>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida. It's theCUBE... covering Accelerate '19. (electronic music) Brought to you by Fortinet. >> Welcome back to theCUBE. We are at Fortinet Accelerate 2019 in Orlando, Florida. I'm Lisa Martin with Peter Burris. We've been here all day talking with Fortinet executives, with partners, really understanding the evolution of cybersecurity and how they are helping customers to combat those challenges to be successful. We're pleased to welcome back to theCUBE alumni John Bove, the VP of North America's channel for Fortinet. John welcome back to the program. >> Thanks for having me, great to see you both again. >> Likewise, so, so much going on today, some news coming out. The keynote this morning started with a lot of electricity around Fortinet's industry leadership, product leadership, there was a lot of growth numbers shared >> John: Yup >> There's also a lot of people here about close to four thousand. >> John: Close to four thousand people, yup. >> And you saying that a good percentage of that is partners, forty countries represented. What are some of the things from your perspective, that you've observed today, in terms of the reaction from the channel to all of this news coming out. >> Yeah so first off, the heritage of this event really was a partner conference going back to its infancy and you know as Fortinet continues to grow and our customer profile continues to you know, move up market, we've now invited customers. So it's really great the synergy that we have. We've got a number of partners with their customers coming to meetings and meeting with executives, and so it's just really fantastic. You know relative to the announcements about the partner program, we've seen really positive feedback. I think the program was introduced about a decade ago and it really was time for a refresh, and so, what we've done is, we want to bring a program to our partner community that, allows them to engage with us in how they see fit, and then we want to build the go to market that's a little bit more in tune with the market that exists here, as we're moving into the year 2020 and beyond. So we're really assimilating a reseller, MMSP and Cloud as types of partner go to markets, and organizing that all underneath the Fortinet partner program umbrella. We'll also be introducing a consultancy track because we want to insure that the assets within the network security expert program are available to those consultants that are working with customers on their journey to the Cloud, for instance, or through this digital transformation. And then finally we're introducing what we're calling a competency focus. So as Fortinet continues to grow as a company there's a number of competencies that we feel if we enable partners appropriately they're going to be able to benefit from. They're going to build a stronger business around the Fortinet Security Fabric. So, we're going to focus on SD-WAN, we're going to focus on Fabric, we're going to focus on Data Center, operational technologies and then S.A.C., because we do think, you know, S.A.C. operations, is an area, that cybersecurity and the number of tool sets are introduced, it's an area that we need to grow into as a company as well. >> Lots going on. >> Lot's going on, yes. >> So as you consider some of the challenges that your partners face, we talked a little bit about this with Patrice, partners, throughout the industry are hurting as they try to transition from a more traditional hardware to whatever's going to be the steady state, >> John: That's right >> with the Cloud and the Edge having such an impact. Education is crucial. You not just get your customers educated about how cybersecurity works, but your partners need to be increasingly educated so they can find those opportunities, niches, stay in business, help you engage, how's that playing out? >> My number one initiative as the channel leader is to drive partner competency and preference. And so, going back to competency, if we can build partner competencies, they're going to build a healthier, more margin rich business around the Security Fabric, which then, selfishly, is going to lead them to delivering more preference around Fortinet. But there's no doubt, it's a changing dynamics. Business models are changing on the fly. We're seeing evolution of VAR to MSP, and MSP to MSSP, and we are laser focused on capitalizing that. Our FortiSIEM technology for instance is, I really view as a Beachhead technology for us to go capitalize that MSP market in the mid-market. I think that the evolution of consumption to more of a consumption model away from a transactional acquisition, also lends itself to new and innovative programs that need to be delivered. In fact with our North American distributors, in the past six months, we've introduced hardware as a service, to reduce, you know, to position things as an operational expense, which may be more in tune with how customers are purchasing today, and we've introduced FortiSIEM for MSSP. The evolution of VAR to a service provider can be very capital intensive, and so one of the things that we've done with our hardware as a service and FortiSIEM for MSSP, we've really tried to reduce the cost of the entry point, and drive more day one margin opportunity for those partners. >> Let me build on that if I may Lisa, so Ken and Mike have done a pretty phenomenal job of steering Fortinet into the future and anticipating some of the big changes that have occurred. You guys have therefore pretty decent visibility into how things are going to play out, and are now large enough that your actually participating in making the future that >> Right >> Everybody else is thinking about. When you introduce a product, I mean, it takes a period of time for your partners to get educated, to up-skill, to really set themselves up to succeed in this dynamic world. Are you introducing educational regimens, competency tests, providing advice and council about the new competencies they're going to need, in anticipation to some of these, some of the roadmap of the, to the future that you see? >> Yeah, so two things I'll touch on there is you know, the NSC program has been wildly successful program for ... >> Peter: No what does NSE stand for? >> Network