Kyndryl, the IT infrastructure services provider, has announced a strategic global alliance with Palo Alto Networks to provide end-to-end network and cybersecurity services, including the launch of a new service offering, powered by Prisma SD-WAN for enterprises and Industry 4.0 customers.

The alliance brings together Palo Alto Networks’ platform security capabilities with Kyndryl’s advanced network security services expertise to design, build, manage, and modernise mission-critical networking for customers across industries.

The companies are joining forces to capitalise on emerging opportunities in the SD-WAN infrastructure market that IDC estimates will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.1 per cent through 2027. As the demands of enterprise mobility accelerate, enterprises are looking for greater operational agility to support their digital transformation. Businesses need to support the growing number of devices used to access the corporate network and cloud-based applications, while also meeting evolving security and compliance requirements.

Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks are partnering to help businesses deliver consistent security and an enhanced user experience for customers everywhere, and across industries such as services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and retail. Kyndryl’s new SD-WAN offering, powered by Prisma SD-WAN, will enable customers to transform and modernise their networks and meet the growing bandwidth demands of the proliferation of devices and cloud traffic. The new approach to network connectivity will provide a single pane of glass management to their networks, and simplifies deployment to branch-offices and edge services. By helping customers transition into a flexible and scalable network, Kyndryl will be able to help enterprises build a roadmap and incorporate new security paradigms such as SASE with Kyndryl Consulting services.

“At Kyndryl, we are at the forefront of helping enterprises with their network transformation to meet the growing trends of remote work, multi-devices usage, and cloud and data access. As organisations move away from traditional hardware-centric models to OPEX consumption models, the need for agile, highly secure and reliable networks is imperative,” said Stephen Leonard, SVP of Global Strategic Alliances, Kyndryl. “We are delighted to partner with Palo Alto Networks to provide robust and versatile network security services that will provide many benefits to our customers.”

“Together with Kyndryl, 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,” said Prem Iyer, SVP of Global Ecosystems for Palo Alto Networks. “We are committed to helping our joint customers achieve better security outcomes while protecting the modern connected organisation from increasingly sophisticated attacks.”

The global partnership between Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks builds on the companies’ established collaboration around security services and solutions. In July, Kyndryl launched its new Security Operations as a platform (SOaap) solution leveraging Palo Alto Networks Cortex technology to drive operational savings and time-to-value through automation and orchestration.

Earlier this year, Kyndryl and Palo Alto Networks, together with Nokia, established an innovation lab in support of joint enterprise customers. By the end of the year, customers will be able to view innovative industrial edge use cases running on cloud, 4.9G/LTE and 5G private wireless connectivity. 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 Industrial edge as part of Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC)’s solutions, and with end-to-end managed services provided by Kyndryl.