US-based system integrator Kyndryl is working with Palo Alto Networks to provide network and cybersecurity services for Industry 4.0 customers running private LTE and 5G networks. The pair are combining their network security services and platform security capabilities, respectively, to design, build, and manage software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) infrastructure for critical industrial customers, they said. They will show new use cases by the end of the year at Kyndryl’s joint innovation lab, opened with Palo Alto Networks and Nokia.
Kyndryl quoted analyst IDC that estimates that the SD-WAN infrastructure market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent through 2027. Kyndryl said its plan is to “modernize mission-critical networking for customers across industries”. Kyndryl has released a new “end-to-end” SD-WAN offering based on Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SD-WAN; it said the solution will be sold to “joint enterprise customers”, notably in the manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and retail sectors.
It called the work a “strategic global alliance”, and an expansion of an ongoing arrangement with Palo Alto Networks, which has also includes a new security operations as-a-platform solution to “drive operational savings and time-to-value through automation and orchestration”, as well as the innovation lab with Nokia. The Finnish vendor is working with both companies, separately and together, on its private LTE and 5G sales and proposition. The end-of-the-year showcase will include industrial edge use cases “on cloud, LTE and 5G private wireless connectivity”.
Kyndryl said in a statement: “This will include remote manufacturing process control and real-time analytics on factory production sites, provisioning and management of mobile devices to improve the employee and frontline worker experience for onboarding and communication, and IT and OT security integration for worker safety and operational efficiencies. Kyndryl’s industrial edge platform will be integrated with a multi-factor zero trust model built on Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls, run on Nokia’s MXIE [and]… DAC solutions, [managed] by Kyndryl.”
Stephen Leonard, senior vice president of global strategic alliances at Kyndryl, said: “We are at the forefront of helping enterprises… to meet the growing trends of remote work, multi-devices usage, and cloud and data access. As organizations move away from traditional hardware-centric models to OPEX consumption models, the need for agile, highly secure and reliable networks is imperative. [Our work with Palo Alto Networks will] provide robust and versatile network security services that will provide many benefits to our customers.”
Prem Iyer, senior vice president of global ecosystems for Palo Alto Networks, said: “We are enabling enterprises to digitally transform confidently and innovate securely while reaping the benefits of consolidating disparate security solutions into an integrated, best of breed platform. We are committed to helping our joint customers achieve better security outcomes while protecting the modern connected organization from increasingly sophisticated attacks.”
