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For organizations of all sizes, managing risk by securing critical data can be a costly and time-consuming responsibility. In the world of SIEM, the leading provider of affordable, comprehensive software and appliances for enterprise security management is Reston, VA-based Intellitactics.
Working with NEI, the leading solutions provider of network server appliances, Intellitactics extended its market dominance in SIEM by developing the SAFE family of appliances, aimed directly at the under-served market of medium-sized businesses. The SAFE product line delivers an unmatched level of security and compliance “know-how in the box” with leading-edge technology.
NEI accelerated Intellitactics’ product development by providing a single, holistic approach to solving the hardware, operating system and system management software integration challenges inherent with this type of product. This minimized the effort and resources that Intellitactics would otherwise expend, enabling them to concentrate on perfecting the capabilities of the applications themselves. The partnership of NEI and Intellitactics ensured that the SAFE family of appliances exceeds customers’ expectations for an appliance that is consistently fast and simple to deploy, with automatic updates and a lower total cost of ownership.
The real winner is the customer, who experiences a sustained return on investment from their SAFE appliance purchase. The combination of an appliance architected to easily scale and update added to SAFE’s functionality and extended its value proposition well into the future.
SIEM products analyze security event data in real time for threat management, and analyze and report on log data for security policy compliance monitoring.
It’s a booming segment of the IT market, with industry analysts predicting continued growth due in large part to compliance initiatives. Organizations with significant security budgets and full-time security operations centers have been investing in full-function SIEM solutions, which offer security information and event management. Most medium-sized companies lack the financial resources to implement a full-scale SIEM solution and have been “making do” with simple logging appliances. Intellitactics saw this underserved mid-market as the opportunity to develop a suite of appliances that offer targeted product capabilities to meet the specialized needs of any organization requiring logging as well as event management.
Sunil Bhargava, Chief Technology Officer for Intellitactics, explained the alternatives Intellitactics considered for developing the SAFE appliance product line before deciding on NEI. “We wanted to move the most used and valued capabilities from our software solution, Intellitactics Security Manager, and redesign them for the SAFE appliances. Time to market was a consideration; the market was ready and we didn’t want any unnecessary delays.”
“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.”
For many of the same reasons, the company also chose not to build a solution on a standard server platform. This choice would require them to develop the necessary components to keep maintenance and administration to a minimum. The optimal decision, ensuring the fastest time to market, was to select a specialty appliance vendor.
Terry Low, Vice President of Engineering for Intellitactics, commented, “Among the players in that category, most demonstrated competency in one of three areas: the hardware, the OS or the system management support. Only NEI was able to demonstrate core competency in all three areas. This simplified development, streamlined deployment lifecycle management and related problem resolution. We also had very specific, demanding CPU processing requirements that were unavailable, in our timeframe, from other companies. It became clear over time that NEI was the only vendor that could fulfill our requirements for an enterprise grade appliance.” As the largest pure-play provider of enterprise-ready appliances, NEI offers complete hardware and OS and system management integration capabilities, combined with international services and logistics, to streamline the process of bringing a new hardware appliance to market. According to Intellitactics’ Bhargava, “This was the unique proposition that separated NEI from other providers and ultimately why we chose them as our partner.”
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