Security Expert so it's a training course where for a partner and you've got new team members coming on board, the NSE113 really enables them of how to position, you know, Fortinet, and what the challenges are in a network in a cybersecurity environment today. With the elements four through eight being more technical. We've seen over 200,000 certifications being adopted globally, so, I think, part of the visionary capabilities that Michael and Ken have, is they've incorporated the education piece of it, and so carrying that along, and so as we do introduce new products, it's built into the NSE modules. I'll point to one of the most successful things we did in 2018 was called Fast Tracks, and so we've basically taken the NSE content and put it into consumable two hour, hands on, technical labs for our partners and customers. We had a goal in 2018 to hit about a thousand people going through the Fast Track program, we hit over eight thousand people. So, we know that there is a thirst for knowledge out there and the company's done a really good job, through the NSE program, the Network Security Expert Program, through out Network Security Academy Program, and through our Fast Tracks to drive that necessary enablement. >> Peter: That's very exciting. >> Yeah I know absolutely, I mean, it's a fantastic time to be at Fortinet, its a fantastic time to be a Fortinet partner, and I think with the announcements that we made today, we're really trying to set our partners up for success, and help them build a all encompassing business around the Security Fabric. It's a very noisy industry out there. There's a lot of point based solutions that, that lack the integration and really you need an integrated set of solutions in this, you know, expanding digital footprint that customers are faced with. >> So when we talk about education and I'm glad that you guys brought that up, that was a big topic, it was a pillar that Ken talked about, that Patrice talked about as well, it was one of the core pillars that was talked about at the World Economic Forum that was just a couple of months ago. So as we talk about education and educating your partners, I'd like to kind of flip that and ask how are your partners educating you on, these are the trends and concerns and the issues that we're seeing in the market today, to help influence the direction of Fortinet's technology? >> Yup, you know it's funny that you say that, I've been in partner meetings all day today, and it's great I get to spend, I don't think I've ever been this popular and definitely not in high school or college, but in spending time with partners and understanding their challenges it's good to see that our focus on the competency and preference and providing consumption modeling, fits to exactly the challenges that they're faced with, because VARS will tell you that the transition from being a reseller to an MSP can be very, very expensive. And so, with FortiSIEM for MSSP and the as of service offerings, we're reducing that. And so, there are , they're resonating to that. But the other thing is, for the mid-market customer, the Security Fabric alleviates the need for the Cyber skills gap, right? We can't hire fast enough, and so, by depending upon the broad integrated and automated posture that this Fortinet Security Fabric allows, it really allows partners and customers to overcome some of the challenges, just from a head count standpoint. And I think that the NSE program also does a very good job of filling that gap as well. >> So the partner used to mean, these are the, for that group of customers, who our direct sales organization can't make money on, we will give them to partners, or the very, very large, for a very, very large company that's owned by Accenture or owned by Dimension Data, or something like that, >> Yup >> We'll work with them and deliver it. And that kind of middle was kind of lost. But even today, that Loewen, that idea of segmenting purely on the basis of how big they are, is problematic because there's a lot of small companies happening because of this digital transformation they're going to very rapidly grow into some very, very big footprints. >> Absolutely >> So how is that line between what Fortinet does, what the partner does, what the customer does, to achieve these outcomes, starting to shift? >> We're going to be introducing an ecosystem based approach. It's called Partner to Partner Connect, and it is to actually do that very thing. For those partners that may be in the mid-market, that need those expertise, we're going to allow partners to create almost a marketplace of service offerings so they can fill their gaps and they can build meaningful practices, leveraging what Fortinet is doing, but also leveraging somewhat some of our other partners are doing. We're seeing this immediately done with our distribution partners, in North America, and we're going to be introducing the Partner to Partner Connect later this year, and accessible through our Partner Portal. >> And those competencies that are associated with the NSE and the education, then become part of those Partner to Partner brands >> John: Absolutely >> Which makes it easy for those partners to be more trustworthy of whatever accommodations they put together to serve customers. >> Yup, I'll give you an example. So, we're also going to be announcing tomorrow afternoon in our North America breakout session, a Cloud Channel Initiative, and so our goal with this Cloud Channel Initiative, is to allow partners to build meaningful security and networking businesses in the public Cloud. We're going to utilize blueprints for reference architectures, we're going to align with education and certification, and then we're going to guide them through enablement to go to market. That's one of the things also we released this week was the NSE7 for public and private Cloud. So again, as we introduce new technologies and we introduce new opportunities, we're also aligning that to education as well, so the partners can be self service, because the better job a partner does is developing that competency , then the more services rich they're going to be able to deliver to the end customer themselves. >> What are some of your expectations in terms of FY19, I know this is a 20% year