Carbon Black wins AusPost, opens local data centre

Recently-acquired-by-VMware security vendor Carbon Black has splashed down in AWS Australia to offer local customers an on-shore edition of its endpoint protection offerings.

The impetus for the vendor’s arrival was growing customer demand and winning a whale -  Australia Post – that made the local investment decision easier to green light.

A prepared statement attributed to Australia Post CIO John Cox saw him say that signing for Carbon Black represents an effort to “make sure we stay one step ahead by using advanced methods of defence.”

"We selected VMware Carbon Black to deploy advanced, cloud-based endpoint protection across our entire corporate environment," the statement continues. "This means we can protect our data against international threats before they hit Australia, we’ll have greater visibility across the entire environment and the ability to respond quickly to incidents.”

Carbon Black vice president and managing director for Asia Pacific and Japan Matt Bennett told CRN that Australia Post has been a customer “for some time”, but in the last three months “decided to move away from a legacy model” of security operations.

Carbon Black paints rival security vendors with on-prem roots and on-device software as legacy, advancing its own cloud-borne defences and rapid triage tools as more appropriate.

That approach has seen the vendor’s Australian head count double to 15 in the last year. Bennet said channel recruitment has also been strong. “We’re seeing new partners come to us,” he told CRN.

While the VMware/Carbon Black deal has closed, full integration of the two companies’ channels has not. Carbon Black will therefore maintain M Tech as its sole distributor, despite that company not figuring among VMware’s local partners.

For now Bennett expects plenty of channel education to increase Carbon Black awareness among VMware’s partners, before eventual coalescence.

“Both channel architectures continue,” he said. “Over time we will look to see where we get best synergy.”