Symantec Jump-Starts Solution Providers' Service Practices

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With security growing as a more and more lucrative business, solution providers want to get in the game. Symantec, who calls itself the "battery" behind solution provider security businesses, is there to help.

Senior Vice President John Thompson said Symantec provides a major resource to partners: a huge amount of real-time data on security breaches and attacks. Symantec's Deep Sight program collects data from its worldwide data centers and sends it out to partners. It's a major cost-cutter in a security offering.

"An individual partner can't always afford to stand up a data center with a hundred terabytes of data, which is what we have," said Thompson.

Symantec also puts together product resource kits for partners who want to start a service practice.

"We give them literally gigabytes of information, our IP, we license it. We tell them how to establish a service practice, we coach them on how to do that. We actually share our tools," said Thompson.

Symantec recently launched a security simulation platform, which educates partners on the motives and processes real hackers use.

"One of the things we've invested a lot in is how do you train and build that [security] IQ," said Symantec Senior Vice President and General Manager Samir Kapuria.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 28, 2015