OVERVIEW

Smartronix Inc. is a U.S.-based IT and engineering solutions provider that specializes in cloud computing, cybersecurity, health IT, network operations, and mission-focused engineering for complex enterprise environments. Smartronix operates 11 offices in the U.S., with approximately 750 employees.

Smartronix helps business and government organizations move computer processes securely to the cloud. Some of its customers include multiple government agencies, top pharma and medical device companies, and two of the largest U.S. credit card organizations. Smartronix has earned accolades from industry-leading technology partners, gained recognition as an employer of choice, and received numerous industry quality and business certifications.

CHALLENGES

Security is a major concern for businesses moving data to the cloud. The greatest challenge for Smartronix is maintaining a centralized view of its customers’ security across various cloud-hosted accounts. Another challenge is the scalability of the cloud itself. On-premises customers are restricted by their physical infrastructure, but public cloud infrastructure imposes fewer boundaries. Development teams can scale out workloads quickly, but the increased capacity makes it more difficult to quickly identify the resources that have been deployed.

With the shifting cloud landscape, tracking what’s in the cloud, making certain that organizational policies enforce security, and ensuring that gaps can be closed quickly are critical requirements.

WHY TREND

With the Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ console, Smartronix can quickly view any gaps in endpoint security in the cloud. Trend Micro’s implementation capabilities also impressed Smartronix. The Trend Micro solution can point directly into a cloud services provider (CSP) account, identify resources, and determine whether configurations are under management.

Trend Micro’s application program interface (API)-level integration with CSPs, specifically Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a key differentiator. This integration enables Smartronix to track their customers’ use of Smartronix modules. The Deep Security module runtime can be broken down to hourly usage, enabling Smartronix to align its security pricing more closely with the way its customers consume cloud infrastructure.

“Looking at a lot of the different market leaders, we consider Trend Micro to be ahead of the curve with their implementation, integration for hybrid cloud environments, and CSP capabilities,” said Anthony Vultaggio, CTO, Smartronix.

SOLUTION

“Trend Micro provides centralized multi-tenant visibility across our customers’ various CSP accounts, enabling us to more easily scale our staff to support customer requirements,” said Rick Kelley, cloud practice director, Smartronix. The services offered by Smartronix are tailored closely to the way its customers use the cloud. Deep Security’s ability to manage modules by policy allows Smartronix to use tagging and intelligent decisions made by the systems themselves to push out the right policies to the right resources, as they come online. Every process has a specific malware or firewall policy governing it, in accordance with the type of resource. The policies can be pushed as each resource is provisioned within the cloud.

RESULTS

Trend Micro has helped Smartronix establish itself as a premier managed services organization, helping the company review its security service delivery capabilities on a quarterly basis. Trend Micro even provided tailored training programs. Smartronix customers know that the Trend Micro partnership helps ensure the security of their workloads, including managing regulatory workloads.

“Companies go to the cloud to take advantage of these new technologies, and Trend Micro is helping CSP partners deliver a secure, seamless experience to their customers,” said Vultaggio.

With over 4,000 end-user accounts, the automation capabilities have significantly reduced the labor it takes to maintain security across the workloads Smartronix manages, making its operations team very efficient.

WHAT'S NEXT

“A year ago, customer demand for serverless and container-based services was approximately two percent. Today, demand has grown to 20 percent and we expect to see explosive growth this year,” said Vultaggio. Smartronix is considering the additional capabilities Deep Security has to offer for managing customer workloads in containers—in the cloud and other environments. The company would like to include security in the container build process and in the container host or cluster infrastructure. Providing security within containers helps ensure that no malware infects workloads.

“Trend Micro has been a great partner that listens, and adapts quickly to the requirements of our customers and in the direction of the services they provide,” said Vultaggio.