>> From around the globe, It's theCUBE. With digital coverage of IBM Think 2021, brought to you by IBM. >> Hi, welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think 2021 virtual. I'm John Furrier host of the CUBE. We got a great guest here. Brian Bouchard is the co-founder president and CEO of Alacrinet. Brian great to see you remoting in all the way from Puerto Rico to Palo Alto. >> That's right. >> Great to see you. >> Thanks for First of all, thanks John, for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. >> Yeah, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. First of all, before we get into what you guys do and and how this all ties in to Think. What do you guys do at Alacrinet? Why the name? A it's good you're at the top of the list and alphabetically, but tell us the, the, the the secret behind the name and what you guys do. >> So, first of all Alacrinet is based on the root word alacrity which means a prompt and willing, a prompt a joyous prompt to, excuse me, to achieve a common goal. So we ultimately are a network of individuals with the traits of alacrity. So Alacrinet. So that's our name. >> Great. So what's your relationship with IBM and how you guys have been able to leverage the partnership program in the marketplace? Take us through the relationship. >> So, well, first of all Alacrinet is a platinum IBM business partner and it was awarded recently the 2020 IBM North American partner of the year award. And we were selected amongst 1600 other business partners across North America. We've been actually a consulting, an IT consulting company for almost 20 years now. And we were founded in 2002 in Palo Alto and we have focused specifically on cyber security since 2013. And then as part, go ahead. >> What are some of the things that you guys are working on? Because obviously, you know, the business is hot right now. Everyone's kind of looking at COVID saying we're going to double down on the most critical projects and no time for leisurely activities when it comes to IT. And cloud scale projects, you know mission critical stuff's happening what are you guys working on? >> So we're, we're focused on cybersecurity, our security services really compliment IBM's suite of security solutions and cover the full spectrum from our research and penetration testing, which helps identify vulnerabilities before a breach occurs. And we also have managed security services which helps prevent, detect and remediate attacks in real time. And then finally, we also have a security staffing division and a software resell division, which kind of rounds out the full amount of offerings that we have to provide protection for our clients. >> What are some of the biggest challenges you guys have as a business, and how's IBM helping you address those? >> Well, as you know, John, we all know the importance of cybersecurity in today's world, right? So it's increasing in both demand and importance and it's not expected to wane anytime soon. Cyber attacks are on the rise and there's no there's no expected end in sight to this. And in fact, just this week on 60 minutes, Jay Powell, the chairman of the federal reserve board he noted that cyber attacks were the number one threat to the stability of the US economy. Also this week, a public school in Buffalo New York was hacked with ransomware and the school you know, this, the school district is just contemplating you know, paying the ransom to the hackers. So there's literally thousands of these attacks happening every day, whether it's in local school district or a state government, or an enterprise even if you don't hear about them, they're happening In adding to the complexity that the cyber attackers pose is the complexity of the actual cybersecurity tools themselves. There isn't a single solution provider or a single technology, that can ensure a company's security. Our customers need to work with many different companies and disconnected tools and processes to build an individual strategy that can adequately protect their organizations. >> You know, I love this conversation whenever I talk to practitioners on cybersecurity, you know that first of all, they're super smart, usually cyber punks and they also have some kinds of eclectic backgrounds, but more importantly is that there's different approaches in terms of what you hear. Do you, do you put more if you add more firefighters, so to speak to put out the fires and solve the problems? Or do you spend your time preventing the fires from happening in the first place? You know, and you know, the buildings are burning down don't make fire fire, don't make wood make fire resistance, you know, more of a priority. So there's less fires needing firefighters So it's that balance. You throw more firefighters at the problem or do you make the supply or the material the business fireproof, what's your take on that? >> Yeah, well, it kind of works both ways. I mean, we've seen customers want it. They really want choice. They want to, in some cases they want to be the firefighter. And in some cases they want the firefighter to come in and solve their problems. So, the common problem set that we're seeing with our that our customers encounter is that they struggle one, with too many disparate tools. And then they also have too much data being collected by all these disparate tools. And then they have a lack of talent in their environment to manage their environments. So what we've done at Alacrinet is we've taken our cybersecurity practice and we've really specifically tailored our offerings to address these core challenges. So first, to address the too many disparate tools problem, we've been recommending that our clients look at security platforms like the IBM Cloud Pak for security the IBM Cloud Pak for security is built on a security platform that allows interoperability across various security tools using open standards. So our customers have been responding extremely positively to this approach and look at it as a way to future-proof their investments and begin taking advantage of interoperability with, and, tools integration. >> How about where you see your business going with this because, you know, there's not a shortage of need or demand How are you guys flexing with the market? What's the strategy? Are you going to use technology enablement? You're going to more human driven. Brian, how do you see your business