Verizon Business expanded its managed services portfolio Wednesday by announcing that it will be offering a Unified Threat Management service that includes firewall, antivirus and spam services, content filtering and VPN capabilities.
According to Cindy Bellefeuille, the director for solution and product marketing for Verizon Business, the new offering will
condense multiple security services into one device. Thus, she says, customers will be able to filter content, block spam and host VPNs without deploying
multiple boxes at their facilities.
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Verizon says the service will be ideal for midsize businesses and for enterprises that want to save money in providing security
to their remote offices.
The UTM services (compare UTM products) will be deployed on-site and will be compatible with both Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances and with Juniper's
Unified Threat Management platform. Bellefeuille says the company is only offering its UTM services on customer premises at
the moment and won't be offering UTM as part of its "cloud-based" service package for the foreseeable future. Currently, Verizon
does offer managed firewall, denial-of-service defense detection and managed network IPS as cloud-based services.
Verizon Business, as it does for its other managed services, will offer its UTM services in three tiers. The standard service
focuses primarily on high-risk security threats by monitoring devices, analyzing threats and reporting security incidents.
The premium and platinum options, meanwhile, attempt to reduce overall risk by analyzing all events, not merely high-risk
ones. While Verizon would not disclose specific pricing information for the options, it did say the premium and platinum options
cost roughly 40% more than the standard service option.
Additionally, the company says it will give customers the option of either managing their own UTM service or of letting Verizon
manage the service for them. In both options, Verizon is responsible for monitoring the customer's network for security threats.
