Cisco simplifies security for managed service providers

Cisco announced a significant platform advancement designed to empower Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to efficiently and profitably deliver security services. This innovation adds foundational multi-customer management capabilities within Security Cloud Control, Cisco’s unified, AI-powered management platform.

This powerful console leverages advanced AIOps and AgenticOps to enable organisations to centrally manage a full suite of security solutions. This includes the Hybrid Mesh Firewall with AI Defense, and Secure Access, Cisco’s advanced security service edge (SSE) offering. By unifying these capabilities within Security Cloud Control, Cisco is streamlining operations and paving the way for MSPs to overcome fragmentation, reduce operating costs, and achieve accelerated, sustainable growth.

“MSPs are on the front lines, helping businesses navigate the complexities of modern cybersecurity, especially as AI makes threats more sophisticated,” said Jeetu Patel, President and Chief Product Officer, Cisco. “The new multi-customer management capabilities in Cisco Security Cloud Control, coupled with our Hybrid Mesh Firewall, are designed to eliminate operational friction, empower our partners to accelerate revenue growth, and ultimately deliver superior security outcomes for their customers.”

Unlocking business outcomes for MSPs with Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Security Cloud Control

Cisco’s Hybrid Mesh Firewall is a distributed security solution optimised to block advanced threats, protect against vulnerabilities, including those in AI models, and enable zero-trust segmentation across data centres, clouds, and edge sites. It uses network and workload identities to create micro-perimeters, applying segmentation and AI-driven threat protection at the app edge and within workloads. This hyper-distributed security enables organisations to define policy and enforce it everywhere, across Cisco firewalls, Smart Switches, workload agents leveraging eBPF, and even third-party firewalls. Policies are managed centrally by Security Cloud Control, while telemetry integrates with Splunk.

Now with built-in support for managing multiple customers extended to Hybrid Mesh Firewall, MSPs can offer comprehensive, advanced security solutions to their clients with unprecedented efficiency and proven efficacy.

Key capabilities within Security Cloud Control that drive outcomes for MSPs include:

• Centralised oversight and management: An intuitive Manager View provides a single pane of glass for navigating across managed entities, subscriptions, and access controls, reducing administrative overhead.
• Multi-org management: Streamlined customer onboarding and configuration at scale, complete with safeguards and clear permission structures, enabling faster time-to-market.
• Granular role-based access control (RBAC): Precise control over administrator access for managed customers, ensuring engineers and support staff have only the necessary permissions, strengthening governance and compliance.
• Streamlined MSP licensing & management: Simplified license allocation, tracking, and auditing across multiple customers, supporting models like multi-architecture Managed Services Enterprise Agreement (MSEA) and consumption-based Managed Services License Agreement (MSLA), increasing profitability.
• Platform API: A standardised gateway provides a consistent developer experience to automate customer onboarding and provisioning, while accelerating time-to-value.

Enhancing MSP profitability and efficiency
Security Cloud Control for MSPs helps accelerate Hybrid Mesh Firewall adoption to deliver smarter, centrally managed protection across all environments, enabling MSPs to achieve:

• Faster time-to-market: Stand up new customers quicker and bundle multi-product services from one platform, increasing win rates and expansion.
• Lower operational costs: Consolidate consoles and automate repeatable tasks to cut manual effort, errors, and operational overhead, significantly reducing the cost-to-serve.
• Easier upsell: Leverage a holistic approach to win and grow with highly repeatable motions, making it easier to expand offerings and increase customer lifetime value.