unfolding? >> Well, actually really good. We're doing very well. I mean, obviously we made the, the top the business partner for IBM in 2020. They have some significant growth and a lot of interest. I think we really attack the market in a, in a with a good strategy which was to help defragment the market if you will. There's a lot of point solutions and a lot of point vendors that various, you know, they they spent specialized in one piece of the whole problem. And what we've decided to do is find them the highest priority list, every CSO and CIO has a tick list. So that how that, you know, first thing we need we need a SIM, we need an EDR, we need a managed service. We need, what's the third solution that we're doing? So we, we need some new talent in-house. So we actually have added that as well. So we added a security staffing division to help that piece of it as well. So to give you an idea of the cybersecurity market size it was valued at 150 billion in 2019 and that is expected to grow to 300 billion by 2027. And Alacrinet is well-positioned to consolidate the many fragmented aspects of the security marketplace and offer our customers more integrated and easier to manage solutions. And we will continue to help our customers select the best suite of solutions to address all types of cybersecurity, cybersecurity threats. >> You know, it's it's such a really important point you're making because you know, the tools just have piled up in the tool shed. I call it like that. It's like, it's like you don't even know what's in there anymore. And then you've got to support them. Then the world's changed. You get cloud native, the service areas increasing and then the CSOs are also challenged. Do I, how many CLAWs do I build on? Do I optimize my development teams for AWS or Azure? I mean, now that's kind of a factor. So, you have all this tooling going on they're building their own stuff they're building their own core competency. And yet the CSO still needs to be like maintaining kind of like a relevance list. That's almost like a a stock market for the for the products. You're providing that it sounds like you're providing that kind of service as well, right? >> Yeah, well, we, we distill all of the products that are out there. There's thousands of cybersecurity products out there in the marketplace and we kind of do all that distillation for the customer. We find using, you know, using a combination of things. We use Forrester and Gartner and all the market analysts to shortlist our proposed solutions that we offer customers. But then we also use our experience. And so since 2013, we've been deploying these solutions across organizations and corporations across America and we've, we've gained a large body of experience and we can take that experience and knowledge to our customers and help them, you know, make make some good decisions. So they don't have to, you know, make them go through the pitfalls that many companies do when selecting these types of solutions. >> Well congratulations, you've got a great business and you know, that's just a basic search making things easier for the CSO, more so they can be safe and secure in their environment. It's funny, you know, cyber warfare, you know the private companies have to fight their own battles got to build their own armies. Certainly the government's not helping them. And then they're confused even with how to handle all this stuff. So they need, they need your service. I'm just curious as this continues to unfold and you start to see much more of a holistic view, what's the IBM angle in here? How, why are you such a big partner of theirs? Is it because their customers are working with you they're bringing you into business? Is it because you have an affinity towards some of their products? What's the connection with IBM? >> All of the above. (chuckles) So I think it probably started with our affinity to IBM QRadar product. And we have, we have a lot of expertise in that and that solution. So that's, that's where it started. And then I think IBM's leadership in this space has been remarkable, really. So like what's happening now with the IBM Cloud Pak for security you know, building up a security platform to allow all these point solutions to work together. That's the roadmap we want to put our customers on because we believe that's the that's the future for this, this, this marketplace. >> Yeah. And the vision of hybrid cloud having that underpinning be with Red Hat it's a Linux kernel, model of all things >> Yeah. Super NetEase. >> Locked in >> It's portable, multiple, you can run it on Azure. IBM Cloud, AWS. It's portable. I mean, yeah, all this openness, as you probably know cyber security is really a laggard in the security in the information technology space as far as adopting open standards. And IBM is I think leading that charge and you'll be able to have a force multiplier with the open standards in this space. >> Open innovation with open source is incredible. I mean, if you, if, if if open source can embrace a common platform and build that kind of control plane and openness to allow thriving companies to just build out then you have an entire hybrid distributed architecture. >> Yeah. Well, I think companies want to use the best in breed. So when we, when we show these solutions to customers they want the best in breed. They always say, I don't, when it comes to security they don't want second best. They want the best it's out there because they're securing their crown jewels. So that makes sense. So the problem with, you know having all these different disparate solutions that are all top in their category none of them talk to each other. So we need to address that problem because without that being solved, this is just going to be more it's going to compound the complexity of the problems we solve day to day. >> Awesome. Congratulations, Brian, great story. You know entrepreneur built a great business over the years. I think the product's amazing. I think that's exactly what the market needs and just shows you what the ecosystem is all about. This is the power of the ecosystem. You know, a thousand flowers are blooming. You got a great product. IBM is helping as well. Good partnership, network effects built in and and still a lot more to do. Congratulations. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much >> Brian Bouchard >> Made my impression. I appreciate that >> Thanks for coming on theCUBE Appreciate it. I'm John Furrier with IBM thinks 2021 virtual coverage. Thanks for watching. (outro music plays)

