NetSolve's ProWatch Secure managed security services offer customers the ability to monitor their network security with a degree of detail and expertise that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

by Jeff Goldman [March 6, 2002]

NetSolve was originally founded in 1987 as Southwest Network Services, providing data transport services to the southwestern United States. In 1993, Craig Tysdal joined the company as chief executive officer. In 1995, under Tysdal's leadership, the company announced a name change to NetSolve, to reflect a shift in focus towards providing remotely managed network services.

Scott Olson, NeltSolve director of product marketing, explains that the people behind NetSolve comprise one of its greatest strengths. Olson was one of the founders of WheelGroup Corporation—when WheelGroup was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998, its core software product became Cisco IDS. Other past WheelGroup employees are also at NetSolve, as well as a number of other security experts.

NetSolve 12331 Riata Trace Parkway Austin, Texas 78727 Voice: (800) NETSOLVE

"Gartner points out that strong security is a combination of technology, process, and people," Olson said. "When somebody is looking to a company to provide them with managed security services, what they're really talking about are your people and your processes. We have very strong people, and our processes have been developed over the last eight to ten years."

With over 1000 customers in 42 countries, Olson says the company's success speaks for itself. "We are a publicly traded company," he said. "We've had 14 consecutive quarters of profitability. We're actually one of the few profitable managed service providers that are out there, and probably the only managed security service provider out there that's profitable."

Escalated response
NetSolve's ProWatch services can remotely monitor all or part of a customer's network operations from the company's network management center in Austin, Texas. NetSolve's managed security offerings include ProWatch Secure Remote Intrusion Detection Service, which works with Cisco's IDS product, and ProWatch Secure Managed Firewall Service, which works with both Cisco's and Check Point's firewalls.

The ProWatch Exchange web portal provides customers with secure, real time access to information on their network security. "This is one of the key infrastructure capabilities that we've developed," Olson said. "Any time there's a security event, our customer has real time visibility into what events are occurring on their network and what the severity of those events is."

In addition, Olson explains, ProWatch Exchange lists the name and direct phone number of the NetSolve security expert working on each event. "That's significant: our customers don't have to call in to a helpdesk where the person has no idea what's going on," Olson said. "They can actually get the specific name of the individual that's working on their issue."

A five-level process dictates NetSolve's response to each event. At the first level, the company's security technicians monitor events on an ongoing basis from NetSolve's network management center. "Probably 90 to 95 percent of the events can be handled by our security technicians," Olson said. "They understand security technology, they understand intrusion detection, and they understand networking."

If an event is determined to be a real attack rather than a false positive, it's escalated to level two (below). "Our security engineers take over, and a ticket is opened on that process so that we can track it for the customer," Olson said. "The security engineers work with a point of contact at the customer to isolate the source of attack and to determine what they need to do to protect the network."

When an attack is significant enough to threaten business operations, level three experts get involved. At level four, Olson himself and Chuck Adams, NetSolve's General Manager for Security, take over; and at level five, Craig Tysdal, the company's CEO, steps in. "We have the networking experience in conjunction with the security expertise that differentiates us from a lot of other companies out there," Olson said.

At less than $1,500 a month per device, Olson notes, NetSolve is priced at the low end of the managed services market. "We're able to achieve lower margins because we have a significant amount of investment that we've put into our IT technology," he said. "We don't need to license, for example, an HP OpenView equivalent for the security environment, so our cost of delivering this service is brought down."

Value judgement
According to Olson, NetSolve has a solid history of working with service providers. "It's public knowledge that AT&T is one of our biggest channels," he said. "We can work with an ISP if they want to co-market our product, or if they want to re-brand our product for their customers. That provides extra value to them, because they get to maintain customer control."

When an ISP is considering a managed security service provider, Olson adds, it's important to feel confident that the company will be around in the long term. "Our 14 quarters of profitability, the fact that we're publicly traded, the fact that we've got $47 million in the bank, and have proven managed services as a successful business model, is very compelling to service providers," he said.

Charter Bank is a small community bank with eight branches in southeast Michigan. According to Mark Parquette, the bank's Assistant Vice President of Information Services, they'd never considered a firewall to be a necessary part of their network infrastructure-until they started looking at offering Internet banking during the summer of 2000.

The bank found NetSolve thanks to a recommendation from a local company, and Parquette says they've been very satisfied with the results. "They do what they're supposed to do," he said. "We get some emails from them on less serious things, and if they see something really strange here, they call us right away. It's been a good experience: we're happy with their monitoring services."

For Charter, Parquette explains, NetSolve offers the ability to maintain a level of network support that they could never otherwise have been able to provide. "For us, it's a good value," Parquette said. "For the size of company that we are, we couldn't afford to have qualified security people here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to keep an eye on our firewall."

— End

Online Resources:
    Intrusion Detection Systems Directory
    IDS Quick Reference Chart

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