SPECIALIZED SECURITY SOLUTIONS: Investment On Training Required

Organizations, today, are increasingly concerned about protecting their

valuable data, in light of increasing virus attacks. Corporate clients have

begun demanding customized security solutions to suite their internal needs.

This customer behavior has forced many security vendors to enable their

channel partners to provide specialized security solutions. As Ambarish

Deshpande, Head ­ Channels and Consumer Sales, Symantec puts it, "We see a

huge opportunity for the specialized security market this fiscal and are gearing

up for it." Alok Gupta, CEO, Softmart Solutions agrees that the security

market is witnessing a sea-change and partners are now concentrating more on the

specialized solutions.

This

is a welcome change, which would mean that only those partners who spend more

time on training and certification to offer specialized security solutions will

succeed in the race to get ahead.

THE DIFFERENTIATING FACTOR



How is a specialized security solution different from a routine offering?

Ninad Karpe, MD, Computer Associates explains, "Routine security solutions

cater mostly to external threats and perimeter security. On the other hand,

specialized security solutions have a holistic approach towards security and

address the internal security threats which are equally important."

Information security is one of the most talked-about areas currently. But

very few partners have gone beyond the normal understanding of security, which,

to a large extent, is identified as anti-virus, firewall or intrusion detection

system (IDS).

As specialized security solutions to address internal threats gain momentum,

the question that arises is whether our solutions providers are equipped with

the right knowledge and workforce to address the trend?

Partners have already got a feel of this new segment. According to them,

India is still in a nascent stage of specialized security solutions. This means

that one has to be very patient and eager to learn this new technology.

"India is no doubt, one of the largest growing IT economies and to be at

the top, we have adopt all the new technologies. This year will see a lot of

partners evolving in this field of providing specialized security

solutions," says Alok.

Most security vendors agree that partners should work hand-in-hand with them

to ensure proper implementation of specialized solutions at customer sites. The

customer sees real value in getting such solutions deployed. And at the same

time, partners get to make better margins.

Customers today seek prompt and quick action when it comes to securing and

managing their data. However, there are many new areas in the specialized

security business, that partners are yet to master.

WHAT’S NEW?



The specialized security solutions are required in the areas of identity

management (IM) and access management (AM) solutions. These two areas have

currently taken precedence in this business, offering solutions pertaining to

user administration, single-sign-on, directory and PKI infrastructure in the IM

front. AM relates to OS hardening and web access control.

Training and certification of partners in IM and AM is very important since

these are relatively new technologies in the Indian context and hence

experienced manpower may not be available to deploy such solutions.

Patch management and security consultancy are also becoming the new buzzwords

in the information security market. Nasscom pegs the information security market

in the country at Rs 350 crore, and vendors say that it has at a rate of 50% in

the past two years, far exceeding the software industry’s growth rate.

Solutions providers are now moving up the value chain to focus on providing

security consultancy, managed services, training and patch management.

According to systems integrators, a business process solution works

end-to-end across platforms, databases and legacy backend without any

interruptions. But this is not the case with security technologies. Security

products differ from vendor to vendor, and hence solution providers’ biggest

challenge is to ensure smooth operations by building custom-made interfaces.

To understand specialized service offerings better, one can take the example

of employee-identification of a big corporate company. Large organizations have

to manage a very large number of employee-related data updates, including

recruitment, relocation, promotions and other events. In many cases,

administrators must also propagate identity changes across multiple systems such

as the corporate directories, email systems, applications, mainframes and so on.

Keeping this data consistent across systems can be a costly, time-consuming

and error-prone manual process. This is were IM and AM come to play. But with

many vendors offering different solutions of IM and AM, a solution provider has

to use his discretion to select the best-in-breed product, which is ideal for

his client.

WHERE ARE WE HEADING?



IDC predicts that the compound annual growth rate for the Indian internet
security software market will be 83% in the year 2004. The market was pegged at

Rs 2,100 crore in 2003, compared to Rs 1,150 crore in the year 2002. This means

that the growth potential in this arena is huge enough to entice most players.

Major security breaches last year saw an increased cautiousness in the way

corporates looked at their data security setup. Customers started demanding a

multi-layered security package rather than going for one-fold security.

Corporates and government organizations started keeping more funds aside for

security process. This explains why security vendors noted a 50% surge in demand

for products.

Protecting a company´s electronic information requires a different approach

than managing the traditional security of physical assets. It takes a

combination of strategy, management, personnel and tools designed to secure the

array of systems and networks that form the infrastructure of a modern business.

Vendors have realized this and have come out with various strategies to tap

this market. Now the onus os on solutions providers to take the baton from here,

select the right products and provide the best solutions which will boost their

customers RoI.

ATANU KUMAR DAS