Appgate’s software defined perimeter (SDP) is described as a core component of the Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) framework. Targeting mid to large enterprises and the government, it offers seamless, scalable secure remote access across cloud, legacy, hybrid and IoT environments.
The company was looking for a strategic partner with a shared vision of building a leadership position in the ZTNA market, Appgate said in a statement announcing the partnership this morning.
Coined by Gartner, ZTNA describes a framework of products or services that improve security by creating an identity and context based logical access boundary around an application, or set of applications, that are accessible only once the identity, context and policy adherence of the user or device is proven.
Director of channel sales EMEA for Appgate, Fiona Doak (pictured) said that the company is adopting a channel-first strategy, focused on finding committed and ambitious channel partners with existing security expertise.
She told Comms Business that the partnership will enable Kite's channel partners to answer many questions customers are asking about secure access, enabling them to look beyond legacy solutions they have previously relied upon and become a trusted advisor in the SDP space.
"Many organisations today are relying on legacy solutions that do not meet their continuing needs," said Doak. "'If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got' is a good analogy here. Organisations can no longer rely on deploying a security solution in this manner. How they did things yesterday is no longer effective with the challenges they face today.
"Secure Access is the corner stone of any security infrastructure, and we must move away from 'connect first and trust second', that is not a safe or secure option. Zero Trust brings 'Trust first, and connect second' to the fore, and validates that the perimeter is not what it was.
"The last year has proved a challenge for everyone, and as Dr Chase Cunningham states, the perimeter died in March 2020. People are now the true perimeter: requiring access to applications, regardless of whether they are on prem or in the cloud, from wherever the user resides, and securely. That is the priority and is why Zero Trust is more relevant now than it ever has been before. This is true secure access for the 21st century, and organisations across the globe must recognise this."
Kite CTO Andy Lawrence added: “It’s our policy to rigorously road test any product that we consider adding to our portfolio as we only carry a very select group of products. Having put Appgate’s SDP solution through its paces and compared it with the competitors, we realised that we'd finally found a grown-up version of a secure remote access solution that’s perfect to fill a gap in our ZTNA strategy and that will suit our channel perfectly.”