Heimdal Security, Autotask PSA Integration Spurred by MSP Partner Demand

Looking to reach a broader market of MSSPs and MSPs with its all-in-one platform of managed XDR cybersecurity, Heimdal Security is integrating with Autotask PSA, a Kaseya platform. It's a move requested by Heimdal's MSP partners.

Autotask PSA is one of a handful of professional services automation platforms typically used by MSPs to help them run their businesses by centralizing business operations to improve insights, accuracy, productivity, service levels and profitability.

Heimdal Security CEO Jesper Frederiksen tells MSSP Alert that the integration with Autotask PSA positions the company to reach a broader market of MSSPs and MSPs.

"The integration with Autotask PSA is a transformative step in our strategy to elevate cybersecurity as the cornerstone of MSP and MSSP operations,” he said. “By empowering our partners to respond more effectively to cybersecurity threats and deliver superior protection, we are positioning Heimdal at the forefront of a rapidly evolving market."

Copenhagen-based Heimdal offers a unified XDR platform incorporating network security, endpoint security, vulnerability management, privileged access management, email and collaboration security, threat hunting and unified endpoint management. The company made its first moves into the U.S. market earlier recently via a distribution agreement with master MSSP FutureSafe.

Heimdal Security said the key benefits of the Autotask PSA integration include:

Acting on the Advice of MSPs

Frederiksen said the impetus to build the Autotask PSA integration came from its MSP community.

“So it's been developed in cooperation with some of our existing partners,” he said.

Jon Stanton, managing director at 4Cambridge, a UK-based MSP, said his company chose Heimdal Security for a number of reasons — “the modern user-friendly interface, the range of security solutions covered with a single integrated application, and the scope to protect Mac and Linux as well as Windows devices.”

Heimdal's comprehensive solution was important to Stanton.

“The simplicity and effectiveness led Heimdal to become the centerpiece of 4Cambridge's security stack,” Stanton said. “The Autotask integration is critical to us to ensure issues discovered by Heimdal get raised and allocated efficiently. Pulling those issues straight into our PSA gives our service desk immediate visibility and helps ensure a quick response by our team.”

Frederiksen noted that Heimdal Security recently released the same level of functionality for HaloPSA, a help desk ticketing system designed for MSPs. As such, the integration allows their customers and partners using HaloPSA to automate and customize ticket management. HaloPSA is a rising star among MSPs.

“The whole idea is to give you a very effective way of taking all these cyber-related alerts, getting them into your PSA platform, doing this without any form of integration work on your side, no coding, no developing, no messing around with APIs,” Frederiksen said. “Ultimately, the goal is to help the service provider to provide better service levels and drive profitability because they can now augment more traditional managed services with the security side of the house based on the platform.”

Balancing Functionality with Pricing

Frederiksen said the Autotask and Halo integrations are starting to gain traction in the MSP community.

“Sure, there are point solutions out there that may go an inch deeper than we do in some of these categories, but we're finding that the market seems to be reacting well to sort of the balance between the depth of functionality we offer and, quite frankly, the price point we sell it at,” he said. “That’s especially attractive if you're a service provider that's looking after the cost-conscious parts or segments of the market. Cost does play into the equation. You want to offer a great service, but you also always have to do it in a way where you are price competitive.”

Exploring Broader Markets

Heimdal Security, which is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has its sights set on a wider geographic penetration with the Autotask and Halo integrations.

“Our biggest markets come out of Denmark and Scandinavia, and even though they are small countries, it’s still a meaningful market for us,” Frederiksen said. “The U.K. Is where we sort of run second, and it's a bit it's a big chunk of our business. We're very active in scaling out the U.S. marketplace and we're doing that with a very heavy focus on the service providers. And we think that our solution is very well suited for some of the commercial space.”

Are MSSPs Big PSA Users?

There's no empirical data in the market currently about how many MSSPs use a PSA or whether it's something that pure play MSSPs without an IT services arm would use in their businesses.

Kaseya's GM of IT Glue Nadir Merchant told MSSP Alert that many MSSPs have the same PSA needs as MSPs do -- ticketing, billing contract management, project management, and more. So it would be common for these MSSPs to use PSA tools.

Canalys Principal Analyst for MSPs and MSSPs Robin Ody told MSSP Alert that not all MSSPs would fit the model for using PSA tools necessarily. Many MSSPs don't operate a traditional MSP model, so they either employ a mixture of in-house tools built for their own purposes or if necessary, use an ITSM tool with CRM, he said.

MSSPs do have a similar baseline of PSA needs as MSPs, but the cybersecurity market is evolving, and it's influencing the PSA/RMM market, according to Frederiksen.

"This means that MSSPs' needs and demands for PSA tools are evolving and expanding beyond what PSAs are offering today," he said. "MSSPs also use a ticketing PSA tool for the ‘base’ management of the business, but we do see MSSPs becoming less content with the offerings of PSAs and RMMs as pressure mounts in areas like incident management and compliance flow structuring, driven by the cybersecurity market.”