Avaya® Frequently Asked Questions

What do you feel are the key benefits of your application to the customer?
For end users, the top three benefits of including WatchGuard® products in their VoIP solution are:

Data security. On its own, VoIP is not capable of protecting data while it travels over untrusted networks. The VoIP specification describes how to transmit voice traffic over data networks, but not how to secure that traffic or those networks. WatchGuard's Firebox® X and Firebox® SOHO 6tc protect against security risks inherent in implementing VoIP over a public network.

Ease of management. WatchGuard handles VPN, security management, and many other functions – such as spam blocking – in one friendly interface, simplifying the end user's work environment.

Real savings. VoIP offers significant long-term savings to an organization that consolidates two separate networks – telephone and computer – into one network. Implementing this consolidation without proper security could give hackers unprecedented access to a wide variety of corporate resources. WatchGuard's Firebox X allows a customer to run VoIP securely over the existing data network and the Internet, turning the potential cost savings of VoIP into a secure reality.

What are the benefits for a VAR reselling your application?
Not only will the VAR be able to provide a secure VoIP solution, the VAR has an opportunity to advance to the WatchGuard Secure Partner Program (WSP).

Benefits include:

Channel-Focused. We sell exclusively through a worldwide distribution channel network.
Profitable Programs. We give Avaya Resellers the tools and margin benefits to be successful.
Award-Winning Solutions. We have a full range of best-of-breed Internet security products for small- to mid-sized enterprises.
Extensive Sales and Technical Training. We provide the knowledge needed to convert sales prospects into customers.

The WatchGuard Secure Partner program helps Avaya Resellers win SME business today and in the future as their customers grow. In addition to the appliance rebates, the Avaya Reseller will receive rebates on all options, services, and upgrades on the Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc security products. This means increased margins for the Avaya Reseller for the life of the product!

The program has two levels – Expert and Professional – both of which must meet a certification criteria that includes purchase of Internal Use Units and development of a marketing plan for WatchGuard products. In turn, Secure Partners receive margin benefits and sales and marketing support. For complete program benefits, requirements, program level descriptions and eligibility, refer to the WSPP Summary [41kb PDF].

In addition, Avaya Resellers who sell WatchGuard products gain access to LiveSecurity® Services, the most comprehensive bundled support offering in the industry. Traditionally, IP network sellers and telephony network sellers have been experts in separate disciplines. As Avaya Resellers become interested in building network security expertise, they will find that no other firewall vendor comes close to offering the wealth of clear, understandable educational materials that WatchGuard provides.

How do I obtain your product?
Authorized Americas WatchGuard Distributors include Alternative Technology, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, and Westcon.

What are your product distribution procedures?
Our product distribution procedure is based on each individual Authorized WatchGuard Distributor.

What requirements do you expect a VAR to meet in order to sell your products?
The WatchGuard Secure Partner Program (WSP) has the following requirements:

Certification. To become a WatchGuard Secure Partner, you must employ individuals who complete, pass, and stay current in our certification requirements. Complimentary online training courses to prepare potential partners for certification exams are available at our Partner Site.
Sales Requirements. All partners must meet quarterly minimum sales volumes based on MSRP. In addition to quarterly sales requirements, Expert partners must provide monthly pipeline reports to the WatchGuard regional account managers.
Internal Use Units. WatchGuard Secure Partners are required to purchase Internal Use Units based on their partner classification. Internal Use Units can be purchased from WatchGuard Authorized Distributors at 50% off MSRP (limited to 1 unit per SKU per partner per location per product family).
Marketing Event. To become a partner you must complete a marketing event. Events must be pre-approved by WatchGuard and must take place at the frequency specified by the partner level (Professional - every six months, Expert - every quarter).

Do you have technical and/or business qualifications or expectations a VAR needs to obtain or fulfill in order to sell your product?
To be eligible from a business perspective, the VAR must be a Reseller who:

Purchases WatchGuard products from an Authorized WatchGuard Distributor
Employs dedicated staff to conduct on-site sales and consulting for end-user customers
Employs dedicated staff to conduct on-site pre- and post-sales technical support for end-user customers
Has a field-sales to sales-engineer ratio of 6-to-1 or less
Offers quality first-level technical support to their customers during normal business hours
Is in good standing with WatchGuard.

