There were many reasons why Intellitactics selected NEI (News - Alert), as it planned for the launch and appliance deployment of its new products. Among the most critical was to help them speed up product development and the launch of their SAFE appliances.
Every organization can be protected and compliant with SAFE appliances – with their right-size Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) capabilities –at an affordable price, explains a recent white paper from NEI.
Intellitactics, assisted by NEI, expanded its share in SIEM by developing the SAFE family of appliances. NEI sped up product development and offered a “single, holistic approach to solving the hardware, operating system and system management software integration challenges inherent with this type of product.” That saved Intellitactics money and time.
In addition, NEI and Intellitactics came up with an appliance that is quick and simple to use. It features automatic updates and has lower costs.
With SIEM, a targeted appliance brings large-business capabilities to companies of any size.
“Targeted SIEM solutions are cost effective to acquire and use,” Sunil Bhargava, chief technology officer for Intellitactics, said in the white paper. “Organizations don’t have to spend time implementing capabilities they aren’t ready to use. Selecting an appliance designed to reduce management costs is a great way to acquire the capabilities you need, without adding unnecessary cost to administer the solution.”
SIEM products can analyze security event data for threat management, and analyze log data for security compliance monitoring.
But most medium-sized companies don’t have the resources to use a full SIEM solution. Intellitactics identified this as an “underserved” market and came up with appliances to meet the requirements of any organization that needs logging, as well as event management.
“Our goal was to take the preferred customization of the software product and turn it into an easily configurable appliance for organizations that simply didn’t have the time, staff or budget to tolerate a lengthy implementation,” Bhargava added. “Ultimately, we prioritized the work on the capabilities and functionality for our engineering team and looked for a partner who could accelerate the development of the underlying OS and management platform.”
The company did not want to build a solution on a standard server platform, instead they wanted to keep maintenance and administration to a minimum. By using a specialty appliance vendor, they would get to market quicker.
When comparing products, Terry Low, vice president of Engineering for Intellitactics, said only NEI had competency in three key areas: hardware, operating system, and system management support.
“We also had very specific, demanding CPU processing requirements that were unavailable, in our timeframe, from other companies,” Low added. “It became clear over time that NEI was the only vendor that could fulfill our requirements for an enterprise grade appliance.”
A challenge came during the development process. Intel (News - Alert) introduced new processors, which were available around the same time as the introduction of SAFE appliances.
“Being able to take advantage of these new processors without delaying the introduction of SAFE introduced a new challenge and NEI stepped in to remove a potential obstacle,” Low said.
Other challenges came up during development cycle that could have delayed the appliances’ time to market, Bhargava said.
“We were able to keep to our schedule because the NEI team was proactive and adapted to new requirements quickly and professionally,” he added.
When introduced, SAFE appliances have several benefits, such as:
· They operate reliably 24/7.
· They come in five hardware models, each with different levels of processing. That avoids appliance sprawl, and avoids redundancy.
· They are energy efficient. There are fewer appliances, less room required, and less energy is required.
· For continual security, SAFE appliances are self-monitoring.
· Security information is updated continually.
“The collaboration between NEI and Intellitactics resulted in a best-in-class product line – SAFE – delivered on time for a rapidly expanding market,” the white paper concludes.
Ed Silverstein is a TMCnet contributor. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jamie Epstein