In-the-Cloud Approach to Cyber Security

Security breaches or other unexpected interruptions can happen anytime to anyone -- whether you are a large enterprise or a small business. Fully maintaining communication network security is a demanding responsibility -- and typically not the best use of your limited IT resources, that would be better applied to delivering incremental new business technology benefits to your organization.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to a do-it-yourself comprehensive security solution. Skilled managed service providers continue to enhance their network security offerings.

AT&T announced the availability of Security Event and Threat Analysis and Security Device Management, two new managed security services available for businesses of all sizes.

Customized to Your Unique Business Needs
The services enable you to engage AT&T security professionals selectively and simply to provide customized security support. Services range from security event analysis and threat management analysis to targeted security device management including firewalls, intrusion detection sensors and VPN servers.

These new services use AT&T’s expertise in security analysis to evaluate, correlate, and report on information from multiple devices and device types, both on your premises and embedded in the AT&T network.

AT&T Managed Service Benefits Include:

• Prioritizing security events based on threat and risk management methodologies using AT&T and customer-defined standards.
• Rapid notification when security events are detected and identified as critical by the AT&T Security Network Operations Center.
• Event mitigation and security analyst counseling during critical security incidents.
• Global Security Operation Centers and 24X7 T1-T4 Analyst Coverage with portal access through AT&T’s BusinessDirect Portal.
  

With Security Device Management, AT&T provides complete, customizable monitoring and management of your security hardware and software, with a range of services including managing your organization’s current security capabilities up to assessing, designing and implementing a custom security infrastructure.

Full Suite of Professional Services
These new services are a natural complement to AT&T’s existing Security Consulting services, which include independent assessments of vulnerabilities inherent in customers’ networks, as well as the policy and procedures surrounding them. Security Consulting services include Log Management, Security Policy Management, Vulnerability Analysis, Application Security, Trusted Advisor services and Payment Card Industry Solutions.

AT&T delivers a suite of security and business continuity services to help assess vulnerabilities, protect infrastructure, detect attacks, and respond to suspicious activities and events. The upcoming AT&T Cyber Security Conference is an annual day-long conference offered by the AT&T Chief Security Office.

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Managed Services for Every Type of Organization

Do you believe that the growth of managed services adoption will have little impact in the government sector, or other non-profit organizations? Think again.

Let's consider the facts. Clearly, all organizations benefit from improving their processes.

Government Insights, a global independent research and advisory firm, released a report focusing on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and their use in managing the delivery of IT and network services.

As IT and network technology are embedded further into business processes, the apparent need for productive cross-organizational partnerships becomes evident. The state of these Business Technology partnerships can be either an enabler or an inhibitor -- when negotiating an SLA.

Demand for Service Level Agreements
Organizations may develop SLAs with internal IT staff and/or with external IT service providers. In both cases they set guidelines and minimum standards for the delivery of IT services to the end-user community.

Jan Duffy, research director, Government Insights, said "SLAs should be beneficial to the IT/business partnership, contributing to transparency and to developing objectives that are achievable. Given the large number of relationships and alliances involved in modern IT, governments can benefit substantially from developing expertise in preparing and maintaining SLAs."

As we've stated previously on this forum, relevant metrics and SLAs are a key ingredient of most managed service provider offerings, and the associated inherent benefit of an out-tasked solution.

According to the Government Insights market assessment, demands are increasing for internal IT departments to provide a combination of "invisibility and level of responsiveness" that is considered a hallmark of the seasoned managed service provider.

Imperative for Improved Accountability
To meet this strategic imperative, many IT leaders have moved their organizations toward a service delivery model. Translation: this means that the performance of IT is being judged based upon the way it is valued by the end-user community -- and not by internal IT indicators.

Government Insights describes the main characteristics of developing successful service level agreements for use in managing relationships between public sector organizations and their internal IT departments and/or with external IT providers.

As a result of their analysis, they recommend that public sector organizations -- including central, regional and local -- acquire competencies that will enable them to:

• Define, measure, and continuously improve the services that IT delivers.
• Continuously monitor user expectations and satisfaction, and provide timely education.
• Deliver IT services aligned with the needs and priorities of current and future mandates.
  

A managed service provider can enable a government, or other not-for-profit, entity to select and implement business technology to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of service performance that's delivered to their constituents. The need for on-demand service transcends all sectors of the marketplace.

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Can You Reach Your IT Manager On Thanksgiving?

As Thanksgiving approaches on November 27, many U.S. companies are heading into an extended four-day holiday weekend.

If you're an executive or CIO ask yourself the following question: If your web servers, databases or network infrastructure failed over the holiday weekend who would you call for help?

Despite the proliferation of smart phones and ubiquitous network services, many IT staff members are impossible to reach over holiday weekends.

And commuting into the office for an IT or network emergency is the last thing most employees have in mind when they sit down for Thanksgiving turkey.

Secure, Safe and Sound
On the other hand, I will rest easy this holiday weekend because our company depends on multiple managed service providers (MSPs) -- a group of companies that remotely monitor, manage and troubleshoot our Web servers, databases and network systems.

In most scenarios, our MSPs mitigate an IT or network issue before it becomes a major problem. We pay a flat monthly fee to our Web host and MSPs for those proactive services.

As a result, my business partner and I will relax with our respective families this holiday weekend -- even as thousands of readers across the world continue to visit our corporate and media Web sites.

Through our MSP relationships we've purchased peace of mind -- which is actually priceless.

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Overcoming the Psychological Barriers to On-Demand Services

It is time for IT and business decision-makers to get over their fears of 'out-tasking' various aspects of their daily operations to specialized service providers.

