@ Thomas, sounds fair enough.. managed services from specialized vendors can square out competition and build a good experiencel base for those offering these services, so instead of just working with say, a Service provider and Cisco, a customer has an option to work with a service provider and (other opensource solutions that works) for less - and leave the revenue sharing model to the vendor and the service provider. @ Phares - speaking of confidence in opensource solutions(grab some popcorn - true story), a director visits a country branch somewhere and is advised by the IT team there that replacing a certain appliance with pfsense and adopting other opensource technologies helped ease on the IT CAPEX while providing equally reliable IT services in the long run, when the director returns he coincidently finds a purchase order for the appliance(above) on his desk for him to sign, together with a bunch of service level agreements - he does not sign it and instead demands the the IT manager get in touch with the other team at the country branch. Unfortunately the two parties don't see eye to eye the underlying reason being the manager is not familiar with this solution. Still unconvinced, the director soughts help from his pals in the market and they point him/her to some guys, "they don't look professional, one of them is in jeans and a t-shirt with a penguin on it" the HR manager remarks, sneering at the bunch headed to the directors office, after some consultations with the director they have the system up and running in 2 week and offer training on how to install and manage these solution. See where I'm going Phares, most of these opensource solutions have a stable release, and its a matter of knowing HOWTO configure and maintain(provided that their development is on going there's more than enough support on their mailing-lists) On 1/31/11, Thomas Kibui <thomas.kibui@gmail.com> wrote:
There is a third option.. Managed Security.. where an enterprise secures your perimeter as a managed services. They normally offer a range of perimeter security options ranging from Linux/FreeBSD etc all the way to Cisco/Checkpoint boxes and licenses. The only thing is that you dont pay it off as a Capex but as a managed service based on Opex, fixed monthly fee. The vendor has a tunnel to the devise to manage it and update all that needs to be updated. The users have no direct control over the device but they have direct access to the logs and can change the policy via a controlled change management process with the vendor. The vendor has the duty of making sure that the client organization is protected from emerging threats proactively .. so they have to keep their ears and eyes open 24/7
http://www.clearstreamtechnology.co.uk/services-technologies/internet_securi...