mobility expertise to give its IoT business a boost. The chipmaker in September said its automotive business pipeline increased to $30 billion thanks to its Snapdragon Digital Chassis for assisted and autonomous driving technology, as well as in-car entertainment and connectivity.

Skylo

Tag-n-Trac

Telstra

Parthsarathi Trivedi Co-Founder, CEO

Venu Gutlapalli Co-Founder, CEO

Vicki Brady CEO

Five-year-old SoftBank-backed Skylo has been busy building an affordable global two-way IoT network using satellite. The startup is helping businesses extend their coverage seamlessly by connecting existing compatible devices directly over satellite.

Smart IoT tracking technology provider Tag-n-Trac emerged from stealth earlier this year with technology that combines low-cost “printable” hardware sensors and a sensor-agnostic SaaS platform for supply chain management. The startup in January raised $10 million in Series A funding, led by Dell Technologies Capital.

Australian-based carrier Telstra recently renewed its partnership with Cisco Systems to provide advanced connectivity management for IoT services with Telstra Control Center powered by Cisco to support a variety of industries including financial, retail and government.


SECURITY

Edge Computing 100

T-Mobile

Ubidots

Verizon

Versa Networks

Michael Sievert President, CEO

Agustin Pelaez Co-Founder, CEO

Hans Vestberg CEO

Kelly Ahuja CEO

T-Mobile, the third largest wireless provider in the U.S., has been focused on next-gen connectivity needs. The carrier giant offers T-Mobile EDGE, or Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, a network technology that allows for faster transfer of data on Global System for Mobile Communications networks.

Ubidots offers a platform that allows entrepreneurs to assemble and launch IoT applications without having to write code or hire a development team. The company’s technology today is used by a variety of businesses, including farms, health-care systems and several large universities.

Verizon has been going strong in edge computing with a little help from partners, including AWS and Microsoft. The carrier is offering Verizon 5G Edge with Microsoft Azure Stack Edge, a platform that brings compute and storage services to the edge of the network.

SD-WAN-turned-SASE-specialist Versa Networks is helping enterprises tackle challenges around security and connectivity as 5G becomes mainstream. It believes that secure SD-WAN can simplify management across an expanding mobile footprint and that older wired internet services must coexist with 5G networks.

Akamai Technologies

Appgate

Barracuda Networks

Bitdefender

Broadcom

Tom Leighton Co-Founder, CEO

Barry Field CEO

Hatem Naguib President, CEO

Florin Talpes Co-Founder, CEO

Hock Tan President, CEO

Akamai has reorganized its operations to strengthen its edge technology and security business and earlier this year moved to buy cloud computing provider Linode for $900 million, allowing the company to create a cloud platform that runs applications from the cloud to the edge.

Appgate recently launched a technology alliance partnership program to help customers simplify and accelerate zero trust advancement. Earlier this year, the company also started a new behavioral biometrics service for real-time online fraud prevention for all types of users.

Email security provider Barracuda Networks’ cloud-native SASE platform proved attractive to private equity giant KKR, which earlier this year acquired the company with plans to further push it into managed detection and response, extended detection and response and SASE technology.

Bitdefender, which in the past has expanded its cloud workload security offerings, earlier this year unveiled MDR Foundations, which the company described as a new managed security service that provides threat monitoring and response and threat hunting.

Broadcom has been transitioning to the edge in a number of ways of late but recently made big headlines when it moved earlier this year to acquire software virtualization leader VMware for $61 billion. VMware is known for its enterprise expertise and edge prowess.

Check Point Software Technologies

Cloudflare

Forcepoint

Fortinet

iboss

Matthew Prince Co-Founder, Chair, CEO

Manny Rivelo CEO

Ken Xie Founder, Chairman, CEO

Paul Martini Co-Founder, CEO, CTO

Cloudflare has a number of offerings targeting the edge, and industry observers are starting to notice. In late 2021, Forrester Research identified Cloudflare as one of the nine most significant providers in the emerging market for public cloud edge development platforms.

Forcepoint has been on an acquisition tear of late, last year snapping up security companies Cyberinc, Deep Secure and Bitglass, which delivers data and threat protection on any device. Forcepoint was recently included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN.

FortiOS—the heart of the Fortinet Security Fabric—was updated to version 7.2 earlier this year and now delivers new AI-powered FortiGuard security services. Among the new or updated features are Inline Sandbox, Inline Cloud Access Security Broker, advanced device protection and outbreak detection.

iboss, a zero trust edge cloud security provider that raised $145 million in funding last year, said its iboss SASE fabric provides fast and secure connectivity for all users, devices and cloud workloads. Its new Zero Trust Policy Manager allows organizations to more quickly and easily implement zero trust policies.

Gil Shwed Founder, CEO

Check Point’s CloudGuard offers unified cloud-native security across an organization’s applications, workloads and network. It also has added a new version of Check Point Harmony Mobile and has established a partnership with CCTV company Provision-ISR to provide on-device IoT security.

