What value additions does SonicWall bring to a business?
We provide a comprehensive digital security solution for the Internet. We are trying to provide a bonafide solution from the security business perspective to anybody using digitalized technology. We are in the business of digital security, helping companies in protecting their business by keeping them up and running all the time. We also help customers in terms of digital surveillance security.

Matt Medeiros, president and CEO, SonicWALL

You have been talking of a magic box security. Is there going to be something like that in the near future?
That magic box today is called Unified Threat Management (UTM). But, UTM is just the evolution of a very discrete device focused on security. We are building a comprehensive suite of integrated solution into one application, the UTM. The important thing about UTM is that it will evolve.

So, what are the components of the magic box?
UTM has firewall, gateway, deep packet inspection module, anti-spy, and content filtering. Customers can use all of these or some of these.

Do you have on-demand versions of your solution?
SonicWALL delivers all the components of UTM and can be delivered through SaaS. Fifty percent of our business comes from subscription. There is software that manages deep packet, gateway, anti virus, and content filtering. When you look at the dynamic nature of threats, you cannot say that this is a piece of software that is going to protect your business from viruses. We have no way of interpreting what vulnerabilities are going to come in the future.

We have to constantly push new software to every installed base and update them. Some of our resellers in India provide hosted services and this is very important for small and mid-sized businesses. In our business model, we think it is the reseller who does it, because they have very strong relationships with their end customers. The end customer doesnt mind providing data feed to their resellers and they manage them very closely.

The need for a hosted model has emerged strongly. What are your initiatives on this model in India?
It is not a capex discussion. The issue in hosted model is whether businesses trust anybody else having access to their data stream. It has its pros and cons. It is an individual choice of the end customer. It also might be a resellers choice. They might be building their business on hosted model. We have a managed services security program (MSSP) where our resellers have the advantage of deploying SonicWALL hardware or software and actually managing that.

I think we need to realize that there are technologies that can be managed from a hostel environment compared to those that cannot. You can send an email, or do content filtering from a hosted environment, but you cannot do gateway inspection from this model. You have to be physically on the LAN; it is impossible to manage.

The core business of UTM is built on the proximity of the devicethe physical location. That box cannot be taken off premises; otherwise it will defeat the whole purpose. You can host storage and several of our customers do that.

Where does identity management fit into this?
Identity management is an important part of the security architecture. We think more advances need to be made on this technology. Tokens are limited. We want something thats more intelligent. Why cant this room sense who I am? Why do I need to have token, then keystroke, and token again. It is not productive. Identity management is important, but the approach that the industry is taking from the end customers perspective has not been very effective. People are tired of this double sign on, remembering another password, and numbers constantly changing. It is difficult. People want to get to computer and work. We have come out with a better way.

One of the problems that we have in technology, especially in the security industry, is that we all have been too preoccupied with the computer network paradigm.

What are some of the key developments in your strategy for India?
We have several dimensions of the investments that are going on in India. We have about hundred people in India. We anticipate that to grow by about 100% by next year. We now have development centers in India, China, and the US, and we can now develop products round the clock. Fighting the security issues is a 24x7 job. You cant take a break just because it is darker outside.

The other issue is support. We want to leverage the call center expertise of India to support our customers across the world.

Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in

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