Symantec Corp. announced the launch of Symantec Hosted
Endpoint Protection, a new cloud-based offering for small and medium sized
organizations who wish to deploy comprehensive security for their computer
systems without the need for additional hardware or management software.
Customers will now be able to protect their Windows-based laptops, desktops, and
file servers from the proliferation and growing sophistication of threats with
the simplicity and convenience of a cloud-based service.
Harnessing more than eighteen years of experience developing award-winning
technologies for anti-virus and endpoint protection, Symantec Hosted Endpoint
Protection is designed to safeguard endpoint systems with a single solution
managed from a Web-based console offering advanced protection from the endpoint
to the gateway.
"As the hosted model for messaging security has become increasingly popular
for its ease of management and deployment, organizations are similarly motivated
by the reduced complexity that cloud-based services can offer while effectively
protecting their endpoint systems," said Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President,
Symantec Hosted Services. "Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection leverages our
SaaS expertise to deliver advanced technologies that help protect customer
systems without requiring additional hardware, management software, or dedicated
IT staffing."
As threats become more complex and the global workforce increasingly more
mobile, analysts have predicted that businesses will demand highly effective
security solutions that are easy to set up and require minimal maintenance–
features especially important to small and medium sized businesses that have
limited resources to stay current with evolving security requirements while
managing a myriad of additional IT responsibilities.
"Customers often experience pain when increased IT resources are required to
stay abreast of evolving endpoint threats," said Christian Christiansen, VP of
Security Products and Services, IDC. "To reduce these difficulties, customers
want turn-key, endpoint solutions that provide the latest protection levels with
easy set up, zero maintenance, and automatic upgrades. Security SaaS
implementations can fully provide these solutions."
Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection leverages the Symantec Global
Intelligence Network, one of the largest security research networks in the
world, and benefits from the network’s rapid threat identification and response.
With Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection, automatic security updates occur
transparently over an Internet connection keeping employee systems current
whether workers are in the office or on the road.
"We can get a much more robust solution delivered through the cloud than we
would be able to host for ourselves, and at a much more reasonable cost," said
David Wassenar, Vice President, IT, Apprise Software. "We don’t have to put any
team member’s time into it, and we don’t have to spend money to provide the
hardware redundancy on our end to ensure high availability for the
solution."
Key Features and Benefits of Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection
- Comprehensive Protection for Customer Systems: Advanced technologies
for antivirus, antispyware, firewall and host intrusion prevention. - Always-on Protection for Endpoints: Automated updates occur
transparently over an Internet connection to keep employee systems current and
consistent with client policies when employees are in the office or on the road
– even when they’re not logged into their corporate VPN. - Web-based Management Console: Administrators can access the
administration portal over a supported Web-browser and corporate VPN access is
not required to monitor and manage each computer. Administrators receive
real-time alerts via SMS or email and can easily perform functions such as
initiate a LiveUpdate to refresh system protection levels, view history on
systems and change local policy settings. - Ease of Management: Adds and manages new computers without requiring
on-site management servers. Updates occur automatically and new features are
introduced as they become available during the subscription period for no
additional fee. - Scalable: Flexibility provided through a hosted model allows the
solution to scale to incorporate new endpoints quickly and efficiently without
requiring additional hardware or management software. - Fast to Deploy: Can be quickly deployed to users via standard
download, an email invitation or silently pushed to the customer’s network.
"Getting hardware out of our data center and centrally managing all of our
endpoints with a single Web interface has been a top priority for us," said
Sumeet Lakhaney, IT Director for New York City-based Fourth Wall Restaurants
which manages six upscale restaurants in Manhattan. "Our focus on building a
next generation IT center means that we have moved to a SaaS model for all of
our business applications which will standardize our environment and decrease
our overall cost to serve."
Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection is available now to customers in North
America. It delivers antivirus, antispyware, firewall and host intrusion
prevention for desktops and laptops and antivirus and antispyware for file
servers. The service can be purchased on its own or in combination with other
Symantec Hosted Services across email, web and IM.
Symantec Hosted Endpoint Protection is part of a broad portfolio of flexible
endpoint security protection solutions for SMB customers, including the Symantec
Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition and Symantec Protection Suite Small
Business Edition. Customers who are not yet ready to make the transition to SaaS
can continue to rely on Symantec’s award winning SMB security portfolio.
