Guardent, a Waltham, Mass-based managed security service provider (MSSP), today announced a $27 million channel agreement with Convergence Communications, a Latin American communications company that serves nearly 1,700 business customers in more than 150 cities.
Under the terms of the deal, Convergence will resell Guardent’s full line of 24 x 7 managed security services, which include firewalls, intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, anti-virus, and VPN and URL filtering. According to Guardent, the deal is the industry’s largest publicly announced contract for managed security services.
Market researcher IDC projects that the market for mangaed security services will reach $2.4 billion by 2005 (in the U.S. alone). “IT organizations are facing increasingly complex networks, reduced or stagnant budgets, and less human resources to combat the propagating attacks and vulnerabilities threatening information systems …. creating the opportunity for MSSPs to fulfill customers’ security requirements,” said Allan Carey, senior analyst at IDC.
“For any organization offering IP services, 24 x 7 managed security has now become a ‘must have’ not just a ‘value-add,'” said Maria Cirino, chairman and CEO of Guardent.
To date, Guardent has signed on over 50 carrier-class partners to resell its managed security services.