In the wake of so much hacking, security concerns are starting to show up in the offerings from a number of providers.
As Trustwave claims, "Threats are growing more hostile. Budgets are tight. Skills are at a premium. And business imperatives like mobility, social media, web applications and big data can pose risks as well as inefficiencies if they're not properly managed." CIO's in study after study put security as the top priority. Spending on security increases each year, in a cat and mouse game with hackers.
There are specialists like Solutionary, a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), which provides information security and compliance monitoring services. And there are the Big Boys who provide managed firewall/IDS/monitoring service in their vast portfolio.
Netwolves writes, "Securing SMB data networks is at its most difficult and presents more risk than ever before. 2014 was the worst year thus far for commercial security breaches, and 83% of enterprises have difficulty finding the security skills they need." The skill set is tough to acquire and retain for any network. Outsourcing it falls under the "Let it be their problem" or "We can blame them later" buckets.
Netwolves is partnering with IBM Security Solutions and Palo Alto Networks to offer a complete managed security portfolio. (No one can do it alone.)
EarthLink is putting press out as "Managed network and cloud solutions provider EarthLink Holdings Corp. has unveiled a new Managed Security Monitoring Service designed to actively monitor customers' network, servers, routers, point of sale (POS) devices, laptops and desktops to detect security events before they turn into disruptive and costly data breaches." [pr] Goofy re-branding aside, this is another offering aimed at the retail space, so ELNK is right on target to re-brand as the Managed IT Provider for Retail.
Masergy launched a cloud router that using some unique marketing around the green movement and SDN. "Our software defined networking platform makes it easy to quickly provision a new Cloud Router." "Moving your managed routing to the cloud supports your environmentally-sustainable IT initiatives by eliminating the space and power needed for on-premise equipment."
Mycroft and CA Technologies bundle identity and access management and application, which is a subset of a subset offering.
Frontier has a subsidiary called Frontier Secure. (shakes head) They launched a new Identity Security Bundle for consumers. Good offer for a broadband package.
Level3 launched a DDOS Mitigation service with Terabit strength. It has the "ability to ingest attacks as large as 4.6 terabits per second." "The new service is designed to detect attacks in process, scrub affected traffic and return it securely to the affected enterprise." DDoS attacks are pretty prevalent actually. This should be a home run for L3 - except for the budget squeeze for security or insurance like this.
[ As an aside, Level's blog has a good read on ABTs here.] Netwolves is partnering with Riverbed to offer WAN Optimization. That is certainly a far cry from the days of reselling pipe.
Overall, managed security is all about "Your Mess for Less" as an friend said this morning. And that might be the problem: No one wants to own the security responsibility and treats like overhead or an after-thought, despite the millions and billions stolen regularly. It isn't an issue of IF you get hacked; it is more the issue of when you get hacked.
Bigger clients, bigger worries -- are you just offering the same stuff you do to SMB?
