For technology vendors that are missing something from their product
portfolio, they can either build, buy, or partner to get what they need. When
it comes to security event management and correlation, Juniper Networks and Nortel Networks have decided to partner with the same third-party vendor.
Both Nortel and Juniper are using technology from Q1 Labs
to compete against industry leader Cisco’s MARS (Monitoring Analysis
Response System) platform.
“QRadar is the principle technology competitor for Cisco MARS in the
market,” Q1 Labs Vice President of Marketing Tom Turner told InternetNews.com.
“We know that Nortel and Juniper will target their efforts against Cisco,
with whom they are already competing when they sell network and security
solutions, as well as the broader security management market because
QRadar’s ability to offer log management, threat management and compliance
management/monitoring is seen as strategic by partners and customers alike,” said Turner.
Juniper Networks has utilized the QRadar technology inside of its new
Security Threat Response Manager (STRM) solution, which is being announced
this week. Sanjay Kapoor, director of product management at Juniper
explained that STRM provides correlation rules to help IT to understand the
millions of events that can occur across and network and boil them down to
actionable items.
Kapoor noted that network administrators using STRM’s advanced event
correlation engine could more easily identify which assets were attacked as
well as what should be done to mitigate the attack.
Juniper doesn’t just take Q1 Labs solution and use it ‘as is’ rather Kapoor noted that Juniper uses it as framework that is then further customized with the benefit of
Juniper’s security expertise.
“We wanted to have a strong response to Cisco MARS and this product is very
competitive,” Kapoor said.
Nortel Networks also uses Q1 Labs technology as part of an OEM partnership
deal. The fact that Juniper is also a Q1 Labs partner is not a problem for
Nortel.
“This is not a problem for Nortel. On the contrary, this validates our
choice of technology and choice of partner,” Shmulik Nehama, director of business development and strategic alliances at Nortel told InternetNews.com.
“We have thoroughly evaluated the QRadar technology
and have great appreciation to its security management capabilities.
Customers are looking for solutions and QRadar is an important building
block of our security solutions,” said Nehama.
Nehama added that QRadar is an important component of Nortel’s solution
offering for closed-loop security management and compliance. As such it is
part of Nortel’s go to market strategy and is expected to remain as such in
the foreseeable future.
While both Juniper and Nortel will take the lead branding position with
their respective solutions, Q1 Labs isn’t entirely left out of the loop.
According to Turner, Q1 Labs’ solutions is branding for Q1 Labs with
each instance of their OEM relationships.
Turner noted that in the case of
Juniper Networks, the ‘Juniper Networks Security Threat Response Manager’ is
‘Powered by Q1 Labs’. In the case of Nortel Networks they are delivering
‘QRadar for Nortel’. Enterasys Networks delivers ‘Dragon Security Command
Console’ that is ‘Powered by Q1 Labs’.
Juniper and Nortel are both in business to grow their own respective
customer bases with their Q1 Labs based products. That said in the case of
Juniper at least, giving validation to Q1 Labs solution is also a very good
thing.
“The important thing is we’re giving a bit of validation to Q1 Labs, it
helps to have a big player standing behind them and it really helps the
market,” Juniper’s Kapoor said. “Customers always want an option to Cisco so
we’re making that alternative available. For us it is a very strategic
thing.”
