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Backoffice & OSS
Qwest, Fiberlink deliver all-access remote endpoint security
Platform features web-based management center
by Doug Allen
Qwest has introduced two new services, Qwest Comply and Qwest
Teleworker, to deliver secure remote access and compliance management
services, through RAS vendor and new partner Fiberlink. These new offerings support end-point enforcement and remediation, VPN client integration, and automatically updated firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam and desktop/laptop encryption.
Building on Fiberlink’s strong reputation in hosted security, Qwest is reselling a platform based on a simple software agent that acts as a web-based management center for
policy configuration and enforcement, as well as management of mobile
security applications and compliance controls. It’s part of Qwest’s
strategy to sell more value-added services to SMBs with significant
numbers of mobile remote users.
If the terms “compliance management services” doesn’t ring a bell,
think of these as customer information safeguards, frequently mandated
under HIPAA, GLBA and Sarbanes Oxley regulations, that protect against
unwarranted access or data leakage through loss or theft to customer
records.
The managed service is network-based, enabling Qwest to offer
protocol-agnostic network access. Though the carrier has not specified
all access link types that will be supported, “it seems likely that
they will not only include the carrier’s own DSL and dedicated fixed
access options for teleworkers and remote offices, but also laptop
access from Wi-Fi hotspots, home and corporate WLANs, hotel broadband
connections, and cellular data/WWANs as the Fiberlink platform readily
supports all of these access technologies,” writes Kitty Weldon,
senior analyst with Current Analysis, in a recent intelligence report.
Such a scheme allows customers to craft a combined wireline/wireless
access strategy, mixing and matching technologies according to
customer circumstances and need. Qwest does not require customers to
sign up for a particular access plan in advance, paying only for the
services used.
The combination of secure access and compliance management, over a
multiple-protocol access scheme, appears to be a unique competitive
differentiator. Other carriers focusing on the wireless space may not
be able to offer such a diverse array of access options, even if they
partner with Fiberlink for similar secure access services.
“Traditional security software companies and Managed Security Services
Providers such as IBM and Symantec offer a variety of security
services to companies of all sizes to help with [compliance
management]. But traditional security software or even managed
security providers don’t generally address the secure remote access
issue. It remains to be seen whether Fiberlink can provide a
compliance management service through other U.S. carriers, or to the
global carrier partners with which it already has relationships,
either to offer access services to end-users or conversely, to
carriers that resell Fiberlink’s managed secure remote access platform
to their customers.
"However, even among Tier 1 U.S. carriers, there
seems to be a dearth of secure remote access/compliance management
services that run across disparate technologies. While AT&T and
Verizon Business are themselves Fiberlink competitors for global RAS,
they do not offer their smaller, domestic business customers a
comparable service.”
Qwest can’t rest easy, however. Large telcos will go after Qwest’s
potential secure access customers by emphasizing superior extensive
managed service portfolios, global IP MPLS network assets, on-site and
hosted IP VPNs, and professional and support services.
“Qwest needs to tie Fiberlink secure RAS offer into its own IP VPN
portfolio, and then tout its ability to provide a suite of IP VPN
services that run the gamut of access technologies,” Whedon continues.
“While SMBs tend to focus on dedicated Internet access, there will be
multi-site businesses that will want to tie remote access into their
Qwest iQ Networking and Qwest Private Routed Network services.”
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