Cloud AV and Backups

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xspader

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#119684 10-Jun-2013 14:44

Hey All

I have a new service I am in the process of building.
Its essentially McAfee's corporate AV product that is managed by a Cloud based ePO server, allowing full reporting on the systems compliance, and individual policies based on customer needs.

The software is charged monthly per node and it is designed for SMB's and schools, to get them off the home market AV or the free AV products and give them something reportable and forces policy based on best practice, so they know whats going on with their systems, and that they are always kept up to date. If they have an internet connection then they can get updates and policy.
Its soft launching in a few weeks (sorting out license costs, which at this stage look to be starting at $5 per machine for schools, and $7.50 for businesses, terms and conditions etc) so I'll be looking for pilot customers in the coming weeks.

All is based in Auckland and is supported by me initially and I have 9 years McAfee experience.

And then coming in the next few months is a cloud backup system. Just getting the infrastructure together.

If anyone is interested in being part of the pilot for either please let me know.

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#833594 10-Jun-2013 14:56

how resilient is your connectivity and infrastructure?
where is your infrastructure hosted?
how does the licensing for ePO/VSE work?
have you got approval to do this from the vendor?
what backups are you doing? how are they stored?
what level of separation of duties do you have in place?
how do you isolate clients from different businesses?
what connectivity options do you have?
what do you offer over skydrive/dropbox/google drive?
what do you offer over security essentials?
what's to stop you running scripts on client machines through the ePO console?
what level of auditing do you have in place?
can I see these audit logs?
what guarantees do you provide on your virus scanning service?
what guarantees do you provide on your backup service?
what SLAs do you intend to offer?
what support do you offer (phone/email/hours)?

that should be enough to get started.

lxsw20

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#833596 10-Jun-2013 15:08

Pretty sure schools get AV licensing for free through MOE, so might want to check on that before making them a target market.

iapperley

15 posts

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#833617 10-Jun-2013 16:03

Hey there,

I'd be keen to follow how you go with this.

Can you drop me a note via www.whatisitwellington.com through the contact form?

Thanks!

xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833618 10-Jun-2013 16:05

wasabi2k: how resilient is your connectivity and infrastructure?
where is your infrastructure hosted?
how does the licensing for ePO/VSE work?
have you got approval to do this from the vendor?
what backups are you doing? how are they stored?
what level of separation of duties do you have in place?
how do you isolate clients from different businesses?
what connectivity options do you have?
what do you offer over skydrive/dropbox/google drive?
what do you offer over security essentials?
what's to stop you running scripts on client machines through the ePO console?
what level of auditing do you have in place?
can I see these audit logs?
what guarantees do you provide on your virus scanning service?
what guarantees do you provide on your backup service?
what SLAs do you intend to offer?
what support do you offer (phone/email/hours)?

that should be enough to get started.

Resiliency: VM Servers in NZ with a DR system in Oz
Hosting: Fujitsu Data Centre in Auckland, unsure about Aussie as yet
Licensing: MSP licensing, currently in Aus but McAfee have agreed to allow me to start providing the service buying licenses out of Aussie
Backups: Database is backed up daily as is the configuration for ePO. Regular (daily) policy exports backed up to disk
Separation of duties: As I'm the only one initially, none, but I have the ability to have others join to assist as required. I hope to be able to employ some people who are currently out of work eventually
Client Isolation: In the new ePO version each customer in the system tree can have their own specific tables in the database. ePO 5 is designed to be multi-tenanted.
Connectivity options: for backups I'm guessing? Still working it out
Dropbox etc: NZ Hosted and is a backup platform for either individual files or for the whole system. Commvault backend
Security Essentials: Security essentials isn't a true AV client. Its marketed as such, but its like anything free from MS, if they buy the company it no longer is malware or malicious in anyway. MS SE is the worst of the free ones IMO
Auditing: Each access from an administrator or other user (although users wont initially be allowed access to the console) is logged. Any access to your settings can be reported on
Guarantees: The same as any AV vendor. We can protect you if its known, and best endeavours if it isn't. Any AV Vendor who can place hand on heart and state they can protect you from anything known and unknown is lying. Backups, we are still working on
SLA's: Incident response will be practically immediate (I.E if you get an infection call straight away and we will look at it) if there are issues with the client, then we are bound by the same SLA as offered by McAfee support if we are unable to resolve the issue ourselves within the first hour
Support: Initially 7 till 7, 5 days for normal BAU but 24x7 for emergencies. We will also come on site and deploy/support if needed.

