The biggest challenge facing solution providers today in terms of building and maintaining a cybersecurity service is arguably mastering the complexity of all the technologies required. Looking to provide a means to resell a more turnkey approach to delivering a cybersecurity service OPAQ Networks today announced that its namesake cloud cybersecurity service will now only be available via channel partners.
The OPAQ cybersecurity service is available in multiple forms. Solution providers can opt to expose a portal through which an end customer can manage IT security on their own or co-manage it with a solution provider. Alternatively, the solution provider can employ the OPAQ service to become a managed security service provider (MSSP) that manages cybersecurity on an end-to-end basis.
The policy-based OPAQ service spans everything from network security, application, and SaaS firewall, web application firewall, DDoS mitigation to software-defined segmentation. Rather than having to invest the capital to acquire all those technologies and then find the cybersecurity professionals capable of implementing them, the OPAQ service creates an opportunity for channel partners to deliver a robust set of cybersecurity services without having to make a major capital investment, says Ken Ammon, chief strategy officer for OPAQ Networks.
“All our services share a common pane of management glass,” says Ammon.
Ammon says OPAQ Networks built it service working in collaboration with providers of Internet peering exchanges to provide direct connections to cloud services using network overlay dedicated to cybersecurity. There is no need to employ a public Internet connection. Those connections can be established via an appliance provided by OPAQ Networks or via software deployed on a customer’s existing IT infrastructure, says Ammon.
The OPAQ channel program consists of two silver and gold tiers, with the gold tier able to generate margins as high as 35 percent for reselling the OPAQ service. Depending on the size of the customer engagement, Ammon says the average selling price for the OPAQ service ranges from $7,000 for an 18-person office to as high as $400,0000 annually. Billing for the OPAQ service is based on per user/per site model.
Rather than renew existing contracts based on on-premises IT security products, Ammon says the OPAQ service creates an opportunity for solution providers to generate recurring cybersecurity revenue. According to research firm MarketsandMarkets, the security-as-a-service market size is estimated to grow from $8.52 Billion by 2020, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.2 percent.
Cybersecurity represents both a major opportunity and challenge for the channel. IT security technologies in the age of the cloud have in many cases stabilized declining revenues in other product categories. But the cost of maintaining a cybersecurity service is considerable; especially as the number of products required to deliver that service expand well beyond firewalls and anti-virus software. In many cases, solution providers across the channel are likely to find that reselling a cybersecurity service enables them to take advantage of cybersecurity opportunities without incurring all the associated overhead of building their own cybersecurity service.
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