Intrusion Prevention Specialist (IPS) Sourcefire has launched a formal programme to provide certified interoperability with a roster of point security vendors to help the channel sell integrated security solutions.
The Sourcefire Technology Partner Programme will initially launch with nine vendors who have agreed to reciprocally integrate with the firm’s Snort-based engine. The list includes specialists such as Netwitness, Q1Labs and Qualys. Unsurprisingly, the list does not include any of the larger vendors with rival IPS offerings such as MacAfee, Symantec or Cisco.
Sourcefire offers a commercialised version of the well-respected Snort IPS/IDS engine, which has been extended in features and backed by enterprise-grade support. The firm has around 150 customers in the UK and the heritage of the Snort open source version is helping the business grow. According to Graham Welch, managing director for Sourcefire in EMEA, “Customers often use Snort to prove a point, often as a proof of concept tool” before, in his view, turning to Sourcefire’s more enterprise-friendly version of the tool.
The company runs a 100 percent channel model in the UK and is distributed exclusively via Avnet, a partnership it signed in March this year.
Welch believes that interoperability will help the UK channel of around 15 partners reduce migration challenges and, more importantly, ensure that any support issues are correctly handled. However, not all of the vendors on the list are fully-supported, although Welch believes the number is likely to grow.
The interoperability programme will help Sourcefire to import intelligence from leading vulnerability management solutions for more effective impact assessment. It can also share information with SIEM solutions for increased event correlation and remediate to NAC solutions to quarantine hosts associated with security events.
