Fortinet Specialisations: What you need to know

Behind Nasstar’s Fortinet Specialisations: What our experts have to say

Michael Ade-Kunle: Content Lead
Pat Rogers: Managed Networks Product Manager

Michael: Do you mind explaining what it means to Nastar to receive those three specialisations from Fortinet?

Pat: Specialisations essentially demonstrate our knowledge and skills within our engineering base, not just from design, but also implementation right through to service operations. These exams aren't something that anyone could just pick up off the street and just study for the exam and complete them. The course materials themselves are typically 2 to 3 full days worth of presentations and lab work. And then there's subsequent study off the back of that with some of the Fortinet material around the products and services that the specialisations were on.

There needs to be some level of experience as well for these guys to be able to have that background in network security before they could even attempt the courses themselves. Never mind the exam off the back of the courses, and they are Pearson Vue exams. They are different tiers from FCP to FCSS and call that out before. But the majority of the certifications, these specialisations require certifications that are of the highest level which is FCSS.

Michael: Could you talk a little bit more about how those FCSS certifications, how they enhance our team's capabilities, now that we've achieved them?

Pat: So with the specialisations, within SD-Wan, within operational technologies, it goes so far as to reassure our customers that we have the knowledge and skills to be able to deliver this. You know, the back end, Fortinet engineers themselves need to set these certifications to be able to be put out into the field to deliver solutions around SD-WAN, around operational technologies. So our engineers are effectively now at the same level as those Fortinet engineers because they've got these certifications.

Michael: Just talking about our clients, what's the most immediate impact to our customers, what are the benefits that our customers will see from these specialisations that we've, that we've gained?

Pat: The benefit in the knowledge that we have got the skills to deliver on these specialisations, but to be able to see that our engineers now, with that knowledge and skill, they're able to anticipate challenges. They're able to understand the development, if you like, of the design, the low-level engineering development design and because they've got these skills, they'll be able to navigate some of those challenges or at least guide the customer to navigate some of those challenges that may also be dependent on other third-party technologies or services.

You know, if we, for example, don't have these specialisations, we were just to start off, we would be learning or as we're going, which is no way to be operating in front of a customer, it's not going to give the customer any confidence. Cutting our teeth in a real customer deployment is not the way to be doing these things. But with those specialisations, with those skills, with that training, with the course material, it's a lot easier for the guys to know what they're coming up against. And it's not even just within the technology itself, all the interdependencies between other underlying VM infrastructure, other technologies, other services, how they crawl to interface with each other. And it's easier to anticipate because the guys have got this knowledge now.

Michael: That our engineers are at the same level as the Fortinet engineers. I think that's a really cool thing to have in the business as well, and to be able to say we are at that level: we are experts. This is why you're working with us, because we are Fortinet experts. We're always looking for ways to demonstrate to the customer, you know, we can say whatever we want, but without that evidence to back it up, we're just talking, and this is great evidence, these specialisations.

Pat: And pick it up on that. Congratulations to the guys who did all the hard work to get these certifications, specialisations.

Michael: Any specific industries or verticals that will benefit from these new capabilities that we have?

Pat: Okay. So I think from a certainly from an SD-WAN perspective and service operations perspective, customers, you know, all customers in all verticals can benefit from the advantages of that technology and therefore our ability, our knowledge and skills, and our ability therefore to deliver and support that technology. That's specifically to customers who are going through a significant amount of change, be it through acquisition, be it through service operation changes themselves and ensuring that they maintain the security associated with those operations. Or just simply, that digital migration towards the cloud. All those customers will certainly benefit from these technologies and therefore directly benefit from our capability to deliver these and support these technologies. No doubt.

The convergence of the operational devices associated with manufacturing and those industries is very much converging, if you like, with IP and networking technologies. So the operational technology specialisation allows us to be able to play in that field and a very new and emerging field. This example is definitely one that's really, you know, quite cutting edge. It's something that could really offer those manufacturing energy companies a real opportunity to find cost efficiencies by going on a convergence drive between their OT and their IT.

Michael: How do the new specialisations help us shape the future of the managed services that we're offering customers? Is there a distinction, or should we be making a distinction between the professional services that we offer here and the managed services?

Pat: I think it's the same sort of argument, I think, for future outlook. I don't know if we want to talk about our appetite or direction or continuation of this initiative in terms of seeking out specialisations, in terms of getting more and more people trained, not just on these existing ones, but on new ones. When I say that I'm talking about SASE, which is a big drive for us next year. So that is something that we're working towards in the same vein that we have done over the past 12 months to achieve these specialisations. We're looking towards SASE and in fact, early this year to replicate the benefits that it brings to our customers as soon as possible.

Michael: What do you think the recognition from Fortinet says about Nasstar's reputation within the managed services?

Pat: So this now puts Nasstar on Fortinet’s radar insofar as it's been within the top five MSSP experts that have such a broad range and number of specialisations, to the point where no longer are we just simply a reseller, if you like, of Fortinet equipment, or a managed service provider of the solutions that have been resold, we are now a true partner in within Fortinet, recognised as a true partner within Fortinet. To work with them collaboratively on their customer opportunities as well as our customer opportunities.

Michael: How does our growing reputation in these spaces strengthen our relationship with existing, but also new business?

Pat: I think actually, to the point that you talked about earlier, about the difference between managed services as well, it's probably worth saying that these specialisations will sort of tease out some nuances associated with the technology that mean that we can bring sort of additional feature releases within the technology as a to the customer with a confidence of our ability to deliver that, but also then, yes, even managed services, we're always looking to evolve our managed services.

So part of the evolution of the managed services is understanding some of the skills we learn through these specialisations and applying those skills to the technologies the customers may already have with us and developing services around those technologies, those features, so that we can continuously improve the level of service that customers get and continuously bring new services, managed services associated with those technologies to our customers.  

We are proud to hold the following Fortinet Specialisations:

SD-WAN

Operational Technology

Security Operations