on your growth that Fortinet as a company achieved last year, I imagine a good amount of that was driven and influenced by the channel, but as this momentum continues to grow, as we saw this morning, and we've heard throughout this show today, what are some of your expectations about growing the number of partners in the programs that you talked about, like by the end of this year? >> Yes, we recognize, you know, first of all we appreciate our partners so much, and we want to ensure that we are enabling their business we're absolute in active recruitment mode. You know, we're currently going through recruitment and reactivation campaigns with partners that we want or maybe have done business with us before. We see we're coming off of a quarter in which we set a record for the most deal registrations and so that's really the metric in which we look for partner impact. They bring us an opportunity, we give them additional margin and we protect them. So, Q1, fiscal Q1 for us, was our largest deal registration quarter we've ever had. And in 2018 we saw a 52% increase in closed opportunities through our deal registration program. So the impact of the North American Channel is absolutely being felt and we're really excited about the new partner program and what it's going to allow us to do as we expand more into the MSP market, more into the Cloud market, and then hopefully go enable that whole consultancy layer that's out there as well, to help customers on their journey. >> So in terms of your session tomorrow, 'Transforming Your Profitability with Fortinet's Tailor Made Programs,' you mentioned some of the new announcements, what are like the top three take aways that attendees from that session are going to walk away with? >> Well it's going to be, we want to drive partner initiated revenue, we want to do that through competency development, through Widespace account penetration, and through meaningful investments that allow our partners to scale their business. >> Lisa: Lot of momentum, John thank you so much for visiting with Peter and me on theCUBE this afternoon, we can't wait to hear what great news you have next year. >> I look forward to it, thank you both. >> Excellent, our pleasure. For Peter Burris, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching theCUBE. (electronic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's the Cube, covering Fortinet Accelerate 2018. Brought to you by Fortinet. >> Hi. Welcome back to Fortinet Accelerate 2018. I am Lisa Martin with the Cube. We're excited to be here for our second year. I'm joined by Peter Burris from the Cube as well. And we're very excited to be joined by our next guest, John Bove, the Vice President of America's channels at Fortinet. Welcome to the Cube. >> Thank you. Thank you for having us. >> So, it's exciting for us to be here. I, as a marketer, geek out on tag lines. >> Yup. >> So, I'd love for you to kind of tell our viewers, strength and numbers. >> Yup. >> As the title of event. What does that mean? >> Well, it's really about the depth and breadth of what Fortinet's doing in the marketplace. You know, bringing the security fabric, not only to our customers, but to enable our partner community, right. So, Accelerate is a collection and we have about, almost 3,000 attendees here, about 2,300 of those are our carrier partners, resell partners, manage security service providers, and also our fabric ready alliance partners, right. So, the security fabric has allowed us to incorporate, you know, some additional third party technologies, right. And it's really, we're creating a really strong culture around, you know, integration and openness. >> Before we get into the technology, let's talk about pivot on that culture for a second. >> Sure. >> 'Cause one of the things that, that was evident from the keynotes this morning that Kenzie talked about, which really, this long standing partner driven culture that Fortinet has. You've recently come back to Fortinet. >> I have. >> Tell us about being a boomerang. What excites you about coming back? But also, how has that culture of really being partner-focus and maybe partner-first evolve? >> Well, the channel first culture at Fortinet makes my job really easy, right. And the reason that I came back was here with the company for six years, we experienced a tremendous, you know, run of revenue. And to have the opportunity to lead the America's Channel Organization is a great privilege. But, it really comes from the culture within the company of being a channel leverage and a channel first company. I think, you know, in Patrice's keynote this morning, and in Ken's keynote as well, they really talked about the channel program, and the channel partners. You know, the partners are the fabric of what we do as an organization. You know, and we're doing the security fabric. Something that they can build a business around. >> Joe, as you think about what the type or the nature of the changes that are taking place in all business. Security business, and as we've heard today, the repitity with which changes happening in security world. That, I got to believe is putting a fair amount of stress on your partners because they have to come up to speed very, very rapidly on new things, even as they demonstrate that they can sustain operational excellence for all things. What is the role that education's playing? Culturating your partner's to a new network. Or a new approach doing these, how is that leading to a better set of capabilities for your customers? >> Sure. Well, I think the one change in this digital transformation era is change, right. We're seeing customers consume technologies much differently than they ever have before. And so our partners have to be in a situation to be able to deliver those technologies. We're seeing the threat landscape continue to widen and be very broad in nature. And so, existing postures and existing deployments are not necessarily going to be able to protect those customers and quite frankly, from a partner standpoint, the way that they look at their business, and build their business needs to be different today than it was due to the change that digital transformation is driving. >> So in terms of your, sort of, symbiosis with the channel, we talked with Phil Quade just