Service Provider Insider

Why APTs Should Matter To Service Providers

A few things in the news today that ought to serve as food for thought for any SP targeting enterprise IT workloads.

For starters, I'd encourage you to read up on advanced persistent threats (APTs).  These are organized attacks using a combination of social engineering and traditional hacking techniques.

In a scarily prescient post, I talked a bit about APTs during the run-up to the recent RSA Conference.  Then the unthinkable happened: EMC's RSA division got hit pretty hard.

How they did it is no longer a mystery.  Who did it, and why they did it, is currently a matter of an ongoing investigation, so not much will be said about that for the time being.

If you think it's isolated cases, feel free to scan the headlines on any given day, and you'll hear about the most recent breach.  This morning, it was Epslion's service that got dinged.

In related news, EMC's RSA division announced the acquisition of NetWitness, a key technology player in this space.

So, how does this apply to service providers?

DPA For Service Providers

Lots of great stuff in the EMC portfolio for service providers -- almost too much to talk about today, with more goodness coming along every day!

In this post, I'd like to stretch out a bit, and share how EMC's DPA -- Data Protection Advisor -- is creating an interesting cluster of new opportunities for a wide swath of service providers.  

Regardless of your SP model, there's probably something here that's worth a moment of your attention.

Creating A Supply Of Movable Workloads

There's a shift going on -- from workloads that are run in traditional enterprise IT settings, to workloads that make more sense to run using an IT service provider who's a specialist.

We believe that we, as EMC, can grealy help to accelerate this transition in a variety of ways -- by helping to create a supply of workloads that are ready to move to qualified IT service provider settings.

"How?", you might ask.

Enhancing SP Value Propositions By Expanding Delivery Options

Wow. EMC is up to a lot these days. 

I try to stay ahead of all the different offers and permutations as part of my role here, but I still get occasionally surprised. 

Just today, I chanced across an interesing EMC customer deck that seemed to illustrate an important dynamic in the emerging SP opportunity: the importance of multiple delivery options to enhance your overall value proposition.

A Quick Tour of EMC Products for SPs

With each passing month, EMC gets better and better at understanding the unique requirements of service providers who provide various flavors of IT-as-a-service.

We still have a lot to do before we're arguably world class, but progress to date has been striking, and the pace seems to be increasing as well.

As we think about our "offer" for SPs and their clients, we're doing a good job of thinking beyond just products, and beginning to build out more services and programs.

That being said, a lot of what we offer SPs is built on our product technologies, since -- at our heart -- that's what EMC is all about.

In this post, I thought I'd offer up a whirlwind tour of the EMC product portfolio from a service provider perspective.  If  you're looking for an at-a-glance overview, here it is. 

Well, maybe a very l-o-o-n-n-g glance.