Becoming a Cloud Partner: Journey of Essen Vision Software

In this very unique segment of DQ Channels, we have covered  EssenVision Software becoming a Cloud Partner from a traditional Channel Partner. Nityanand Shetty, Founder and CEO shared his entire journey about how did he move to the cloud business, challenges, growth, and future vision.

When and how did you move to Cloud Business?

EssenVision’s Cloud Business started somewhere 10 years ago when Symantec Introduced its Email Security in  SAAS offering. That's when Symantec had acquired the Message Labs business and was offering the Email Security to clients. That was our first foray in the cloud space as it offered a complete platform to replace traditional on-premise Email Security offerings. Later they also brought their Endpoint Security as a SAAS model which we offered to customers. A lot of other OEM’s then followed suits like Mcafee, TrendMicro and others. The Other areas we moved in successfully were the Web Security space where Forcepoint and Zscaler rule the market. As of today, every vendor has a strong cloud security offering for IAAS Security, Cloud App Security and Data Security from a Risk, Governance and Threat perspective.

What are the different Cloud services do you offer?

EssenVision offers a complete end to end holistic offering for cloud right from Vulnerability assessment of the Cloud Servers and Application in AWS and Azure, the Security of the containers and Dockets of clients building software in the cloud, Virtual Patching of Servers in the Cloud, Protecting Data Leakage in the O365, Gsuite and All Online Storage and Online collaboration platforms to the SAAS based, Endpoint EDR Security  Email Security, Web security and CASB offerings thru vendors like Zscaler, Netskope, Mcafee, TrendMicro, Proofpoint, Barracuda etc.

Previously on Cloud Journey: Macaws Infotech

What sort of changes have you done to move to the cloud within the organization in terms of Team, skill set, infrastructure, and others?

EssenVision moved Its internal infrastructure, processes and functions to the cloud a few years ago as we had envisioned this to be the future and with a large team on the field for different functions the cloud was the best way to go to manage the sales and support functions effectively. We actively use O365, Onedrive, Teams for collaboration and Cloud-based HRMS and CRM tools which have paid off especially during COVID times to coordinate with different teams Working from home.

How your old and new customers adopting the new technology and moving to the cloud?

Customers have started realizing the agility and scalability the cloud offers as compared to the traditional physical or the virtual infrastructure as well as companies like Microsoft and Amazon have had a lot of impetus in the market for their cloud offerings. In fact, a lot of traditional security vendors are going EOL with their traditional on-premise offerings so clients start adopting the cloud-based security platforms. With the Cloud companies now having datacentre and data residency offerings in India it is becoming much easier for the BFSI organizations’ to move to the cloud following the compliances and adhering to the regulations of the local authorities. COVID has also fastened the process now that WFH is going to be the new normal Cloud adoption will be faster and more widespread in all kinds of organizations’ Mid Sized or Large Enterprises,

What are the different challenges did you face in this journey?

Initially, the bigger resistance was towards Control of Data, where clients were not comfortable in having their data hosted in an IAAS Model although Cohosted datacenter’s always existed the though of hosting in an AWS was more towards having a few functions such a software testing or some smaller departments hosted where there was no critical data. However with the rise in the cost of managing apps and data in cohosted DC’s and the increase in the penetration of Cloud Vendors especially Azure with flexible price options such a “Pay as You GO “clients started realizing the cost-effectiveness and ease in which they could operate their Apps on the cloud without having to worry on the Uptime since the SLA’s generally provided are 99.99999%. Data Residency was another major factor which kept the BFSI away from cloud adoption which has changed today with most of the Cloud providers having their Infra in India based DC’s.

What is your overall growth being a cloud partner?

Cloud being a subscription model definitely ensures committed revenue and visibility year on year and with the platforms completely built-in Cloud our teams don’t have to bother about Product upgrades and Version Migrations which are a support intensive affairs. It ensures we don’t need larger support teams for a bigger set of customers as they need to only focus on operational issues at the device level. With more and more enterprises adopting the cloud now outgrowth in the next few years will be towards how we help provide customers better visibility,  control, protection and management of their cloud platforms.

What are your future goals?

We are looking at different technologies and options in the SOC and MDR space where we plan to take up complete control of the organization’s complete Security infrastructure. As companies will resist having their own SOC in the future, providing SOC based services will be the key to managing clients security environments. Incident response, Blue Teaming and Red teaming will be additional services that we plan to add in our portfolio as we move forward.