Uplevel Systems, which develops MSP-centric appliances for small businesses, has extended its platforms to more fully address managed security services opportunities.
The company says the new offering is “designed to bring right-sized, business-class cybersecurity solutions to small companies through trusted information technology (IT) providers.” According to Uplevel, the appliance and associated services use flexible tiers of security to help MSPs and IT consultants provide custom-tailored security strategies for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs).
“The Uplevel solution promotes recurring revenues and streamlines support for more clients with less equipment, travel, time, cost, and complexity,” Glenn Chagnot, VP of marketing, Uplevel Solutions, tells ChannelE2E. “MSPs can easily sell, support, and scale managed services to the smallest businesses, turning time-intensive unprofitable ‘break/fix’ arrangements into profitable long-term engagements.”
Uplevel SMP Appliances for MSPs
The company’s existing SMB appliance supports up to 25 employees and integrates networking, VPN, WiFi, storage, security, and remote management capabilities. Now, enhanced firewall and intrusion prevention system (IPS) capabilities have been added as part of the Secure SMB Suite push. The expanded appliance and associated services will also protect against ransomware attacks while providing real-time threat intelligence, the company says.
Secure SMB features include:
- Stateful firewall: Provides business-class protection against unsolicited Internet traffic
- IPS: Content-aware inspection of in- and outbound traffic to detect embedded malware
- Ransomware protection: Local, remote and cloud-based backup for flexible storage and fast recovery
- Internal Security Groups: Prevent unauthorized distribution of data
- Secure DNS: Protection against hackers posing as legitimate websites
- Remote access VPN to support working offsite
- Easy to deploy Site-to-site VPN to interconnect offices with one click
- Threat intelligence based on WebTitan services: Filtering of traffic from dangerous websites for advanced white- and black-listing
Background
Uplevel Solutions opened its doors in 2015 and specifically targeted small businesses from the outset. According to the company, the strategy began because friends and relatives running small companies were coming to the company’s founders for unofficial IT expertise.
“We introduced our solution in early 2017 and have focused on building our channel and end customers this year. We have dozens of partners and end customers at present with very healthy growth,” says Chagnot. “Our end customers are all on the smaller side and have been hard to serve without our solution.”
Chagnot says Uplevel serves customers in a variety of markets including attorneys, property management, insurance, and even a specialty truck manufacturer, brewery, and tree farm.
They became frustrated with the lack of choices for small businesses - “consumer grade” devices that lacked functionality or ‘enterprise grade’ solutions that required ongoing support. That led them to create an integrated services infrastructure which could be delivered through IT consultants. The resulting solution is a hybrid model that combines onsite equipment and cloud-based management.
Of course, many companies are rolling out various cybersecurity solutions, which brings Uplevel into competition with the likes of Datto, SonicWALL, Sophos, and Cisco Meraki, according to Chagnot. But he asserts that his company’s solution is easily differentiated. Chagnot says Uplevel’s solution is more affordable and easier to use than many of the competitors’ while remaining 100 percent channel-focused.
Promoting The Suite
To help promote the new offering, Uplevel is making tools available to MSPs to help demonstrate to smaller clients why they might need to enhance their security. This comes in the form of selling tools and other resources for reseller partners.
The tools “are designed to frame the discussion of whether companies need ‘good, better or best’ defense strategies based on variables such as remote or guest access, industry regulations, online transactions, physical location and employee awareness,” the company said in a prepared statement.
A sample of the framework is available here.
