qIn this year’s US IT Services Report, it was determined that a bit over 10 percent of organizations have a single security vendor. In stark contrast, a third of all companies surveyed use five or more security vendors. It’s worth mentioning that nearly a third reported that they use three security vendors.
When referencing security technology vendors, there are a variety of areas to take into consideration. Antivirus, Network Access Control, DNS Filtering, URL Filtering, Intrusion Prevention Systems, Intrusion Detection Systems, Internal Firewalls, and Network Edge Firewalls are all examples of areas that companies need to consider security implements for. What is needed for one company may not be needed for another company. For example, a small business with just a few employees definitely isn’t going to need to sink money into internal firewalls since they likely don’t have multiple departments to worry about. That said, there are things that every company needs to consider, like antivirus and malware protection.
The size of a business is one factor that dictates the number of vendors that will need to be brought into the equation but that’s not the only factor. The industry matters as there are government regulations that may or may not need to be followed, depending on the information stored. Financials and budgets will also dictate the number of vendors brought in to help out with security. Specialty companies can also lead to multiple vendor use in the IT security business plan. For instance, Cisco can provide equipment to help with almost all of the areas of security technology deployment mentioned earlier. Conversely, Juniper Networks is a well-revered organization that manufactures network devices at a discounted rate when compared to Cisco products. Juniper specializes in network edge and intranet security and doesn’t have much to do with the other areas of security tech.
For the largest of enterprises, it’s likely they have worked out some sort of contract deal with singular vendors like Cisco or HPE. Fortune 500 companies that span the globe want everything to be uniform, reliable, updated regularly, and have a nearly infinite budget to create such a deal with big player security companies. Companies with a limited IT budget are forced to get creative. These organizations rely on their IT teams to research the best bang for buck solutions to fit the security needs of the business. This almost always means a company will have multiple vendors so that they can take advantage of flash deals, specials, and occasional discount sales.
Having multiple vendors for security doesn’t mean you’re less protected. It can mean a little bit more work to become familiar with multiple platforms but that just makes the IT pro even more valuable to a company. It doesn’t really matter how many security vendors you have, so long as you cover all of your IT security bases!
Fidelus Technologies, based out of New York City is a Professional and Managed Information Technology Services company focused on customer success and business efficiency. Our services provide seamless networking, data center, wireless, security and unified communications expertise for medium and enterprise sized businesses. We have a consultative life cycle approach that includes requirements gathering, assessments, solution design, planning, project management, engineering, adoption and evolution (training) services to fully support the IT needs of your organization.
If you’re looking for more information on how Fidelus can help with your organizations technology please contact us here. To access our in-depth analysis on how IT teams across the country are using IT services and products within their organization click below.
2017 U.S. IT Services Report sponsored by Fidelus
