Security 'Fire Jumper' Training

Cisco is rolling out a security training program, Fire Jumper, whose goal is to train thousands of channel partners around the company’s security architecture. The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant initially created Fire Jumper internally. It trains engineers -- most of whom have networking backgrounds -- to go "really deep into the entire security network architecture," said Snyder.

Cisco is now taking Fire Jumper to its partners so they can help engage engineers as they learn and become skilled at Cisco's architectural approach to security.

"Up until the last six months, it's been a challenge for us to get everybody around just how robust our offers are," said Snyder. "We got this robust set of capabilities that transcends all these different capabilities. We have network security, content security, security inside the data center, security in the cloud … I want to make sure our portfolio is applied and then enabled with the partner in a way that's very prescriptive to that partner's goal [to help meet sales] objectives."