>>From around the globe. It's the Cube with digital coverage of IBM think 2021 brought to you >>by IBM. Welcome back to the cubes coverage of IBM Think 2021 virtual. I'm john ferrier host of the Q. We've got a great guest here brian Bouchard, co founder president and ceo of Allah credit brian, great to see you um promoting it all the way from Puerto rico to Palo Alto. >>Great to >>see. First of all. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. >>Yeah great, Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Um first of all, before we get into what you guys do and how this all ties in to think what do you guys do? It Alex Burnett, Why the name uh is good, you're at the top of the list and alphabetically, but tell us the secret behind the name and what you guys do. >>So first of all, a crochet is based on the root word alacrity, which means a prompt and will prompt a joyous prompt itude excuse me to achieve a common goal. So we ultimately our network of >>individuals with >>the traits of alacrity. So eloquent. So that's our name. >>Great. So what's your relation with IBM and how you guys been able to leverage the partnership program in the marketplace take us through the relationship >>so Well, first of all, L. A. Quartet is a platinum IBM business partner and was awarded recently the 2020 IBM north american Partner of the Year award. And we were selected among 1600 other business partners across North America. We've been actually a consulting an IT. consulting company for almost 20 years now and we were founded in 2002 in Palo Alto. And we have focused specifically on cybersecurity since 2013. What is >>Right, what are some of the things you guys are working on? Because obviously, you know, the business is hot right now, everyone's kind of looking at Covid saying we're gonna double down on the most critical projects and no time for leisurely activities when it comes to I T and cloud scale projects, you know, mission critical stuff is happening. What are you guys working on? >>So we're focused on cybersecurity. Our our security services really complement IBM suite of security solutions and cover the full spectrum from our research and penetration testing, which helps identify vulnerabilities before it reach occurs. And we also have managed security services which helps prevent detect and remediate attacks in real time. >>And then finally, we also have a security staffing division and a software resale division which kind of rounds out the full amount of offerings that we have to provide protection for our clients. >>What are some of the biggest challenges you guys have as a business and house IBM helping you address those? >>Well, as you know, john, we all know that the importance of cyber security in today's world, so it's increasing in both demand and importance and it's not expected to wait any time soon. Cyber attacks are on the rise and there's >>no >>Uh there's no expected end in sight to this and in fact just this week on 60 minutes, uh, the Jay Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, he noted that cyber attacks were the number one threat to the stability of the US. economy. >>Also this week, >>a public school in Buffalo new york was hacked with ransomware >>and the school, this uh, >>the school district is just contemplating you're paying the ransom to the hackers. So there's literally thousands of these attacks happening every day, whether it's in a local school district or state government or an enterprise, even if you don't hear about them, they're happening. And adding to the complexity that the cyber Attackers pose is the complexity of the actual cybersecurity tools themselves. There isn't a single solution provider or single technology that could ensure a company security. Our customers need to work with many different companies and disconnected tools and processes to build an individual strategy that can adequately protect their organizations. >>You know, I love this conversation whenever I talked to practitioners, uh, cybersecurity, you know, first of all, they're super smart, usually cyber punks, and they also have some kind of eclectic background, but more importantly, is that there's different approaches in terms of what you hear. Do you do you put more if you add more firefighters so to speak, to put out the fires and solve the problems? Or do you spend your time preventing the fires from happening in the first place? You know, and you know, the buildings are burning down, Don't make a fire fire uh don't make would make fire resistance, you know, more of a priority. So there's less fires, not firefighters. So it's that balance. You throw more firefighters at the problem or do you make the supply or the material, the business fireproof? What's your take on that? >>Well, it kind of works >>both ways. I mean, we've seen customers want to, they really want choice. They >>wanna, in some >>cases they want to be the firefighter and in some cases they want the firefighter to come in and solve their problems. So >>the common problem set that we're seeing with our our customers encounter is that they struggle one with too many disparate tools and then they also have too much data being collected by all these disparate tools and then they have a lack of talent in their environment to manage their environment. So what we've done at Lacqua net is we've taken our cybersecurity practice and we've really uh specifically tailored our offerings to address these court challenges. So first to address the too many disparate tools problem, uh We've been recommending that our clients look at security platforms like the IBM cloud pack for security. The IBM cloud fax for security is built on a security platform that allows interoperability across various security tools using open standards. So our customers have been responding extremely positively to this approach and look at it as a way to future proof their investments >>and begin taking advantage of >>interoperability with >>hand tools integration. >>Talk about what you see your business going with with this because you know there's not a shortage of of need um demand. Um How are you guys flexing with the market? Uh What's the strategy are you going to use technology enablement? You're gonna