Netrex Launches Security Integration Strategy

• 12/09/1998

When it comes to enterprise security, 99.9 percent secure isn’t good enough. There’s no point having 10 locks on the front door if the window is wide open.

To strive for 100 percent security, companies have traditionally cobbled together solutions from a number of providers -- a firewall here, an anti-virus package there. Unfortunately, that method can still leave a .01 percent chink in the corporate armor, and that chink can be a gaping hole to a cracker or disgruntled employee.

Mark Sims believes he has found a way to fill all the chinks. Sims says that his company, Netrex Inc. (Southfield, Mich., www.netrex.com), can provide solutions for every security need. "I consider us a bit of an anomaly because, although there are security companies that compete with us, there are none that compete across the board -- consulting, training, hardware and software," he says. "You do have some VARs that dabble in security technology, but there are very few that focus on security, and there are none that really bring the whole picture to the table."

Netrex has been around since 1992, but Sims, the company’s founder, president and CEO, says this year’s Networld+Interop trade show in Atlanta was the company’s "big coming out party." It was at the October show that Netrex announced Security-1, its enterprise security methodology; E-Patrol, its suite of managed security services; and Titanium Enterprise Security Manager, its hardware-based security appliance.

To provide an entire range of security products and services, Netrex has partnered with other security vendors. "With Titanium and E-Patrol, we’ve essentially combined best-of-class products together into an architecture and put our brand on it, and done it in a way that’s easy to support and gives the customer flexibility," Sims says.

Netrex clients can choose from the E-Patrol services on an a-la-carte basis. Netrex will either sell the software directly to the customer, or will install it at the customer’s site and manage it remotely.

If Netrex is managing the security solution, IT managers can get access to their security information using Culprit, a management software system created by Netrex. "With E-Patrol, there may be 20 different products that make up all the services," Sims explains. "Culprit really is the thing that ties it all together." Culprit provides corporate IT managers with access to security information reports, events, security policies and logs. Customers can also use it to submit policy change requests.

To reduce the hardware footprint in the customer’s data center, Netrex also created the Titanium Enterprise Security Manager, a customized server that can contain multiple motherboards, called "security blades," running various pieces of security software. The software can run on Windows NT or Solaris -- the operating systems can even be mixed in the same box, Sims says.

Even with all of Netrex’s support, some customers just want to manage their security infrastructure in-house, Sims says. "For those who want to outsource none of it, we can sell them the technology, help them set it up, and train their IS staff," he says, adding that this flexibility differentiates them from competitors. Consultants who don’t do training "see a company that wants to do it themselves as a competitor, whereas we don’t have that conflict of interest."