Security as a Service for the Global Enterprise - Global deployment of security technologies without the price tag

Source: http://securitymole.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/security-as-a-service-for-the-global-enterprise/

In the last edition we explored business reasons why end users are moving to Software as a Service. This edition pays special attention to the decentralized enterprise or global organization.

In a densely populated, centralized complex, hundreds or even thousands of access points may be monitored from an operations center located in-house. Well-established technologies to manage the enormous volume of network traffic are utilized, often supported by IT.

But what about organizations who are decentralized, and seek to extend access and surveillance across hundreds, or even thousands of locations, in a consistent fashion, with just a few security devices at each location? Enter the “enterprise” security management system. Previously, many organizations passed up implementing “enterprise” security in their chain, simply because the capital, ongoing cost, and project risks outweighed the benefits of doing so.

Traditional Model: Lots of time, money and effort. A multi-year implementation, dozens of expensive regional servers, an army of highly paid technicians to install and support, IT personnel, and enormous amounts of capital to feed the ongoing cost of continual support and upgrade.

Software as a Service Model: Faster, more cost effective implementation, outsourcing the application and servers. Trading capital, availability and upgrade pains for online, web based security management tools that are inexpensively networked and highly redundant.

Fact: Organizations are moving applications to the cloud at a blistering rate. In the US, about half have them, and the remaining half are planning to. Europe is also poised for strong growth as the trend to the cloud continues.

As smart CSO’s understand the business benefits of trading capital for cloud applications, they are lowering both risk and cost, solving business problems that were previously too cumbersome or expensive (e.g. shrink in retail chains).

Decentralized organizations can now implement a consistent enterprise class security posture, to control cash areas and high value stock, with real-time event notification. While the move to the cloud is not for everybody, organizations brave enough to carve the bloat from yesterday’s client server technologies, are producing what their organization demands – lower cost of ownership and enhanced capability to stem losses, and contribute to the bottom line.