more human driven brian how do you see your business of unfolding >>Well? Actually really good. We're doing very well. I mean obviously we've made the top business partner for IBM in 2020. Um we have some significant growth and a lot of interest I think we really attacked the market in a good strategy which was to help defragment the market if you will. There's a lot of point solutions and a lot of point vendors that you know they they spent uh specialize in one piece of the whole problem and what we've decided to do is find them the highest party list. Every see so and see IO has a tick list. So >>they have that >>you know uh first thing we need we need a sim we need a E. D. >>Are we need a >>managed service? We need um what's the third solution that we're doing? So we need some new talent in house. So we actually have the added that as well. So we added a security staffing uh division to help that piece of it as well. So to give you an idea of the cybersecurity market size, It was valued at 150 billion in 2019. And that is expected to grow to 300 billion by 2027. >>And Akron is well positioned to consolidate the many fragmented aspects of the security marketplace and offer our customers more integrated and easier to manage solutions. And we will continue to help our customers select the best suite of solutions to address all types of cyber security, cyber security threats. >>You know, it's such a really important point you're making because, you know, the tools just piled up in the tool shed, I call it like that, It's like, it's like you don't even know what's in there anymore and then you've got to support them, then the world's changed, get cloud native, the service area is increasing and then the CSOs are also challenged. Do I have any clouds? Do I build on? Do I optimize my development teams for AWS or Azure? Now, that's kind of a factor. So you have all this tooling going on? They're building their own stuff, they're building their own core competency. And yet the sea so still needs to be like maintaining kind of like a relevance list. That's almost like a stock market for the, for the products you're providing, that it sounds like you're providing that kind of service. >>Uh, yeah, as well. Right? We distill all of the products that are out there, there's thousands of cybersecurity products out there in the marketplace and we kind of do all that distillation for the customer we find using, you know, using a combination of things we use uh Forrester and Gartner and all the market analysts to shortlist are, are solutions that we offer customers. But then we also use our experience. And so through since 2013, we've been deploying these solutions across organizations and corporations across America and we've gained a large body of experience and we can take that experience and knowledge to our customers and help them make some good decisions. So they don't have to make them go through the pitfalls that many companies do when selecting these types of solutions. >>Well, congratulations, got a great business and uh you know, that's just a basic, starts making things easier for the sea. So more so they can be safe and secure in their environment. It's funny, you know, cyber warfare, you know the private company have to fight their own battles, going to build their own armies. Certainly the government's not helping them and they're confused even know how to handle all this stuff. So they didn't they need your service. I'm just curious as this continues to unfold and you start to see much more of a holistic view. What's the IBM angle in here? Why are you such a big partner of theirs? Is it because their customers are working with you? They're bringing you into business? Is it because you have an affinity towards some of their products? What's the connection with IBM, >>all of the above? So >>I think it probably started with our affinity to IBM P radar products and we have a we have a lot of expertise in that in that solution. Um, so >>that's that's where it >>started. And then I think I B. M. S leadership in this space has been, Yeah, >>remarkable. Really. So like what's happening now with the IBM compaq for security, building a security platform to allow all these points solutions to work together. Uh that's the road map we want to put our customers on because we believe that's the that's the future for this, this uh, this marketplace >>and the vision of hybrid cloud having that underpinning be with red hat, it's a Lennox Colonel model of >>all things you can you can run it on. Sure. I've been plowed uh aws it's portable. Yeah. All this openness, as you probably know, uh, cybersecurity is really a laggard in the security and the information technology space as far as adopting open standards and IBM is I think leading that charge and you'll be able to have a force multiplier >>uh >>with open standards in the space. >>Open innovation with open source is incredible. I mean if you if if open source can embrace a common platform and build that kind of control, playing and openness to allow thriving companies to just build out, then you have an entire hybrid distributed >>architecture. Yeah, well, I think companies want to use the best in breed. So when we, when we show these solutions to customers, they want the best in breed, they always say, I don't, when it comes to security, they don't want second best. They want the best that's out there because they're securing their crown jewels. So that makes sense. Um, so the problem is having all these different disparate solutions that are all top in their category, none of them talk to each other so we need to address that problem because without that being solved this is just going to be a more, it's going to compound the complexity of the problems we solve day to day, >>awesome, congratulations brian, great story. Um you know entrepreneur built a great business over the years um I think the products amazing, I think that's exactly what the market needs and it just shows you what the ecosystems all about. This is the power of the ecosystem. You know 1000 flowers are blooming, you got a great product. IBM is helping as well. Good partnership network effect builds in and and still a lot more to do. Congratulations. >>Absolutely. Okay thank you very much >>brian thanks >>for coming on the q appreciate it. I'm Sean Fourier with IBM thinks 2021 virtual coverage. Thanks for watching. Mhm.