a minute ago, we talked about, you know, how our seat is looking to him, to say how are you guys doing this at Fortinet in terms of security? Tell me about the symbiotic relationship with your partners. What information are they bringing to you from the front lines from the customers? Whether it's education, fedsled, healthcare, that is helping to evolve Fortinet's technologies >> I mean, at the end of the day, security is a very noisy space right now, right. And we depend upon our partners, not only to ensure our programs and how we go deliver, you know, value to them, but also, I mean what the customers are telling them, and what they're seeing in the marketplace today. We're really focused on service enablement and the service delivery because the transactional type of business that we've seen in the past is no longer the route to market for success for, you know, the broad base, you know channel organizations, right. So, you know, we have a responsibility as a company to ensure that our partners have the capabilities to deliver services in ways that customers want it, you know, consume. You know, IOT is a marketplace that's been created, right. OT is opportunistic for the bad actors, right. The move to, of workloads, to public clouds and data based applications, and the fabric is really resonating with those partners in terms of being able to meet those customers changing needs. >> And you guys have had a, do a partner advisory council. >> We do. >> How long has that been going on? And what are some of the things that excite you about it? >> Yeah, so. Over 10 years we've had a partner advisory council. And it's, you know, it's industry leaders that are business owners and business drivers that, you know, really kind of keep us honest about what we're doing internally. They have access to our executive staff. They have access to, you know, product roadmaps as well. And you know, with the creation of the fabric, and what we're doing with our alliance partnerships, you know, they're kind of helping fill some of those holes as to, you know, what we're seeing in the marketplace today. You know, I think today we announced 11 additional fabric alliance partners. You know, today, organizations like Fanta for orchestration and automation, right. Integration is truly the new best breed. But the ability to react when things occur, and to orchestrate and to automate those controls are really important. And the company's done a great job, and we attribute a lot of that guidance to our partner advisory council. >> As Fortinet grows and expands its footprint, which in place new types of arrangements, like the CTA and other types of things, it's ecosystem continues to expand, in a way that Fortinet is moving towards the center. More of a focus, at least a low side >> Right. >> within the ecosystem. What does that mean from your ability to get partners, to influence partner behavior and customers, and get more pull through out of the entire ecosystem? How is that going to shape the way Fortinet competes in a way Fortinet serves its customers over the next few years? >> I think, simply put, you know, the tailwinds we have behind us. You know, we're on the precipice of two billion dollars in revenue. You know, we've got now line of sight to three and four here pretty quickly. We definitely think that the fabric is going to allow us to continue to scale and grow. You know, through that partner community. But quite frankly, I am amazed just in my time here, you know, how partners have embraced and really wrapped a business practice, in a service is first business practice, you know around that fabric. So, we're really excited about the opportunity that we have at hand. I think the fabric is going to continue to, you know, change the game, right. It's not about, you know, products. It's about delivering an integrated solution. >> Speaking of the fabric. I was kind of thinking of pivoting on what you were saying Peter, about differentiation. When partners have choices of companies to work with, you guys have been in this place for a really long time. >> We have, yup. >> But, besides the fabric, what are some of, maybe the other top two differentiators where a partner may be coming into the program that's, I get it, for with this partnership with Fortinet, we can go and really revolutionize customers in any industry >> You know, we're really unique in the market because we serve from the S&B to the mid-market, to the enterprise and some of the largest service provider brands. And that affords our partner community to be extremely diverse, and we want to be very easy to work with. So I think more than anything, my goal is to be simple and predictable in nature, and ensure that we're driving a very margin rich solution. You know, a lot of companies in the market will be enterprise focused or mid-market focused, and so, you know, we're really keen on establishing clear routes to market with our partner community. Aligning and investing where they fit. And then taking advantage of some of, even the vertical opportunities that the partners present based on those capabilities. >> I was, we were chatting a little bit earlier about education and that was one of the things I was reading, that, in some articles, that some of your guys did. And it's been awhile since I've been in college, and it just, it's so remarkable how, you know, smart classrooms, and it's BYOD, and how vulnerable school districts are for, obvious reasons we won't go into, for political reasons. But, even from a security perspective, I'm curious if there's any kind of, maybe, favorite example that you have of a partner, customer, through the channel in education that has really been able to facilitate a digital business transformation with the under pending of security, security transformation. >> I actually was just in a partner meeting, and we were talking about that very topic. And they had established with a, one of the top five largest school districts in the United States. A, you know, a fully deployed wireless mesh network. That they, once that was deployed, then they really were able to underpin it with, you know, the fortigate, fortios, and really be able to deliver the security posture back through that wireless infrastructure. You know, you make a really