PaloAlto Managed Services Question:

[CryptoRG]

I have a question pertaining to Palo Alto's Managed Services business.

Does Palo Alto have its own Managed Services business where they service end clients directly?  

Another way of asking this is, does PaloAlto only use the partner channel to deliver managed services? 

I was curious as I am looking at PaloAlto and doing research to learn more. 

Best,

CRG

[BPry]

@CryptoRG,

They operate much the same as any other network equipment vendor. This is to say that for the most part clients would be services through the partner channel directly and not specifically by a Palo Alto employee. 

That being said, like many others, they do offer larger clients the ability to aquire a Resident Engineer where they work directly at the customer's site as a SME. 

[CryptoRG]

@BPry

So they offer the Resident Engineer as a SME however they don't package it as a managed service?  

The Resident Engineer might just be part of a professional services offer or something.  Its not a full end-end managed service operated by Palo Alto networks. 

Just wanted to be clear on this point. 

[BPry]

@CryptoRG,

Someone from Palo Alto directly can likely speak more directly about how the Resident Engineer is actually marketed. My understanding is that they are there as more of a design and TAC supplement and less of day to day operations. Usually only seen in very large organizations. 

[Brandon_Wertz]

Probably the closest thing to MSP from palo would be "GPCS."

I've never heard of them actually managing a customer's FW environment.  On the resident engineer, yeah it's more of an architecture / deployment / product SME.  They would / do perform daily support tasks though related to their responsibilities in a customer company.  They're a Palo employee, but daily tasks and responsibilities are agreed upon between Palo and the customer prior to the customer engagement.