Managed service provider chooses Barracuda zero-trust solution for secure remote access

Alliance Business Technologies (ABT) has a pretty interesting origins story, one that’s worth sharing. It starts with Computer Alliance, a major retail operation in Australia. A big computer store. 

Now, Computer Alliance realized at a certain point that they needed a larger, more capable IT team. But instead of just growing that in-house—which, unlike a lot of non-tech-related businesses, would have been pretty easy for them—they decided to spin off a separate company, ABT. ABT is a managed service provider (MSP) with (initially) a single customer: Computer Alliance.

Over time, ABT has grown and built up a strong base of external customers for its managed service offerings. A big advantage it has is that before it offers new vendor offerings or innovative service packages to external customers, it can first deploy them to Computer Alliance. This gives ABT a chance to fine-tune services to make sure that they have the right balance of cost and functionality, and that they are effectively addressing a real customer need.

Barracuda and ABT

In the customer case study about ABT’s experience as a Barracuda partner, the company’s Network Engineering Team Leader, Mitchell Peisker, recalls becoming a Barracuda partner:

“Starting about six or seven years ago, we began partnering with Barracuda, and it’s been a very productive and satisfying relationship. Barracuda CloudGen Firewall has proven itself as a core element of our service offering, as well as providing network security and optimization for our own operations.”

The sales engineer working with Mitchell and his team gave them a briefing about our zero-trust access solution, Barracuda CloudGen Access, which they found “very intriguing”—especially since they were in the midst of setting up a remote-location warehouse to accommodate rapid growth in Computer Alliance’s retail business. 

Although ABT used the VPN functionality built into CloudGen Firewall for some remote workers—and as part of their managed offerings for customers—when it came to enabling warehouse staff to access systems remotely, the zero-trust option was compelling.

“Obviously with a zero-trust solution like CloudGen Access, you’re going to have an elevated level of security. But what really caught our attention was the simplicity and ease of use from a user perspective. Unlike VPN, for the end user, it’s completely transparent. We just give the warehouse staff a hand-held device that’s registered, and they can then access whatever resources they’re authorized for from wherever they are.”  

“Dead simple” deployment

As is very often the case when it comes to deploying and configuring Barracuda solutions, Mitchell was impressed by how easy it was. And that in turn gave him confidence that CloudGen Access could be a valuable addition to the services ABT provides to external customers.

“Deployment and configuration of Barracuda CloudGen Access for the warehouse was dead simple, everything went off without a hitch and we were up and running very quickly. So now that it’s been tested and proven in our own environment, we’ve begun offering it to clients as part of our managed services offering.”

Outstanding support

One thing I never get tired of is asking customers about their experience with Barracuda customer and technical support. They always light up and get enthusiastic about trying to express just how awesome our support teams are. Mitchell is no exception:

“The customer technical support is truly stellar. Whether it’s an issue that can be addressed quickly, or something that takes a day or more to resolve, the Barracuda support team really stands out. They’re knowledgeable and totally committed to getting things resolved while educating us about the nuances of the product. With other vendors, calling support can be a real nightmare, but with Barracuda it’s always a pleasure.”

Be sure to read the whole case study, there are plenty of other details in there that really bring home the benefits of Barracuda CloudGen Access, both for MSPs and for end users. Or you could just go ahead and get a free trial, or schedule a demo.