good point. We're seeing more and more internet connected devices. A lot of those internet connected devices are very low end in terms of their overall price point. And so these organizations, they're not necessarily pushing out vulnerabilities to it. And in patches in remediation. And that's why IOT security is so important in that kind of K through 12 example, right. Leveraging fortios, connecting to both land and wireless land capabilities, and it really, that's a great use case of how the fabric can impact a customer. >> So as you imagine the world of partnership in a play in the future, will they be more purveyors of hardware, purveyors of software, purveyors of services? How do you think the ecosystem's going to evolve as Fortinet expands it's footprint? >> Sure. That's a really good question. And quite frankly, I spend a lot of my time thinking about that. I feel, I truly feel like we have an obligation and a responsibility to help our partners through this digital transformation into where we think things are going to go. Things are moving towards security as a service. Things are moving towards, you know, on demand, you know, pay as you go, consumption modeling, right. And we have to put our partners in a situation to be able to deliver some goods and services to our customer based the way they want to buy, and make sure that they're driving value after the transaction. Because, you know, selling to the transaction is probably going to be a dying, you know, breed. It's really important that partners have the capabilities to install, deploy and support on the ongoing basis, in which is really becoming a best practice in the security space. >> And one of the other things about digital business is that historically businesses have been aligned by the arrangement of their assets so you can look at a transportation company and say, oh, that company is transportation assets, or financial services company and say, oh, that company is financial services assets. But digital business starts changing that. Because when you bring programmability and digital orientation to a lot of these assets, you reduce the specificity of those assets which increases mobility across businesses. >> That's right. >> How do you think the opportunity of helping partners transform in this business way is going to increase the noise or complexity or the interconnectedness and the potential conflicts within partners, as they go after? As their expertise, and their relationships becomes more fungible. >> That's a, I mean, that's really good point. We deal and we want to ensure that we've got a programmatic way to handle, you know, channel conflicts. Right, I mean at the end of the day. Partner brings us >> But also channel opportunity >> And channel opportunity, that's right. You know, so it's really about being consistent in how you treat, you know, the partner community and having really set rules. But, you know, digital transformation, if anything else, the thing that makes Fortinet so unique, is we are an engineering company. Security is very complicated. And the good news is that the heart of what we do is technology. The feedback we continue to get from our partners is that our technology is second to none. So we win on the technology side. And now with the momentum that we're seeing with the, you know, the fabric or the alliance programs, the momentum that we're seeing in the marketplace, and really kind of being prepared for this shift of technology by introducing the fabric concept. You know, we're really excited about the opportunity for our partners and the role they're going to play in the coming years. >> So as we kind of, you know, wrap things up here. I'll go back to where we started off with John and talking about the strength and numbers. And some things that I wrote down that I think Patrice shared this morning. Nearly 18,000 new customers acquired in 2017. >> That's right. >> What are your, as the channel chief. What are your hopes and dreams for what that number will look like at the end, by the end of 2018? >> You know, at the end of the day, I want to be able to drive and enable to channel organization to go take advantage of the tailwinds in the market, right. We want to go, continue to drive market share in the S&B, that's going to be partner-led. We want to go expand in the fabric, you know, within the mid-market. And we want to be very opportunistic in the enterprise, to go knock down some of the largest logos. You know, I'm mostly, the opportunity we have in the U.S. alone is really quite significant. And we're really excited to see, you know, as, you know, we just exceed the half a billion dollar mark in Q4 for the first time as a company, and so as we start, you know, planning in future quarters. It's really exciting to be a part of the momentum we have here at Fortinet. >> And I think the momentum is tangible. You can feel it here. You can hear it behind us in the expo. So >> It's quite exciting. >> We thank you so much John for stopping by to keep sharing >> Thank you. Thanks for having us. >> Absolutely. Sharing your insights and how the, I'm feeling another tagline with the fabric of our lives, but I think somebody else beat you guys to it. Cotton maybe? Anyway, thanks so much John for sharing what's going on in the channel and we wish you a great show. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> And for my co-host, Peter Burris, I'm Lisa Martin. You've been watching the Cube live from Fortinet Accelerate 2018. Stick around, we'll be right back. (light techno music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE. Covering Fortinet Accelerate 18. Brought to you by Fortinet. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back to theCUBE. Our continuing coverage of Fortinet Accelerate 2018. We're excited to be here. I'm Lisa Martin with Peter Burris, and we're excited to talk to one of the Keynotes the big cheese from the main stage session this morning, John Maddison. >> I say, small cheese I would say. >> SVP of Products and Solutions at Fortinet. Welcome back to theCUBE. >> It's great to be here again. >> So two things I learned about you when you started off your Keynote. One you're a Man City Fan, Manchester City. >> Manchester City Blue. >> Okay. >> Through and through, for many years. >> Premier League all the way. And you have the best job at Fortinet. >> I do indeed. >> Wow. >> That is to announce the new products of course. >> So let's talk about that. So you talked about some exciting announcements today. Tell us about, start with a Security Fabric. What's new there, what's going on, what's exciting? >> Well the core of the Security Fabric is FortiOS 6.0, that's our network operating system. That's the core of he Fabric and when we do a big release like this, many different features, new functionalities. Also we have tighter integration now between all our products in the Fabric. Bus, as I said, new features as well. Things like SD-WAN has been improved, we now have probably estimate of breed SD-WAN security. The Fabric integration itself is going on. We built out some new connectors with cloud. Now we have connectors for all the public clouds. All the public clouds. We have a new CASB connector, acronym city, of course, as usual, CASB is cloud access security broker, API access the SaaS clouds. And so we've got that not only in it's standalone form but also very much integrated inside the Fabric. We've also introducing some new FortiGuard service as part of FortiOS 6.0, a new security rating which is based on a bunch of new practices or best practices that all our customers have said this is great best practices, can you put this together and apply these to our network overall. That's just skimming the surface as I say, I think I said there's 200 plus new services I could have stood up there for like six hours or whatever. But great new services are 6.0 big announcement for us. >> We just chatted with your America's Channel Chief Jon Bove, talk to us about. >> Who's an Arsenal fan by the way. >> What. >> And we beat him Sunday three nil in the Cup final. >> Excellent. >> Just to make sure you get this. >> I'm sure. >> Write that down. >> Jot that down. >> So what excitement are you hearing in, from your perspective, in the channel with respect to all of the new announcements that you made today? >> Great feedback, so this obviously is a big channel partner event here. You know what a lot of channel partners are saying is that I need to make sure I provide more of a solution to the customers. In the past, you know maybe they sell a point product, it's hard to kind of keep that relationship going with that customer. But if they sell a solution with one or two products that's part of that solution or managed and some services as part of that, it's much stickier for the partners and gives them a bit more of an architectural approach to their customers network. They really like the Fabric as I said. The Fabric doesn't have to be everything inside the Fabric, they can be components. It's what we've seen far from a Fabric components. Our partners really latched on to the network plus the advanced threat protection, plus the management or plus the access points. But they definitely prefer to sell a complete solution. It's hard for them to manage 40 different security vendors, the skill sets, the training and everything else. Now they're not saying there needs to be one security vendor, much as we would like it to be Fortinet, but they need to be reduced to maybe a set of 10 or 12 and really, our Fabric allows them to do that. >> That's a key differentiator. >> Absolutely key differentiator and as I said, you know it's very hard to build a Fabric. It's a mesh network, all these products talk to each other. You can only really do that if you build those products organically, step-by-step, alongside the network operating system. It's no good acquiring lots of bits and pieces and trying to bolt it together, it's not going to work. We spent a long time, 10 years, building out this Fabric organically to make sure it integrates but also putting the best of breed features and things like SD-WAN and CASB. >> What is the product? In this digital world what is a product? >> A security product? >> Any kind of product. As a guy who runs product management, what's a product, can we talk about what is a security product? >> I think in the past you know product management used to be very focused on I've got a box that comes out, or I've got a piece of software that comes out, these days it could be virtual machine or cloud, but it's doing a single instance, there's a single thing that it's doing inside, inside the network from a security perspective. What we believe in is that multifunction, now consolidation, multiple threat vectors I refer to this that like the digital attack surface. The digital transformation, security transformation. The biggest issue though, is that digital attack surface. That's just expanded enormously, it's very dynamic. Things are coming on on off the network was spinning up virtual machines and applications here and there. A point product these days just can't cope, can't cope. You need solutions against specific threat vectors that are applied in a dynamic way using the Fabric. >> But arguably it's even beyond solutions. You need to be able to demonstrate to the customer that there is an outcome that's consistent and that you will help achieve that outcome, You'll take some responsibility for it. In many respects, we move from a product to a solution, to an outcome orientation. Does that resonate with you and if so, how does that influence the way you think and the way that you're guiding Fortinet and partners? >> Yes, definitely. You know one of the first things they're very worried about is you know can they see that digital attack surface. It's very large now and it's moving around. Their outcome, first outcomes to say, do I know my risk on my attack surface? That's the very first out. Is it visible, can I see it, or can I protect it or can I apply the right threat protection against that. That outcome to them is they can see everything, protect everything, but as I said also, now they're moving into this more detection environment. Where you've got machine learning, artificial intelligence because you need to apply that. The bad guys these days are very smart in that they know they can morph things very quickly and provide you know targeted attacks, zero-day attacks, we probably haven't seen it before. I hate this analogy where we say somebody else got