Verizon Gets the NAC of Security for the Extended Enterprise
| August 14, 2008 | Enterprise Security, Internet/Managed Services - U.S. | Competitive Intelligence Report
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Analyst: Andrew Braunberg, Amy Larsen DeCarlo
Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate
Event Summary
August 12, 2008 - Verizon Business has announced a suite of services to help customers understand, deploy and manage network access control (NAC). Verizon Business Professional Services will assess customers needs and requirements to establish the optimal application of NAC within an enterprise, help evaluate and select technology vendors, design the infrastructure, configure and install the NAC technology, and provide customer training. The company works with leading NAC vendors, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, ForeScout Technologies and TippingPoint.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on Verizon’s introduction of a suite of network access control professional and managed services, because Verizon has introduced full service solutions that leverage existing third-party best-of-breed products. Service provider interest in NAC has been limited to date and Verizon is one of the few security services companies to jump into the market independent of an internal product.
• Vendor Importance: High to Verizon, particularly its security business, because the company is making a fairly large commitment to the NAC space from the perspective of ramping up a test and evaluation center, training consultants, and making new hires with a deep understanding of third-party NAC products. Verizon plans to market and sell its NAC services portfolio worldwide, which will provide the company with an important differentiator in key geographies.
• Market Impact: Moderate on the NAC and Managed Security markets, because the interest from global carriers in providing NAC-related professional services and managed services has been relatively weak. Verizon has been aggressively expanding its security services portfolio since its acquisition of Cybertrust just over a year ago. We suspect this announcement will accelerate similar activities with other large service providers.
Recommended Competitor Actions
• Top-tier managed security services providers have been a bit tepid in their embrace of NAC services. (Symantec is the only leading MSSP that fields its own NAC product.) In response to this announcement, these vendors will at the least need to do a better job marketing their existing capabilities to provide NAC-related professional services. Many of these baseline services such as requirements definition and assessing current security posture are easily addressed by these organizations.
• IBM supports several NAC offerings through its Global Services business. The longest running supports the integration between Cisco NAC and Tivoli Security Compliance Manager. IBM offers a set of professional services to facilitate this partnership. A more recent partnership is between IBM ISS and Mirage Networks. That relationship focuses on integrating the Mirage NAC product with ISS’ Proventia SiteProtector. ISS is, of course, part of IBM’s Global Technology Services group. Neither of these relationships seems particularly active for IBM. The company should have a much more active role in the NAC market and should consider an acquisition of technology that it could support with additional professional or managed services.
• AT&T could quickly positioning itself as a NAC managed services provider by simply re-positioning the Mirage NAC product, which it resells as part of its PremierSERV managed services portfolio. AT&T currently markets that service as AT&T Managed IPS.
• Competitors that differentiate themselves primarily on ease of use, such as Napera, should point to Verizon’s entrance into the market as validation of their claims that most NAC products are simply too complex to deploy. These vendors should emphasize that their products are deployable, even by mid-market customers, without expensive professional services engagements.
Recommended End User / Customer Actions
• Existing Verizon managed security services customers and existing Cisco NAC appliance customers should be pleased with this announcement. Verizon continues to expand its portfolio of security services and can provide customers with increasingly comprehensive security management capabilities. Cisco NAC appliance customers now have an additional managed services option for that solution.
• Large organizations looking to deploy NAC solutions should seriously consider making the investment in professional services to ease the deployment, especially if they expect to eventually deploy NAC enterprise-wide. The complexity of deploying these solutions and the large number of products on the market can make finding and implementing the right solution difficult .
• Cisco shops should consider the managed services option now available through Verizon, but in general organizations should look to Verizon to expand its offerings on the managed NAC services front. At the least, Verizon should be working to quickly offer a managed solution that supports the Trusted Computing Group’s TNC specifications.
CLIENTS ONLY
Current Perspective
Competitive Positives and Concerns
Recommended Vendor Actions
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