Everything is becoming a service. First, we had Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and now you can even have your entire Security Operations Center as a service (thankfully, we use “SOC as a service” and not SOCaaS – say it out loud in a SoCal accent).
And now, GlobalDots – a 17-year old cloud-performance and security innovation company – has partnered with Cloudflare – a US-based web infrastructure and website security company – to provide SOC as a service to companies and organizations alike. The partnership formalizes that Cloudflare recognizes GlobalDots’s solutions in multiple as-a-service domains, such as Managed Cloud Services, DevOps services, Network Operations Services, and professional services for its products.
As security threats become more sophisticated and state-level actors threaten organizations globally, companies of all sizes are scrambling to find in-house security engineers. With demand high, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find potential hires with the experience needed. Companies are now outsourcing and looking for SOC as-a-service, especially sought after in fast-growing organizations. Using solutions like those provided by GlobalDots and CloudFlare’s services, stakeholders can keep their organizations safe without the time, effort, planning, and expense usually required when dealing with this using internal resources.
As part of the partnership, GlobalDots will continue to provide professional services for CloudFlare’s Content Delivery Network (CDN), Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation, web security products, and Dynamic Domain Name System (DDNS). After thorough training with Cloudflare solutions, the GlobalDots professional team will provide Cloudflare customers globally with trusted Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings, including ongoing hands-on-keyboard configuration updates and fine-tuning.
“This service will benefit existing and new Cloudflare customers,” Francesco Altomare, Sales Engineer, S. Europe Regional Manager at GlobalDots, told me. “As businesses rely more and more on online revenue, data volume soars – and so does sophisticated, quickly-evolving cybercrime. Detecting attacks and fraudulent activities require sifting through endless traffic streams. An effective mechanism for that job, along with a professional eye, is an absolute must.”
The partnership is strategic for Cloudflare, which collaborates with many companies to improve its support for existing and new clients.
“CloudFlare’s support capacity is limited to top-tier clients,” Altomare said. “To scale, it recruited trusted world-class partners, such as GlobalDots and Wipro. These partners bring a huge added value in their holistic view of a client’s entire cloud architecture and solutions stack, beyond Cloudflare’s web solutions.”
In addition, GlobalDots will help customers attain high-level security solutions to complement this service, such as cloud workload protection, API security, and open-source code security.
GlobalDots engineers will integrate with third-party security tools, services, analytics, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms, such as Splunk, and Sumo Logic. GlobalDots will provide a holistic view of a customer’s threat profile outside just the Cloudflare solutions through these perks.
So how does SOC as-a-service compare with in-house solutions, and what are the main benefits?
“In-house security teams are, by definition, overworked, Altomare said. “You can’t possibly expect them to keep up with the fast pace in which technology and best practices evolve in the web & cloud sphere. The booming variety of security solutions as a result, and the increasing difficulty in recruiting in-house security engineers, make this task even harder for young, fast-growing companies. This has created a wide demand for Security Operation Centers as-a-service, especially in fast-growing organizations.”
And CloudFlare’s head of support concurs with this view.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of the internet as a primary channel for many businesses,” says Otto Imken, head of support of Cloudflare. “Dealing with today’s volume of data, you need a reliable mechanism to sift through all traffic and find the attacks more easily. Even with the most sophisticated tools, this can be time-consuming work. And that’s before you even get to responding and mitigating those attacks.”
So, what’s next for GlobalDots?
“Innovation never rests, so we don’t either,” Altomare said. “We’re on a constant hunt for solutions that can help our customers streamline and scale in today’s hectic reality. We already offer a single address for cloud infrastructure planning, innovation implementation, professional services, outsourced DevOps, NOC, corporate IT, and the latest addition – Cloudflare’s SOC. Stay tuned for more exciting technologies we keep adding to our ever-evolving portfolio.”
