Notwithstanding slowdown, security industry is performing well in India. This is due to the fact that security is an area which can be ignored at our own peril. This has been well understood by the industry.

As many analysts had rightly predicted, 2009 is producing the tightest economic conditions in decades. The slowdown, tight credit markets and recessionary conditions mean that most CIOs are facing a monumental dilemma as they find themselves caught between tough economic conditions and competitive pressures. Naturally, the CIOs are feeling the downward spiral of the economy right where it hurts – in their IT budgets.

To add woes to the slowdown worries, security professionals are facing the most serious threat environment in the recent past. Apart from Hackers’ tactics becoming more targeted, additional enterprise risk is being generated due to the increase in the number and business importance of web applications. Budgets may be tight, but responsibility does not change: minimize risk.
True, it’s asking too much in the face of spending cutbacks, but because budgets are getting tight, you have to be focussed on how to best reduce risk, and it is definitely not tantamount to paying less attention to security. On the contrary, at times like these, that may be the biggest mistake.

It seems, in India, security professionals are not making that mistake. According to the Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Network Security Market CY 2008 report, the Indian network security market grew a decent 23.5% on a YoY (year-on-year) basis. On a QoQ (quarter-on-quarter) basis, the market grew by a minimal 1.5% in Q4’08.

“In India, the Integrated Security Appliances market is witnessing traction. The shift in the SMB sector towards an Internet-enabled business model and the expansion of large enterprises setting up new branches, is leading to the adoption of integrated security appliances,” says Mr Shubhomoy Biswas, Country Director, SonicWALL, India & SAARC.
“Integrated security appliances are witnessing high penetration from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. It offers features such as firewall, VPN, anti-virus, anti-Spam, IDS and IPS. Besides, it also has features such as content filtering, virtualization, URL filtering and routing,” adds Shubhomoy.
As a recent trend, the UTM appliance also inspects all network traffic and does identity management as well. The IT and BPO industries are currently the two biggest consumers of security solutions in India, boosting growth in the country's IT security industry.

The year 2009 heralds the beginning of a new business cycle that will not have as high a growth rate as the previous period between 2003 and 2007, but will actually continue from the old high-growth cycle. The global ICT market intelligence firm, IDC India predicts that the domestic Indian IT/ITeS market will grow at 13.4% in 2009.

Among the Top 5 growth markets predicted in the APAC, India will continue to lead the pack with 11.4-per cent growth rate projected for 2009 in domestic IT spending. As per top analyst predictions, the UTM segment has maintained a positive growth rate despite the current economic slowdown, and is keeping the security market buoyant.

Cyberoam is of the view that network markets will continue to grow, since the Internet is a vital necessity for communicating with customers, vendors, partners and others via e-mail. In the present times of increasingly sophisticated “blended” threats, security has to be geared towards analyzing various network activities and UTMs aptly fit the bill. “A UTM is a multifaceted security solution that can immediately react to diverse threats faced by an organization and its various security functionalities are interoperable, with one box and single source of support. In this regard, standalone security solutions fail to integrate the functionalities in order to handle the complex, blended threats,” says Tushar Sighat, