The fast-growing solution provider is bringing Cisco XDR technology into its new managed detection and response (MDR) service, FortisX, Sentinel and Cisco told CRN exclusively.

Cisco partner Sentinel Technologies is going big with the tech giant on the security front.

The fast-growing solution provider is bringing Cisco’s XDR platform for managed security services into its own Fortis portfolio of managed security services. The end result is FortisX, a new managed detection and response (MDR) service from Sentinel.

FortisX, powered by Cisco XDR, arms security teams with tools to prioritize actions using AI and machine learning, while helping to automate responses with evidence-based recommendations, the two companies said. The FortisX naming convention refers to the concept of extremely fast ticketing with extreme intelligence, thanks to the AI that Cisco is building into its XDR offering that will lend itself to greater automation, said Bob Keblusek, chief innovation and technology officer for Sentinel.

“What Cisco’s XDR tool is going to bring to the table for us as additional threat intelligence and speed, Keblusek said. “We can create code, but we’re never going to be able to create with the level of sophistication and speed that Cisco is putting that intelligence into XDR platform.”

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Bringing Cisco’s XDR technology into its own MDR service will give customers a unified threat detection, investigation, mitigation, and hunting solution while reducing complexity, according to the companies.

“That real-time event correlation that comes in from the tooling, we’re not necessarily waiting for a log and then waiting again for a search to happen to then say: ‘Hey, we see something here.’ Sometimes that’s too late these days … The speed of attack is getting so high now that I think more and more [customers] are going to want to have that automation,” Keblusek said.

The new offering will resonate with many of Sentinel’s customers, especially the midmarket that will enjoy the cloud analytics that Cisco brings to the table, Keblusek said. The company’s acquisition of Splunk and the impact it will have on the XDR roadmap will also give the firm a large-enterprise play down the road, Keblusek said.

For Cisco, teaming with Provider Partners for the creation of more managed services powered by Cisco technology is the ultimate goal. The tech giant last year announced that it had invested an incremental $100 million in its partners specific to the security opportunity.

“When you have [a partner] like Sentinel that is partnering closely with Cisco and partnering closely with a customer and knows their environment really well, the ability to deliver a service installed or a real outcome for customers, the value of that is just through the roof,” said Ryan Franks, Cisco’s head of global security managed services and scale partners. “There’s no doubt that the power of Sentinel and Cisco, and now with the Splunk acquisition, is going to be very good for our customers.”

The offering is backed by 24×7 support, consulting and implementation expertise, Sentinel said.

“The level of support and commitment that we can give to our customers [that Cisco] will stand behind, it makes a difference,” Keblusek said. “When Cisco comes out with something that I think is game changing, like the XDR platform right now … that allows third-party integration, I know that they’re committed. They’re going to have our back and the customers’ back.”

Fortis ActiveDefense a security offering from Sentinel that has been around for several years, is based on Splunk technology. Now that Splunk is part of Cisco, Sentinel looks forward to the future roadmap for its portfolio as the two companies bring their technologies together over time, Keblusek said.

“As Cisco brings some of the capabilities together of the two platforms, we’re going to benefit from being able to bring the customer the XDR, the SOAR [security orchestration, automation, and response] and SIEM [security information and event management], which fits exactly in Cisco’s vision of where Splunk is headed,” he said.