Today's turbulent economic climate, intensifying competitive landscape and changing workplace requirements demand that organizations of all sizes re-think their business technology sourcing strategies.

What I believe is still inhibiting many IT or business decision-makers from adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and managed services are a few common misconceptions and interrelated fears.

Gain New Perspective, with Sharp Focus
For instance, too many IT and business decision-makers continue to resist a growing assortment of SaaS and managed services which can address their business application and IT management needs because they are concerned about losing control, sacrificing performance and/or dealing with additional security risks.

While all of these are legitimate concerns, THINKstrategies has found that they are not real issues when it comes to today's SaaS and managed service offerings.

Instead, most of these services have achieved better performance and higher security levels than many in-house application and IT operations. They also have achieved these service levels with lower upfront costs, quicker deployment cycles and less ongoing management requirements.

As a result, most SaaS and managed service users gain greater ROI on their IT/applications at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), by focusing their efforts on overall business impact.

An Adaptable Coexistence Strategy
Many IT/business decision-makers also believe that SaaS and managed services are only appropriate for small organizations with limited financial resources or internal skills, and relatively simple functional requirements. Said another way, they think SaaS and managed services aren't sophisticated enough to address the complex needs of mid- to large-scale enterprises.

The reality is that there are a wide array of SaaS and managed service offerings which can address organizations of various sizes. Small businesses can fill voids which they couldn't afford to address with traditional applications or management products with many SaaS and managed service offerings. Mid-size and large-scale enterprises are also finding plenty of SaaS and managed services to fill unmet needs, or augment and extend the value of their existing software and systems.

The Fearless Agents of Change
Too many IT managers view SaaS and managed services as outsourcing solutions that could ultimately make them replaceable.

While this is possible, it is more likely that SaaS and managed services can help IT managers overcome the day-to-day challenges of deploying and administering software and systems, so they can refocus their time and energy on better supporting the more strategic needs of their business units and end-users.

The bottom-line is that IT managers can no longer justify doing business as usual. The sooner they put their fears of SaaS and managed services aside, the sooner they will be able to leverage these services to better serve their organizations and safeguard their positions in an uncertain world.

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Survival Strategies in Tough Times

Growing concerns about the business implications of the turbulent economic climate and intensifying credit crunch are driving companies and non-profit institutions of all sizes to thoroughly reevaluate their corporate priorities, capital expenditures, operating budgets and sourcing strategies.

In addition to the "Four High-Tech Steps SMBs Should Consider Now," here are two more technology trends companies and non-profit institutions of all sizes should seriously consider and capitalize on:

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Web-based, subscription-priced, 'on-demand' services are experiencing significant growth because they can be deployed easily and quickly without the risks and added costs associated with traditional, on-premise, 'legacy' software products. End-users and business executives alike are recognizing the business benefits of SaaS solutions which range from Google Apps and WebEx for collaboration to Salesforce.com customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.

While these solutions are still far from perfect, they have proven to be a viable alternative to the headaches of dealing with legacy applications. IT/network professionals are also discovering a growing array of SaaS applications which can help them with their day-to-day management needs.

Cloud Computing: These are a wider array of web-based development tools and services that are enabling start-ups and enterprise software architects to leverage virtual data processing and development environments without the upfront capital expenditure and at a fraction of the ongoing cost of traditional data centers.

These cloud computing services are fulfilling some of the promise of the utility computing concept that was popularized at the start of this decade. While cloud computing services have experienced some outages, they are evolving quickly and will become more reliable over time.

The bottomline is that IT and business decision-makers have a growing array of technology alternatives with attractive pricing and packaging features at their disposal to help them contend with the serious challenges of today's economic environment.

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Business Technology and the Changing Role of IT

Businesses of all sizes are facing unprecedented competitive and economic challenges as they attempt to satisfy their customers’ rapidly changing needs and support their employees’ rapidly changing work requirements.

Globalization and eCommerce have dramatically changed the competitive landscape for companies of all sizes, including small- and mid-size businesses (SMBs). Escalating fuel costs and tightening credit markets have also severely impacted the business operations of companies.

Companies must achieve greater customer intimacy in order to win and retain customer satisfaction and loyalty. Companies must also support increasingly dispersed and mobile workers in order to ensure employee productivity. These challenges demand new forms of communications and collaboration, along with greater reliability and reporting to meet rising regulatory and compliance requirements.

These trends are also forcing companies to adopt new technologies and new methods of managing these technologies in order to maximize their business value.

The good news is that there is a myriad of new networking and collaboration technologies to respond to these demands. The problem is that many companies lack the inhouse skills to capitalize on these technologies and effectively manage them to achieve their business objectives.

Fortunately, companies no longer have to do it all by themselves or hand over their entire IT/network operation to an outsourcer. There are a growing number of managed service and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ‘out-tasking’ alternatives that can help companies leverage today’s new technologies.

I am pleased to be a contributor to this blog and provide THINKstrategies' perspective regarding ways companies of all sizes, but especially SMBs, can address these challenges, capitalize on new technologies and focus their limited inhouse resources on key corporate objectives and initiatives rather than mundane or frustrating technology management issues.

Unlike other blogs that offer the vendor point-of-view about technology trends, we hope this blog will be a forum for IT and business decision-makers to provide their perspectives and best practices regarding today's business technology management challenges and opportunities. We believe this peer-to-peer dialogue will make this blog unique and valuable.

Please let us know if you’d like to contribute your views, and give us your feedback so we can be sure we are meeting your needs.

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