Managed Security Opens Door To Range Of Customers

By Gennifer Biggs, Business Solutions magazine.

Only a few years ago, managed security services was a fledging concept. Today, businesses from the SMB market up through large enterprise are leveraging managed security services providers (MSSPs) to better secure their infrastructure and data, not to mention save money. "Managed security services divert the burden of performing in-house IT security maintenance by outsourcing the responsibilities to a service provider that oversees a company's network and information system security," explains Brian Haynes, director of channel sales at AppRiver. That service offering can run the gamut in terms of depth and breadth of the service. "At the minimum, customers can outsource the deployment and management of their security infrastructure to an MSSP while keeping hardware and software on premises," explains Kendra Krause, VP of channel sales for Fortinet. "On the opposite end of the spectrum, customers can completely outsource to an MSSP that hosts and manages the entire security infrastructure." Because the value of managed security services is so scalable — and affordable — it appeals to a wide range of customers, so VARs and managed services providers (MSPs) should not overlook the option of adding that service to their line card.