Security: All in One vs. Best of Breed

The integration of security products is also a function of maturity. While firewalls and intrusion detection systems were emerging products 10 years ago, that’s not the case anymore. “The more mature a product function becomes, the less need there is to go with a point product,” says Mike Rothman, president of analyst firm Security Incite. “That’s what is driving the integrated approach.”


Some VARs are driving the integrated approach as well. “From a channel perspective, providing multiple layers of security is the best way to go,” says Edith Gong, marketing services manager at All Covered Inc., a technology services company based in Redwood City, Calif. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to security, and integrated solutions cover the most bases. “Sometimes customers want just a point solution because that’s relatively cheap and easy, but it may not afford them with the security that they need,” Gong adds.


All Covered believes in a five-layer security approach that it likens to the defense of a medieval castle: Think main gate (fortifying the entrance); towers (strengthening the interior); drawbridge (maintaining security); keep (defending access); and knights (security skills and compliance). The foundation includes firewalls, secure email, antivirus, spyware protection, patch and configuration management, file encryption, and backup. All Covered recommends other technologies such as intrusion prevention and detection, secure Web filtering, and virtual private networks as enhancements.


NO CONCENSUS ON BEST APPROACH
According to analyst firm Forrester Research, there is a high interest in security products and solutions among SMBs (companies with six to 599 employees, as defined by Forrester), with network firewalls, security information management, and intrusion detection topping the list. In Forrester’s survey, The State of Security in SMBs and Enterprises from December 2006, the most important factors SMBs cited when making security purchasing decisions were ease of manageability, best price/performance, integration with other infrastructure technologies, and integration with other security technologies.


For software-based security solutions, there isn’t an overwhelming consensus among SMBs as to whether point solutions are preferable to integrated suites: 34 percent of 636 SMBs surveyed say they prefer integrated software security suites, while 24 percent say they prefer point products, and 39 percent say they have no preference. For hardware-based security solutions such as network firewalls and content filtering, 40 percent of 731 SMBs surveyed prefer bestof- breed standalone appliances, while 30 percent prefer an integrated appliance.