Security, almost as hyped today as Y2K was at the end of the millennium, has moved from the edge of the network to an embedded part of it as IT managers attempt to manage a much broader set of threats from inside and outside the company, from direct attacks to spyware, worms and viruses.
The emergence of secure, converged, open networks, operating with dramatically increased loads, has brought a range of challenges for vendors, channel partners and end users. How do you provide true security for your network?
According to Express Data’s Cochrane, security, while always important, has become more vital, given the wealth of new applications customers are using to run their businesses.
"User expectation has evolved to the point where any network downtime, no matter how small, has become totally unacceptable and network security has been driven to the forefront of customers’ minds," Cochrane says.
Firewall’s Verykios agrees. But he reckons channel players need to secure everything they do for their customer -- and that means going beyond the infrastructure of the so called self-defending network.
"Resellers that stay away from security will at best rent their customers," he says. Those that are involved intimately in designing and validating security policies will get closer to the holy grail of ‘owning’ the customer, claims.
Yet when it comes to security and the current high adoption rate of products and services, Firewall’s Verykios says the buyer is not concerned with the technology whether it be firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam, intrusion prevention services, VPN or whatever.
"They are concerned with threat management issues, with risk mitigation, with compliance and with business continuity. They do not even think in terms of ROI, which is the traditional play in networking, when it comes to security.
"They work with their trusted advisers, which are now well and truly the channel partner -- reseller or prime contractor -- rather than the vendor, to work on policy issues that are validated by a Service Level Agreement.
"Once this is agreed to, technology is then added to fulfil these two initiatives. Price is then a budgetary issue and finance options are considered before traditional dog fights. The brand is less important, and the service level agreement with the prime contractor that backs the user requirement is key," Verykios adds.
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