to get infected before everyone else gets protected. It shouldn't be that way. With, you know, with technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, we should be able to protect everybody from day one. >> Kind of pivoting on, you brought up the word outcome, and I want to go off that for a second. When you're talking with customers and you mentioned, I think, before we went live that you visited, talked to over 300 customers last year. Who is at the table, at a customer, in terms of determining the outcome we need to have? Are we talking about the CSO's team, what about folks in other organizations, operational technology departments. Who are you now seeing is in this conversation of determining this outcome. >> A new job role which I think been coming for a while, it's the security architect. Two years ago, I'll go into a room and there would be the networking team on one side of the table, this InfoSec team security side, on this side of the table, the CIO over here and the CSO over here and they be debating. I would be almost invisible in the room. They'll be debating what's going to happen because you know the CIO wants to build out more agile business applications, wants to move faster. The security team has got to answer to the Board these days, and they got to make sure everything's secure. What's their risk factor? And what I see is a new job function called the security architect, that kind of straddles a bit the networking team, understands what they're building out from an SDN, architecture, cloud perspective, but also understands the risks when you open up the network. The security architect provides more holistic, long-term architecture view for the customer, versus, I've got to fix this problem right now I've got a hold of a bucket, I've got to fix it, then we move on to the next. They're building a system on architecture long term. We have something called a Network Security Expert, it's our training education capability. We have an NSC eight, we have around 100 thousand people certified in the last two years on NSC between one and eight. And about 100 people on eight, because eight's a very high level architect level across all the security technologies. But we definitely see a lot of partners who want to get their people trained to NCE level eight because they would like to provide that security architect that's in the customer now, that advice on what should be that holistic security architecture. The big change to me is that the networking team and the security team have realized they can't just keep fixing things day to day, they need a more holistic long-term architecture. >> Let's talk about that holistic approach. At Wikibon we talk a lot about SiliconANGLE Wikibon, we talk a lot about how the difference between business and digital business is the role that data assets play in the digital business. I think it's a relatively interesting, powerful concept, but there's not a lot of expertise out there about thinking how is a data asset formed. I think security has a major role to play in defining how a data assets structured because security in many respects is the process of privatizing data so that it can be appropriated only as you want it to. What does the security architect do? Because I could take what you just said and say the security architect is in part responsible for defining and sustaining the data asset portfolio. >> Yes and you know, if you go back a few years, there's data leakage prevention was a big area, big marketplace, DLP is the best thing. Their biggest problem that they did was they couldn't tag the assets. They didn't know what assets were so then when it came to providing data protection they go well, what is it, I don't know where it's from, I don't know what it is. And so that a whole marketplace kind of just went away. We're still there a bit, but everyone's really struggling with it still. The 6.0 introduced something called tagging technology. It's inherent already inside routing systems and switching systems, SDN systems. The tagging technology allows you to look at data or devices or interfaces or firewalls from a higher level and say this is the business relationship between that device, that data and what my business objectives are. We talked about intent based network security and the ability long term is to say, hey, if I've got a user and I want to add that user to this network at security level six to that application, I say that, then it gets translated into bits and bytes and network comport and then gets translated end-to-end across the network. The tagging technology from my mind is the first step in a to be able to kind of tag interfaces and data and everything else. Once you've got that tagging done then you can apply policies as a much higher level which are data centric and business aware centric. >> I'm going to ask you a question related to that. Historically, networks in the IT world were device was the primary citizen right. Then when we went to the web the page became a primary citizen. Are we now talking about a world in which data becomes the primary citizen we're really talking about networks of data? >> I think to some extent. If you look at the users today, they have like maybe three or four devices. Because students, universities, there's something on with those lectures, they've got an iPad, their iPhone, three devices attaching there. I think the definition of one user and one device has gone away and it's multiple devices these days. And you know a lot of devices attaching that no one has any clue about. I don't think it's going to be completely data centric because I still think it's very very hard to tag and classify that data completely accurately as it's moving around. I think tends to be a part of it, I think devices going to be part of it, I think the network itself, the applications, are all going to be part of this visibility. In our 6.0 we provide this topology map where you can see devices users. You can see applications spin up, you can see the relationship between those things and the policies, the visibility is going to be extremely important going forward and then the tagging goes along with that and then you can apply the policy. >> With respect to visibility, I wanted to chat about that a little