Cloud-delivered web security provider OpenDNS is making its Umbrella protection service more MSP-friendly with a new multi-tenant dashboard, monthly billing and volume pricing. Other new features include a quicker provisioning process, which means greater profitability. Here are the details.

First, some background on Umbrella. This service goes further than antivirus protection by preventing users from accessing malicious sites from both on and off-network devices, according to OpenDNS. That means it lets MSP protect both desk-based and mobile-workers with a single solution.

Dave Bell, president of St. Paul, Minn.-based MSP Cyber Solutions has implemented the solution for about 200 seats in his customer base. Previously he would have run into 4 to 5 infections a month, he told MSPmentor, but since he started using Umbrella his customers have had zero problems. It takes about five minutes to implement Umbrella for each customer and no on premise equipment is required.

“In recent years it seems like we've seen an increase in the number of infections,” Bell told me. “Hackers have become more creative in working around different antivirus software.  You need to have multiple layers of protection.”

On the one hand, Bell has eliminated some of the break/fix work the company performed to clean up infected machines. On the other hand required staffing levels and work volumes have become more predictable.

OpenDNS says that each day Umbrella blocks 80 million requests for malware, botnet and phishing sites. Meanwhile, the Umbrella Security Labs research team discovers hundreds of thousands of new malicious sites daily and adds these to Umbrella's block lists.

In terms of making the solution better for MSPs, OpenDNS has provided the following capabilities through its management console:

OpenDNS said in its announcement of the enhancements that the managed service provider market is a key growth sector for the company. To date, 1,400 MSPs have chosen Umbrella over traditional Secure Web Gateway solutions to protect more than 20,000 customer networks, the company added.

“Small and medium businesses, which typically lack in-house IT expertise, are increasingly being targeted by attackers. For MSPs, web security as a service is a very large, zero-friction market opportunity,” said Dima Kumets, MSP product manager for San Francisco-based OpenDNS, in a prepared statement. “OpenDNS has invested in and built out a management infrastructure that enables MSPs to rapidly provision Web security services for large user populations. These capabilities dramatically decrease the time they would otherwise spend cleaning up infections, thus increasing margins.”