Technology Food Groups: Balance with Endpoint Security
We all remember learning about the food pyramid in school, and how we need to eat a variety of foods to gain the different nutrients that support all our body’s functions. A diet low in fiber can increase risk of cancer, too little calcium leaves your bones weak, and not enough vegetables can lead to a variety of diseases. No single food can meet all of our nutritional needs. Similarly, no single security tool can protect every aspect of our IT environment.
As a partner in the channel community, it’s essential that you are aware of the changing conditions in the data center today, and offer your customers solutions that are tailored for each specific environment. As such, partners need to be familiar with vendors’ offerings as part of a larger goal to improve productivity, increase profitability and make your businesses more efficient.
For all the talk of network-layer security these days, endpoints remain the last line of defense against ongoing attacks on information. Keeping endpoints safe is more complicated than ever, not only because threats are diversifying, but also because endpoints themselves are evolving. The definition of an endpoint itself has changed–what once referred primarily to desktop machines (connected to a corporate network) now includes laptops (connected anywhere), virtual desktops as well as virtual and physical servers. These all play different (and substantial) roles in our productivity, and as such they require specialized protection.
Desktops and servers have different security needs. Although we tend to think of the computer in the employee’s hands as the primary source for protecting information, 94 percent of stolen data is from servers. Moreover, two-thirds of breaches occur on servers. While desktops and laptops can often manage with blanket endpoint security solutions that may or may not affect the performance of the machine, servers require customized security that keeps data safe without the slowing of systems. And while both user machines and servers have a need for protection against malicious activity, servers have the additional requirement of protection against configuration changes. Above all, servers have to maintain availability. Restarting a server is not like rebooting a desktop–the entire business can be affected by the downtime of applications and information. We are seeing data centers become more complex as businesses deploy virtual and physical servers alongside one another, and as virtual machines enable fast, flexible desktop deployments.
Partners play an important role in their customers’ efforts to maintain the availability and security of their applications and information. And Symantec has both the resources and breadth of endpoint security solutions to support partners in their efforts. For example, the Symantec Enterprise Security Specialization partner program provides partners with the tools and expertise to help their customers build a comprehensive security strategy to counter today’s sophisticated threats, both internal and external. We also offer best-in-breed technology, including Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Critical System Protection, the latter of which is designed specifically to block threats and monitor activities on servers. Together, these solutions, which are optimized for physical and virtual environments, provide a multilayered approach that independent tests have proven is highly effective at blocking attacks in real-world situations.
As organizations increase the amount and types of endpoints they maintain, so too will their need for different technologies expand to ensure they preserve security posture. As part of this evolution, partners will need to keep pace by offering comprehensive, market-leading solutions that not only address immediate needs but also support the future initiatives of their customers. With endpoint protection solutions from Symantec, partners can arm their customers with a comprehensive set of technology “food groups” to support a well-balanced, healthy security infrastructure.
John Eldh is VP of channel sales for the Americas at Symantec. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of The VAR Guy’s annual sponsorship program. Read all of Symantec’s guest blogs here.
