Endpoint Security: When Two Isn’t Better Than One
If you think keeping one endpoint solution up to date is the pinnacle of drudgery, try maintaining two.
And yet that is what many managed services providers end up doing. An MSP acquires one piece of software to combat viruses and another to take on malware. MSPs, rightfully, seek to provide comprehensive coverage that shields clients from the latest threats, such as CryptoLocker and other examples of ransomeware. But the task of deploying two endpoint solutions–and of keeping them up to scratch–represents a huge time and money drain for the service provider.
There is an alternative to dual-endpoint solutions, however. Webroot SecureAnywhere provides an antivirus and antimalware solution in a single package that is faster to install than the typical, thick-client endpoint protection product. With such products, install footprints in excess of 500 MB are not uncommon. SecureAnywhere’s cloud-based approach, in contrast, avoids the burden of bulky software installations, employing a lightweight client of less than 1 MB. The quicker installation time reduces an MSP’s labor costs and improves productivity. SecureAnywhere’s cloud-based signature database also eliminates the time-consuming process of downloading and installing signature updates to every endpoint device at the customer’s location.
A Case in Point
Solis, an MSP based in Austin, Texas, demonstrates how managed services firms can take advantage of the unified SecureAnywhere solution. The company had been using two products to guard the endpoint: Panda Antivirus and the enterprise edition of Malwarebytes. But when Solis looked for a new solution to complement its LabTech IT automation software, it selected SecureAnywhere as a unified solution and dropped the two-product approach.
“Now we don’t have to do that–we have just one product, and that helps our bottom line,” said Jason Whitehurst, Solis’ vice president of IT services.
Whitehurst said SecureAnywhere’s lack of signature updates provides another edge.
“Before we switched to Webroot, we discovered that our customers with approximately 50 endpoints were seeing over 30 gigabytes of traffic flowing across the network—in and out of that environment, through the Internet and across a network—that only dealt with antivirus signature files,” noted Whitehurst. “Think about how much overhead that is on a customer network.
The Solis experience makes for a compelling before-and-after comparison. Prior to installing Webroot’s technology, the MSP needed multiple antivirus solutions, and those solutions placed excessive bandwidth and storage demands on customer infrastructure. Solis also faced constant antivirus updates.
But with SecureAnywhere, Solis enjoys the efficiency advantages of a single solution and a signature-free approach that reduces bandwidth and storage costs. Another plus: Webroot’s remote management technology lets Solis roll out endpoint protection to hundreds of machines in a matter of minutes.
Read the complete Solis case study and learn more about Webroot’s single-solution endpoint protection for MSPs.
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