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By Cara Garretson
Verizon Business and McAfee have announced a partnership to leverage their respective offerings and eventually jointly develop new services to bring enhanced security to cloud computing.
According to the agreement, Verizon Business will offer McAfee's full suite of enterprise security products, which includes messaging and Web protection, data-leak prevention, mobile and network security, risk and compliance, system security, and virtualization security. Meanwhile, McAfee customers will have access to Verizon Business' professional services group that helps design and implement security systems.
The two companies also said that they will begin working together on a suite of cloud-based security services. By moving communications functions to the cloud, enterprises can take advantage of faster deployment of new services along with enhanced security and lower costs, according to company officials.
"Our newly expanded and next-generation cloud capabilities will enable organizations to better use security as a strategic tool and business enabler," said Kerry Bailey, senior vice president of Verizon Business global solutions, in a prepared statement.
The two companies plan to create cloud-based managed services that leverage Verizon's existing managed security services and operation centers as well as McAfee's security offerings. Those services, which will include firewall, intrusion prevention, malware protection, content control, and SSL VPN functions, will be managed by Verizon Business and will operate in the cloud, according to the companies. They will be targeted at enterprise and government customers.
Verizon Business says the new offerings will begin rolling out over the next six months.
The complexity and severity of security threats that enterprises face today call for collaborative efforts, according to David Scholtz, senior vice president of worldwide strategic alliances at McAfee. Companies must team up, coordinate their offerings, and leverage their strengths to help protect customers, said Scholtz.
While most organizations are looking to implement cloud computing in one form or another, security is often cited as a major concern. Leveraging existing security products and services is one way cloud vendors are attempting to address these fears.
Verizon Business and McAfee aren't the only vendors attempting to take existing security technology into the cloud. Unisys, which has long had a security practice, recently announced plans to offer cloud computing services with a strong emphasis on security, designed to give CIOs the confidence needed to move production systems to the cloud.
Beginning immediately, Verizon Business will offer all of McAfee's enterprise security products to its clients through its customer premises equipment catalog. The companies said this move helps both of them by expanding the range of security products that Verizon can offer customers while giving McAfee a new global distribution channel.
Later this fall, Verizon Business will also offer McAfee's Payment Card Industry compliance services to financial organizations that support Level 4 retailers -- those handling fewer than 20,000 e-commerce transactions or up to 1 million credit card transactions a year. Until this partnership agreement, Verizon Business focused its PCI compliance services on larger retailers.
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