Masergy is tripling down on SD-WAN security with the addition of three new bundles to its managed SD-WAN offering.
While organizations want the application performance benefits that SD-WAN provides, not all of them have the internal resources necessary to make sure their networks are secure. A recent IDG survey, which was commissioned by Masergy, found that for 81% of the buyers, security was top of mind when picking SD-WAN services.
Masergy's three new SD-WAN bundles include its Unified Threat Management option, which integrates a range of security features including web filtering, antivirus protection and data loss prevention and intrusion detection across a single, built-in platform. Masergy’s Unified Threat Management service leverages Fortinet’s secure edge architecture that has bundled security options within the SD-WAN platform, according to Masergy's Ray Watson, vice president of innovation, in an email to FierceTelecom.
Masergy’s Threat Monitoring and Response is a fully managed security service that monitors IPS and anti-malware alerting from the Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance, which is deployed with Masergy’s Managed SD-WAN service.
"Our certified SOC (security operation center) analysts triage these alerts in real-time, 24/7, making expert assessments and taking any needed responses on our enterprise customer’s behalf, including pushing firewall blocking rules to stop any threats," Watson said. "If additional customer action is needed, our analysts will contact the customer with actionable information and guide them through any steps to fully mitigate the threat.
"Masergy has three global SOCs with all our own employees who are certified security personnel. We are not relying on outside parties, but we do work hand-in-hand with Fortinet engineers."
Masergy's Managed Security Service bundle is delivered over its Unified Enterprise Security platform, which enables coverage for the customer’s entire IT environment—not just the SD-WAN deployments— including cloud, internal networks and endpoints, according to Watson. Masergy also manages all third party integrations with security providers for end point detection and response with partners such as Carbon Black. Masergy also has partnered with Bitglass for a managed cloud access security broker (CASB ) service and cloud workload protection.
"We have been providing managed security services together with SD-WAN services for over three years now, but these new, carefully packaged 'bundles' were specifically developed over the past six months," Watson said. "We do have customers using them already, including several customers that we migrated from the ala carte offerings to the SD-WAN plus Threat Monitoring and Response package."
Improving SD-WAN security, especially over the public internet and cloud, is becoming an increased focus for SD-WAN vendors and providers. During last month's Cisco Live! conference, Cisco announced it has added security measures in the cloud for its Viptela SD-WAN.
Last year, Cisco integrated an enterprise-class firewall into its on-premise SD-WAN appliances. At Cisco Live, Gee Rittenhouse, senior vice president of Cisco’s security business, announced that his company has broadened its SD-WAN security approach into Umbrella, which is Cisco's secure internet gateway.