Chris Talbot

August 7, 2012

2 Min Read
Web Security: Alert Logic SaaS Protects Against Web Threats

Urvish Vashi Alert Logic

Security-as-a-service provider Alert Logic believes it has solved an old problem regarding web application firewalls (WAFs) with its new cloud-based Web Security Manager offering. WAFs are built to extend on the concept of network firewalls, but Alert Logic has taken technology it ended up with through the acquisition of Armor Logic to build a WAF that provides both negative and positive security in a SaaS model.

WAFs are resource-intensive and can cause IT departments more trouble then they’re worth, with many WAFs being nerfed to the point that they have little to no effect on security, particularly compared to the costs. Urvish Vashi, Alert Logic’s vice president of marketing, told Talkin’ Cloud the company believes it has solved that problem with a SaaS-based offering that provides both positive and negative security models.

Of course, the challenges of managing WAFs has stifled the technology’s growth, so we’ll have to wait and see whether Alert Logic has actually come up with a solution that businesses will be ready to invest in, but if the problem has been solved, IT security specialists should suffer from fewer headaches going forward.

“Our business has been about outsourcing and handling that problem for those partners by building core SaaS technologies that integrate with how they provision, with how they manage, but also with taking what we call the tenant tuning problem away from the provider,” Vashi said.

From a channel point of view, Alert Logic’s largest play is with cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, but it also has a growing business with the VAR and systems integrator channel. The biggest opportunities are found with the infrastructure providers, which account for 80 percent of Alert Logic’s customers right now.

The company currently works with 28 cloud providers, and Vashi hinted at announcements to come over the next few months.

“Enabling managed services for the channel has been the growth engine for Alert Logic almost since its inception,” Vashi said.

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