bit in the context of customers. One of the things that Ken talked about in his keynote was. >> Ken? >> Ken. >> Ken Xie. >> Yes. (laughing) >> Ken who? >> That guy? The guy that steals slides from you in keynotes. >> He did as usual. >> I know, I saw that. >> Tells me like two minutes before tells me John, I need that slide. (Peter laughing) >> That's why you have the best job. Everybody wants to copy you. In terms of what what the CEO said, that guy, that Fortinet protects 90% of the global S&P 100. There were logos of Apple, Coca-cola, Oracle, for example. In terms of visibility, as we look at either, a giant enterprise like that or maybe a smaller enterprise where they are, you mentioned this digital tax surface is expanding because they are enabling this digital business transformation, they've got cloud, multi-cloud, mobile, IoT, and they also have 20, north of 20, different security products in their environments. How did they get visibility across these disparate solutions that don't play together. How does Fortinet help them achieve that visibility, so they can continue to scale at the speed they need to? >> Well I think they use systems like SIM systems we have a Forti SIM as well where you can use standard base sys logs and SNMP to get information up there so they can see it that way. They're using orchestration systems to see parts of it, but I think long term, I think I speak to most customers they say, although there's specific, new vendors maybe for specific detection capabilities, they really want to reduce the number of vendors inside their network. You say 20, I sometimes I hear 30 and 40. It's a big investment for them. But they also realize they can't maintain it long term. Our recommendation to customers is to, if you've got some Fortinet footprint in there, look at what's the most obvious to build out from a Fortinet perspective. Sometimes we're in the data centers or sometimes we expand into the WAN and sometimes we expand into the cloud. Sometimes we'll add some advanced threat protection. We're not saying replace everything obviously with Fortinet, we're saying build what's most obvious to you and then make sure that you've got some vendors in that which are part of our Fabric alliance. We have 42 vendors now, security vendors, from end point to cloud to management that can connect in through those different APIs. And when we click them through those APIs they don't get you know the full Fabric functionality in terms of telemetry and visibility but they apply a specific functionality. A good example would be an endpoint vendor connecting through our sandbox not quite sure about files, entered our sandbox we'll give them a recommendation back. As soon as we know about that, all the Fabric knows about it instantly across the whole network because time is of the essence these days. When something gets hacked, it's inside a network. It's less than 60 seconds for something for the whole network. That's why segmentation, interim segmentation, is still a very important project for our customers to stop this lateral movement of infections once they get inside the network. >> But, very quickly, it does sound as though that notion of the security architect, this increasing complexity inside the network and I asked the question about whether data is going to be the primary decision, you get a very reasonable answer to that. But it sounds like increasingly, a security expert is going to have to ask the question how does this data integrate? How am I securing this data? And that, in many respects, becomes a central feature of how you think about security architecture and security interactions. >> Yeah but I think people used to build a network and bolt on security as an afterthought. I think what they're saying now is we need for the networking people and security people to work together to build a holistic security architecture totally integrated day one, not some afterthought that goes on there. That's why we know, we've been building the Fabric all these years to make sure it's a totally integrated Fabric end-to-end segmentation architecture where you can also then connect in different parts of the network. It has to be built day one that way. >> Last question, is sort of, I think we asked your CSO this, the balance between enabling a business to transform digitally at speed and scale. I think it was one of you this morning, that said that this is going to be the year of security transformation. Could've been that guy, that other guy, that you know, steals your slides. But how do how does a company when you're talking with customers, how do they get that balance, between we are on this digital transformation journey. We've got a ton of security products. How do they balance that? It's not chicken and egg to be able to continue transforming to grow profit, you know be profitable, with underpinning this digital business with a very secure infrastructure. >> As I said, I think most of them got that now. They kind of go, they've got this five-year plan versus a one-year plan or a six-month plan on the security side. It's integrated into the network architecture plan long term and that's the way they're building it out and that's the way they've got a plan to get, you know, you look at financial organizations who want to provide internet access or branch offices. They've got a plan to roll it out, that's safe going forward, or they want to add broadband access to their internet, like 5G or broadband interconnection, they've got a plan for it. I think people are much more aware now that when I build something out whether it be on the data side on the network side, it has to be secure from day one. It can't be something I'll do afterwards. I think that's the biggest change I've seen in my customer interactions is that they absolutely, essential is absolutely essential that they build out a secure network from day one, not an afterthought going forward. >> Well, we'll end it there, secure network from day one. John, thanks so much for stopping by theCUBE, congratulations on the announcements and we hope you have a great show. >> Great thanks. >> Thank you for watching, we are theCUBE, live from Fortinet Accelerate 2018. I'm Lisa Martin with my co-host Peter Burris. Stick around, we'll be right back.