Each week, MSSP Alert brings you to the top cybersecurity news for MSSPs and MSPs. But we know that as business professionals, there’s more to your operation than cybersecurity news. That’s why each week, we also bring you a round-up of the important business news in the channel for service providers and other channel partners.
This week, Microsoft launched its new Partner Center AI Assistant to help lighten the load on MSPs and , in other AI news, Dell announced AMD PowerEdge servers that help businesses integrate AI. At our MSSP Alert Live event this week, attendees learned from a case study how they can protect their MSP from a lawsuit and Netskope acquired security provider Dasera. Here's our roundup.
- Microsoft’s New Partner Center AI Assistant Will ‘Lighten the Load’ for MSPs
- MSSP Alert Live 2024: How to Protect Your MSP From a Lawsuit
- Netskope’s ‘Strategic Acquisition’ of Dasera Enhances Unified Security
- Dell’s AMD PowerEdge Servers Ease AI Integration for Businesses
Microsoft’s New Partner Center AI Assistant Will ‘Lighten the Load’ for MSPs
Microsoft is rolling out a new Partner Center AI Assistant for partners and MSPs that will help make AI easier to deploy, configure, incorporate, and use for their end-user customers. Available now in preview from Microsoft, the new AI assistant can be accessed only through the English version of Microsoft’s Partner Center, according to an October 10 blog post by Jill Armour, a Microsoft Partner community lead.
The new partner- and MSP-focused AI assistant is designed to provide “tailored insights, intelligent suggestions, and quick answers to your day-to-day questions,” wrote Armour. “Access a diverse array of information ranging from insights into your Solutions Partner designation score, to end-to-end guidance, to membership management, to billing information such as Azure credit usage trends.”
The new Partner Center AI assistant pulls its AI-produced answers from Microsoft product documentation, partner program guides, and the Partner Center data generated by each partner or MSP, wrote Armour. As more data and information are added, the responses from the Partner AI Assistant will be further refined and expanded, she said.
Microsoft is working to roll out this new Partner Center feature in additional languages beyond English by the end of 2024.
MSSP Alert Live 2024: How to Protect Your MSP From a Lawsuit
MSSP Alert Live 2024’s second keynote speaker Wednesday morning tackled a timely topic on many managed service providers’ minds following the lawsuit filed against the LanTech MSP in March, stemming from a costly ransomware attack against one of its customers.
Details of the lawsuit reveal that the customer, a law firm called Mastagni Holstedt, had an “oral agreement" with LanTech in which LanTech would provide managed IT services to the law firm. Mastagni Holstedt says LanTech is responsible for damages after allegedly failing to protect the law firm’s systems from the attack, in which files were encrypted, backups were deleted, and a hefty ransom was paid.
The lack of a written contract in this case leads to a murky legal situation and shows the importance of having clear, documented terms in a managed services relationship, lawyer Eric Tilds, founder and managing member of the Law Office of Eric Tilds, said during his keynote presentation.
Netskope’s ‘Strategic Acquisition’ of Dasera Enhances Unified Security
Cyber security company Netskope has acquired data security firm Dasera for an undisclosed amount.
Dasera has 43 employees listed on LinkedIn. While Netskope would not confirm to ChannelE2E how many of those employees would remain following the acquisition, Robert Arandjelovic, Netskope's senior director of product & solutions strategy, confirmed that Dasera employees who join Netskope will be fully integrated into existing teams.
Arandjelovic noted that Dasera’s presence across the U.S., India, Spain, and other regions will have an immediate positive impact for Netskope customers.
"Our customers view data as one of their crown jewels - and as their business grows and changes, they must know where it is, what it is, who is using it and for what purpose, and ultimately how to protect it so it is processed and stored properly,” Arendjelovic said.
Dell’s AMD PowerEdge Servers Ease AI Integration for Businesses
In a move aimed at making AI easier for businesses to incorporate for their customers, Dell has unveiled an expanded lineup of five new Dell PowerEdge server models that are built with AMD’s 5th generation EPYC processors to deliver more power and capabilities for AI computing.
The new server models, which will be available through Dell’s AI Factory offerings, are designed to help businesses accelerate their AI adoption through new hardware and services expertise in generative AI and other AI technologies, according to Dell.
The latest product additions are a “massive expansion of our partnership with AMD,” Varun Chhabra, Dell’s senior vice president for its Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) and Telecom, told ChannelE2E.
“As AI adoption is accelerating, what we are hearing from customers are a few things they are looking for more than anything else – they are looking for ways to harness its power more efficiently and more effectively,” said Chhabra. “Our customers want time to value. They want to be able to deploy AI faster and get value out of it quicker. We have been hearing over the last two years that it takes a lot of effort to deploy AI solutions and get them to work. And one of the things that we have all been focused on at Dell is really reducing that time to value.”
