McAfee Enhances Security Offerings At High And Low End

McAfee has rolled out new security enhancements at both the high and low end of the market.

At the data center, the company has upgraded its McAfee Network Security Platform, adding an 80 Gbps IPS solution that promises to double the performance capability of competing IPS offerings while at the same time providing threat protection across physical, virtual and cloud environments, as well as in service provider core networks.

’We are finding that organizations are going through a flux,’ Tyler Carter, director of product marketing, network security, at McAfee, told CRN. ’Data center consolidation, public cloud, private cloud, software as a service, BYOD, and other trends are forcing organizations to adapt to their security controls to support the need to scale-up their throughput and connection capability as they consolidate their data centers and ramp-up the switching architecture. This solution allows them to take the next generation platform and keep pace with the network while managing it all from one centralized console.’

Carter expects the product will be sold through a combination of direct sales representatives and channel partners. ’This is especially good for partners who have a strong network and network security business,’ he said. ’We absolutely intend to go to market through the channel as well as through our direct organization. A lot depends on the partners business and whether or not they have a play there.’

The platform also includes multi-tenancy options for service provider environments that can create up to 1,000 virtual IPS policies per appliance. Policy controls enable separate management for each customer or service. Support for the VMware vShield API is also available, as well as a new Network Threat Behavior Analysis virtual appliance that provides additional context to IPS threats.

NEXT: McAfee Adds To SMB Level

At the SMB level, McAfee has refined its security offerings down to three specific product categories that are offered as either premises-based or SaaS-based solutions.

The company’s Endpoint Protection Suite is designed to defend against all attack routes and be fully customizable. The Endpoint and E-Mail Protection Suite is designed to prevent malicious e-mail content from entering the network. The Total Protection Suite has e-mail encryption and compliance libraries to protect sensitive data and meet compliance requirements.

’We've added flexible time scheduling so that they can set a time range to get their security updates during off-peak hours," Martin Ward, Senior Director, Endpoint Solutions at McAfee, told CRN. ’We also added a partner security dashboard from which partners can remotely manage all of their clients' security through this console, including the licenses and renewals, as well as many of their own value added incremental services. We also have a new feature called 'Rumor' that enables them to download security updates to one machine and then distribute the updates everywhere else. So you save money in bandwidth."

McAfee has also added an assortment of new channel program components to help augment partner success. Incentives for SMB sales have been increased. New mechanisms have been put into place to support faster approval for deal registration. And, the company has also added an online solution advisor tool that asks questions of the prospects and then makes security product recommendations.

A new prospecting suite has also been added with turnkey marketing tools.

"There is a greenfield security opportunity in the small to medium space," summarized Ward. "Also, SMBs are now the targets of hackers because the enterprises have heavily secured themselves. We’re trying to highlight the SMB segment to channel partners because the bad guys are going after them now."