Windstream Enterprise Tony Thomas President, CEO

Windstream is attacking the IoT sector by way of voice and data network communications and managed services. The service provider giant earlier this year teamed with Cato Networks to release its first SASE offering: Windstream Enterprise SASE powered by Cato.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

17


2021 RISING FEMALE Edge Computing 100STARS

18

Imperva

Infoblox

Kaspersky

Menlo Security

Netskope

Pam Murphy CEO

Jesper Andersen President, CEO

Eugene Kaspersky CEO

Amir Ben-Efraim CEO

Sanjay Beri Founder, CEO

Imperva recently unveiled Imperva Data Security Fabric to provide security, data governance and workf low management across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. Imperva also recently said its data security platform is available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Infoblox is considered a market leader in DDI, which includes domain name services, dynamic host configuration protocol and internet protocol address management. The company recently rolled out an updated Network Identity Operating System for better performance across hybrid multi-cloud environments.

Kaspersky has been unveiling and updating security products this past year, including a new machine-readable Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language data feed for the automated detection of vulnerabilities in OT software. It also unveiled the latest version of Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response Optimum.

Menlo Security recently revealed that its Menlo Cloud Security Platform is now available in AWS Marketplace and, separately, that its Menlo Security offering will be integrated with CrowdStrike Falcon XDR to provide customers with protection from highly evasive adaptive threats.

Netskope, a leader in security service edge and zero trust, in May bought startup Infiot, along with its “borderless WAN” offering for securing a range of remote work sites and in June acquired WootCloud, described as an innovator in applying zero trust principles to loT.

Palo Alto Networks

Perimeter 81

Radware

Amit Bareket Co-Founder, CEO

Phosphorous Cybersecurity

Proofpoint

Nikesh Arora Chairman, CEO

Ashan Willy CEO

Roy Zisapel President, CEO

Palo Alto Networks earlier this year unveiled Nebula, the latest upgrade to its PAN-OS software, to help find and stop zero-day attacks. Nebula also introduced AIOps and the new Advanced Threat Prevention service while enhancing advanced URL filtering, DNS security and IoT security.

Perimeter 81 received a $10 million round of funding that the newly designated unicorn company can use for its cloud-based, zero trust remote cybersecurity platform. In February, the company also said it added a “radically simple” secure web gateway to its security service edge offering.

Phosphorus Cybersecurity has established itself as one of the leaders in the IoT security market with its xTended Security of Things platform, designed with often unmonitored “things”– like endpoints and sensors–in mind.

Proofpoint is a security and compliance company whose offerings mitigate customers’ risks across email, the cloud, social media and the web. The company has seen major ownership and leadership changes of late, with last year’s acquisition of Proofpoint by Thoma Bravo and this year’s appointment of Willy.

Radware has been internationally active the past year, opening new cloud security centers in Italy, Chile, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, the company has recently introduced and enhanced a number of offerings, including the launch of SkyHawk Security, a spinoff of its cloud-native Protector Business.

Skyhigh Security

SonicWall

Sophos

WatchGuard

Zscaler

Gee Rittenhouse CEO

Bob VanKirk President, CEO

Kris Hagerman CEO

Prakash Panjwani CEO

Jay Chaudhry Founder, CEO

Earlier this year, Mc Afee Enterprise renamed its security service edge business. The result? Skyhigh Security, a company that’s coming to market with a security service edge solution to secure data across the web or cloud from anywhere, any application or any device.

SonicWall’s Capture Cloud Platform is designed to integrate security, management, analytics and real-time threat intelligence, using a number of its mobile, cloud and other security products. SonicWall’s new CEO, VanKirk, has vowed to continue ramping up the company’s cloud capabilities.

Sophos earlier this year enhanced its Sophos Cloud Workload Protection, including new Linux host and container security capabilities. The company said the new features accelerate the detection and response of inprogress attacks and security incidents within Linux operating systems, among other things.

WatchGuard made a number of innovative moves this past year, including the announcement of Wi-Fi in WatchGuard Cloud along with a new lineup of Wi-Fi 6-enabled access points. In addition, WatchGuard announced that Vector Capital had acquired majority ownership of the security company.

Cloud security specialist Zscaler has quickly become a leader in the security service edge market with its Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, a globally distributed offering that uses zero trust connectivity to secure branch, data center and public cloud communications over a non-routable WAN.

SPECIAL ISSUE 2022

Chris Rouland Founder, CEO


Subscribe and Never Miss a Story! The Most Trusted Source for IT Channel News, Insight & Analysis

CRN Magazine Delivers: • Industry Intelligence & Expertise • 360° Channel View & Perspective • Exclusive Content & Interviews

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! www.CRN.com/Subscribe

© 2022 The Channel Company, LLC. CRN and The Channel Company logo are registered trademarks of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.


THE CHANNEL COMPANY is delighted to recognize this year’s Edge Computing 100 vendors!

We want to give a well-deserved thank you to our great sponsors for working with us to highlight the innovative technologies and solutions that fuel the edge computing market – Edge Hardware, Software and Services, IoT and 5G Services, and Security.


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.