Growing threat landscape and limited IT resources in the mid-market are driving demand for integrated, flexible security platforms.
Cybersecurity is increasingly emerging as a top-line growth opportunity for managed service providers (MSPs), with vendors adapting their strategies to meet evolving demands in the small to mid-sized business (SMB) market.
N-able, traditionally known for its remote monitoring and management tools, is among the companies placing greater emphasis on security as a core part of its offering.
“What we want to be as N-able is a cybersecurity company for the mid market,” said Vikram Ramesh (pictured right), Chief Strategy Officer at N-able, during an interview at the N-able partner conference in Berlin this week. “That allows our [partners] to manage their endpoints, secure the endpoint, and help them back up and restore their own environment by delivering this cyber resiliency platform.”
This shift is being driven by several market dynamics, including an increase in regulatory requirements, heightened threat levels, and a shortage of in-house security expertise among SMBs. N-able’s platform — which includes backup and recovery through Cove and a security operations offering through Adlumin — aims to address these needs by enabling MSPs to offer cybersecurity either as a service or with their own internal resources.
Adlumin, which was acquired by N-able in 2024, now forms the core of the company’s managed detection and response (MDR) and security operations centre (SOC) capabilities.
“The demand signal for managed detection and response is extremely high,” said Robert Johnston (pictured left), General Manager of Adlumin. “We’ll tell you what happened, but the very next paragraph is what we did about it… That could include isolating systems, removing malicious files, disabling accounts — the list goes on.”
One of the key challenges for MSPs in the mid-market, according to Johnston, is the multitasking nature of IT operations. “In the morning, [a tech] wakes up and puts on a vulnerability and patching hat. Three hours later, [a tech] takes it off and puts on a sec ops hat. Three hours later, takes it off, he puts on a data protection hat,” he said, describing the reality for many MSPs supporting clients without dedicated IT security departments.
To address these needs, N-able’s offerings are designed to integrate across a range of platforms. “Adlumin integrates with all the PSAs, all the RMMs,” Johnston added. “We can configure the solution to meet [MSPs] where they do business.”
Both Johnston and Ramesh emphasized the importance of flexibility in deployment. MSPs can choose to use Adlumin and Cove as standalone tools, fully managed services, or hybrid models depending on their internal capabilities and customer needs.
“The flexibility we offer with our solutions [is about] meeting customers where they are,” said Ramesh. “We are positioned well to own that security space in the mid market and be that single vendor who can offer all of those pieces.”
While many vendors in the MDR space provide only services, Adlumin offers both the software and the operational support, which N-able argues provides a more transparent and adaptable experience for partners. Johnston noted, “Many companies that are in the MDR category... they black box a lot of things. Because of the way [our] software was architected, [partners] can come in and see exactly what our SOC team is looking at when they’re responding to threats.”
As cybersecurity becomes a more prominent concern for SMBs, MSPs are increasingly expected to deliver security outcomes that previously required enterprise-scale teams and tools. Both executives believe that N-able and Adlumin are best paced to fill that gap by offering solutions tailored to the operational realities of the channel.