I've worked in so many ops teams that I know that good friendly accurate support is what is wanted, and that as a provider we need to be flexible. And part of the reason I posted here is for these sorts of questions so I can try to get things right.

xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833625 10-Jun-2013 16:08

lxsw20: Pretty sure schools get AV licensing for free through MOE, so might want to check on that before making them a target market.

According to the MoE (I emailed them) they don't. There is lots they do get but generally govt pricing is used which is heavily discounted, but many still don't have a managed service and couldn't tell you if they were up to date or not.

nathan

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#833642 10-Jun-2013 16:32

FWIW first time I've heard Microsoft Security Essentials described as not a true AV client

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cyril7

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#833644 10-Jun-2013 16:37

I can confirm that schools get free access to Symantic AV, the contract runs till the end of the year and as I understand it, is expected to continue after that.

http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/Schools/Initiatives/ICTInSchools/ICTInitiativesAndProgrammes/SoftwareForSchools.aspx

Further, a majority of schools I work with have active Symantic AV management in operation to keep machines up to date.

I also wonder about your comments regarding MSE

Cyril

amanzi

Amanzi
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#833660 10-Jun-2013 16:39

nathan: FWIW first time I've heard Microsoft Security Essentials described as not a true AV client

I agree. MSE is definitely not an enterprise-level AV software product, and MS doesn't advertise it as such, but to say it's not a true AV client is an interesting throw-away statement.

Also, your per-node pricing seems pretty high - not sure what additional services you're offering for this price? Our company offers cloud-based AV for as little as $2 per month per node, though that's usually as part of our managed services. Good luck to you though.

cyril7

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#833662 10-Jun-2013 16:41

MSE can be purchased as an enterprise centrally managed end point solution.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/endpoint-protection-2012.aspx

Cyril

nathan

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#833669 10-Jun-2013 17:06

cyril7: MSE can be purchased as an enterprise centrally managed end point solution.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/endpoint-protection-2012.aspx

Cyril

Indeed, we call that SCEP. System Centre Endpoint Protection

xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833679 10-Jun-2013 17:59

I class SCEP differently to MSE. I class MSE in the same vane as AVG Free and other free AV clients. To me MSE and AVG Free are not what I would class as enterprise class AV solutions, and would not rely on them to protect my business, hence my comment.

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xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833682 10-Jun-2013 18:03

amanzi:
nathan: FWIW first time I've heard Microsoft Security Essentials described as not a true AV client

I agree. MSE is definitely not an enterprise-level AV software product, and MS doesn't advertise it as such, but to say it's not a true AV client is an interesting throw-away statement.

Also, your per-node pricing seems pretty high - not sure what additional services you're offering for this price? Our company offers cloud-based AV for as little as $2 per month per node, though that's usually as part of our managed services. Good luck to you though.

If I had other services to bundle it with then the price could indeed come down or it could even be a freebie with the way the licensing is, and the charges that can be placed on other services.

If its not workable at that cost then I'll need to revisit it, but as its going to be my sole source of income and I have all the costs for it, this is where I need to start at.

Depending on how the backup solution looks and what I can get that cost down to, the AV may be bundled in as a giveaway.

xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833700 10-Jun-2013 18:24

cyril7: I can confirm that schools get free access to Symantic AV, the contract runs till the end of the year and as I understand it, is expected to continue after that.

http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/Schools/Initiatives/ICTInSchools/ICTInitiativesAndProgrammes/SoftwareForSchools.aspx

Further, a majority of schools I work with have active Symantic AV management in operation to keep machines up to date.

I also wonder about your comments regarding MSE

Cyril

Thank you for the info. Not sure why the person at the MoE that responded to my email wasn't aware.

xspader

11 posts

Geek

#833712 10-Jun-2013 18:43

Ill have to revisit the base license cost to see if I can get the price sharper. Problem is licenses come from Aussie at the moment and not NZ, so the NZ price isn't known as yet

blakamin

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#833716 10-Jun-2013 18:59

FWIW Security essentials is the BEST free AV. If you use avg or avast free you're crazy.

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