Note: Web-based-only resellers are excluded. VARs cannot be the affiliate of an entity that has the right to purchase products directly from WatchGuard. (An affiliate is an entity that directly or indirectly controls the VAR, is controlled by the VAR, or is under common control with the VAR, either by ownership, voting power, common management, or otherwise.)

What training do you provide and where/how is it provided?
WatchGuard offers complimentary online training courses to prepare potential Partners for the certification exams. More information is provided on our Partner Site.

Is there a charge for training?
All Avaya Resellers have the opportunity to participate in the online training courses and are offered two free opportunities to take each exam. Thereafter, each exam costs $195 USD. For more information contact Inside Sales Support at 800.734.9905 8:00 AM PST - 5:00 PM PST or information@watchguard.com.

How is pre-sales support provided? What are the hours of operation?
All pre-sales support is available through WatchGuard Sales at 800.734.9905 8:00 AM PST - 5:00 PM PST or information@watchguard.com. WatchGuard has dedicated field and inside sales support to assist all Avaya Resellers and customers.

What sales kits or other sales support materials do you provide? How do I obtain a copy?
All sales and marketing support materials are available on our Partner Site. In addition, printed brochures and marketing collateral can be requested through WatchGuard Marketing at 206.613.6600 8:00 AM PST - 5:00 PM PST or marketing@watchguard.com.

What user-marketing programs do you provide/conduct? Will there be co-marketing opportunities with VARs?

Marketing Programs. WatchGuard's marketing programs are provided on a quarterly basis.

Marketing Opportunities. Co-marketing opportunities are encouraged and proposals should be submitted to the local WatchGuard Territory Manager for review and implementation.

How is post-sale support provided?
WatchGuard offers highly responsive and experienced Technical Support to our registered Resellers and Professional and Expert WatchGuard Secure Partners that have activated a LiveSecurity® Partner Key. Resellers with an activated LiveSecurity Partner Key may submit support incidents through our secure Technical Support Web site with their WatchGuard Reseller ID and password, or by phone at (206) 521-8375 with their WatchGuard Reseller ID. To request a LiveSecurity Partner Key, email PartnerLSKey@watchguard.com with the WatchGuard Reseller ID you received with your Reseller registration.

How do you manage software licenses?
Firebox X500, X700, X1000 and X2500 models
License keys are managed within WatchGuard System Manager, the centralized management console that ships with each Firebox X model. Customers simply open the Licensed Features dialog box to enter license keys. Model upgrades, feature upgrades, management upgrades and add-on security service licenses are entered and tracked within this dialog box. Security subscriptions display a count-down of available time remaining on the subscription.

Firebox SOHO 6tc models
The license keys are similarly stored within a license manager, using the Web-based Web Manager console that ships on the Firebox X Edge model.

How do you manage software upgrades?
All relevant software upgrades are available to customers who keep their LiveSecurity Subscription current. Current subscribers have access to the latest software downloads, available on the LiveSecurity Page.

What is your software or hardware warranty?
WatchGuard includes a 1-Year Limited Hardware Warranty with each Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc model. This hardware warranty can be extended beyond the first year with a LiveSecurity Service Renewal. If, within the first year or subsequent years, a failure should occur, advance replacement of the unit is provided with an active LiveSecurity Subscription. Advance replacement is included with the initial 90 days of LiveSecurity Service that is bundled with Firebox X. If a customer's LiveSecurity subscription has lapsed, a reinstatement fee will be charged to retain the hardware warranty.

How do you communicate new updates and information to your customers or VARs?
Customer Updates. Out of the box, every WatchGuard security appliance and server security product is backed by our industry-leading LiveSecurity Service - the most comprehensive bundled support offering in the industry. By activating your subscription, you're covered from day one with a renewable suite of services unmatched by the competition:

Partner Updates. All WatchGuard Partners have the opportunity to receive our frequently published WatchGuard Partner News by signing up as a registered Partner on our Partner Site. Registered Partner Benefits Include:

Partner Web Site Access offers a range of marketing collateral, demos, competitive information, white papers, case studies, and presentations
Partner News Flash emails give the latest product announcements and promotion information
LiveSecurity® Partner Key gives the Partner access to software upgrades, security broadcasts, and online self-help tools
Technical Support is offered to those Partners who request and activate a LiveSecurity Partner Key

What configuration support do you provide?
We currently do not provide configuration support.

