Network Associates Adds McAfee Firewall Managed Service

The firewall solution further rounds out McAfee's ASaP managed offering that started out targeting consumers with a managed antivirus solution about 18 months ago. Since then, McAfee has expanded the solution to target small and mid-size businesses as well, said Gary Brand, director of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Network Associates' channel group.

The managed service is available through partners, who in the future may have the option of not just reselling, but offering the service as their own managed service. Under that plan, partners would set up the service and monitor and optimize the network environment, with ASaP as the foundation, Brand said.

For now, resellers set up the firewall service by going to a Web site and making minor field-based configurations. A software agent in turn is pushed out to the desktop, and every time a user is online, the desktop is automatically updated with the latest protection measures to block unauthorized network access and data theft, hacks, nukes, Trojans and Denial of Service attacks.

The service also pushes out the latest updates automatically to all the desktops on the customer's systems, without every PC having to be connected to the McAfee ASaP Web site.

"For our business partners, it's an easy solution to set up and sell," Brand said. "So far, the service [from a selling point] has really worked out well for our partner community."

The partner or the customer's IT administrator also has access to an online console that monitors and logs system activity.

The service costs about $2.70 per desktop, including basic support, Brand said.