Through its dedicated private cloud, Virtustream manages applications for enterprises of all sizes, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), electronic medical records management, and big data systems. Born in the cloud, Virtustream specializes in mission-critical workloads, expert professional and managed services, cloud software and services, enterprise-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS), cloud management software, and ERP. Virtustream’s experts help enterprises increase performance and availability, modernize IT, reduce costs, enable powerful security, and stay on top of regulatory compliance and reporting requirements.

Challenges

Virtustream requires robust security to protect both its own systems and its customers’ data. Since customers often connect their private Virtustream environment to their own corporate networks, Virtustream must constantly work with data coming into its network—creating a unique security challenge. “We have to ensure that we catch and contain all malware coming into our environment to prevent it from spreading and contaminating sensitive customer data,” says Alon Diamant-Cohen, security operations service delivery lead for Virtustream.

Virtustream’s multi-tenant environment requires the ability to easily create and customize new tenants and functionalities for each customer while keeping customer data fully segregated. In addition, safe, easy, and consistent access for customers is a must for any cloud service provider. As a result, Virtustream needs to employ security tools that allow access to mission-critical applications without slowing down customers or causing system outages.

To complement its private cloud services, Virtustream also acts as a security vendor. Originally, the company offered only antivirus and anti-malware services to customers. In 2014, Virtustream looked to expand its line of optional managed security services but found that its existing security vendor limited its ability to accomplish that.

"Customers who are using Deep Security have had tremendous success managing their mission critical data and maintaining compliance within the Virtustream Enterprise Cloud."

Alon Diamant-Cohen
Security Operations Service Delivery Lead
Virtustream

Why Trend Micro

Virtustream’s primary concern is to ensure its customers’ mission-critical applications and data are secure. Since Virtustream supports highly-regulated markets like healthcare, government, and education, meeting industry-specific regulatory requirements is critical. In 2015, the Virtustream team met with Trend Micro and discussed a partnership that would allow the company to ensure that customer data and applications are protected, while also allowing Virtustream to expand its managed security offerings to better serve its customers.

After discussing the options, Virtustream chose Trend Micro™ Deep Security™. In addition to enabling best-of-breed security, Deep Security’s modularity and depth of features allows Virtustream to offer its customers customized private cloud solutions tailored to meet their business needs.

Solutions

With Deep Security, Virtustream delivers the security its customers need to meet strict privacy, compliance, and regulatory requirements for standards such as Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). “It’s hard to overstate how important compliance is to our customers across a number of industries,” says Diamant-Cohen. “Deep Security helps us ensure that we are compliant, and that our customers can achieve compliance in our cloud.”

Deep Security offers great flexibility, allowing Virtustream to sell standalone services and customize the policies being enforced in those services to meet customer needs. Deep Security also enables Virtustream to easily streamline, automate, and scale its security and virtual private cloud capabilities. “Along with security, load balancing and failover are critical capabilities when we’re supporting a customer’s critical business functions,” says Diamant-Cohen.

"Trend Micro takes our needs seriously. It’s one thing to say, ‘We hear you.’ It’s another thing to have your needs completely resolved within a week."

Alon Diamant-Cohen
Security Operations Service Delivery Lead
Virtustream

Results

Since deploying Deep Security, Virtustream and its customers have successfully mitigated attempted attacks originating from a variety of threat vectors. “Customers who are using Deep Security have experienced nothing but success,” says Alon Diamant-Cohen. “The stability has been excellent, and the number of serious security issues has been minimal.”

Trend Micro’s ongoing research gives Virtustream confidence in their ability to stay on top of new threats, with the level of transparency and support from Trend Micro being a true differentiator. “Early on, we had some big customers we weren’t equipped to manage on our own,” says Daniel Shaul, Virtustream’s team lead for security managed services. “Once we had Trend Micro’s support, those customer relationships blossomed.”

The Virtustream team has developed a strong and productive relationship with Trend Micro, based on mutual support. “We have a direct line to the company,” says Diamant- Cohen. “Trend Micro takes our needs seriously. It’s one thing to say, ‘We hear you.’ It’s another thing to have your needs completely resolved within a week.”

What's Next

Virtustream is seeing steady increases in new business and heightened demand for its managed security services. “Now that we have a partner that works with us, we need to continue incrementally automating the service delivery elements of the process,” says Diamant-Cohen. “Trend Micro is a valuable partner that is helping us meet our growing business and security demands. We plan to continue working with them to create more agile and automated security solutions for our current and future customers.”