Is your product customizable? If so, how could a VAR or Systems Integrator customize your product?
Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc are known for their ease-of-installation and security management, and also their flexibility. VARs and System Integrators (SIs) can customize a Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc in the areas of installation, security policy configuration, VPN configuration and management, custom services deployment, and customized reporting.

Should a VAR or SI wish to manage the security for a customer, WatchGuard offers WatchGuard for Managed Security Services (MSS), designed for the customer to implement essential security functions. WatchGuard for MSS is available through WatchGuard Sales Support.

Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6 families are designed to work in a variety of small-to-medium enterprise networking environments to protect a variety of customer types. These include telecommuters and those in remote, branch, and central offices. This enables VARs and SIs to customize the network topology and security strategy based on a customer's specific needs.

Once a strategy is developed, VARs and SIs may also customize security polices for customers in order to allow or deny specific traffic types and patterns to or from the trusted network, DMZs, other network segments, or externally to the Internet.

Through the built-in deep application inspection capabilities of the Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc, they may also configure specific security settings to allow or deny traffic based on the content type, such as harmful email attachments or malicious Web code. This added layer of security offers better protection for customers.

Additionally, Firebox X and Firebox SOHO 6tc include VPN management capabilities that enable customized deployment of remote mobile-user VPN or site-to-site VPN connections. This flexibility enables VARS and SIs to extend the perimeter of a customer's network to include security connectivity to remote users, branch offices, remote locations, home telecommuters, and partners.

Finally, Firebox X offers add-on security services like spam-blocking with SpamScreen and Web-content filtering with WebBlocker that can be added to the appliance for a higher level of security.

After a sale is made, should a customer require more capabilities than is available with the base purchase, VARs and SIs may integrate additional mobile-user VPN clients, multi-box management licenses, managed desktop AV clients, branch-office VPN tunnel capacity, or network port upgrades with a simple license key.

They may also model-upgrade an existing Firebox X should a customer's network grow beyond the performance, capacity, or throughput requirements of the existing Firebox X. The model upgradeability is unique in the industry and contributes to Firebox X's low total cost of ownership.

Is your product distributed internationally? If yes, what countries?
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea (Republic of), Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (R.O.C.), Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela

Note: This list does not include all countries where WatchGuard sells products, as most distributors sell into more than one country.

Is your product localized for those countries?
We offer a Quick Start Guide available in English, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. In the future, WatchGuard expects to further localize Firebox X management software into more languages.

If your product is localized, what is the mechanism in place to support your product?
WatchGuard delivers support through the LiveSecurity Subscription. All appliances ship with a free 90-day subscription to LiveSecurity. WatchGuard support is available continuously from 7:00 PM Sunday until 7:00 PM Friday PDT/PST (GMT-8/GMT-7) in order to provide support coverage from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday through Friday, based upon the local time. WatchGuard support is only closed the following US national holidays:

New Years Day (January 1 or closest business weekday)
Christmas Day (December 25 or closest business weekday)

What DeveloperConnection Member business information/background is available?
In 1996, WatchGuard was founded with one key goal in mind – to meet the expanding global security needs of growing businesses worldwide with solutions built around a proactive protection and prevention strategy. From wired to wireless, headquarters to home offices, internal networks to the Internet, our company and our security solutions are built around your needs.

Today, WatchGuard is one of the leading providers of network security solutions for small- to mid-sized enterprises. WatchGuard offers the Firebox X and SOHO 6 product lines designed to meet our customer security needs. All Firebox SOHO 6 and Firebox X specifications can be found on our Hot Sheets posted on our Partner Site.

How will the DeveloperConnection Membership ensure that your future releases will be compatible with current and future releases of the various Avaya communication servers?
WatchGuard has a policy of supporting all products three years after the end-of-sale announcement of any product. Currently, WatchGuard is actively supporting and developing updates for Firebox X and SOHO 6tc customers. WatchGuard fully intends to support both product lines into the future and does not have plans at this time to announce end-of-life on either product line.

As part of our agreement with Avaya, WatchGuard expects to maintain interoperability with Avaya communication servers in parallel with subsequent product releases.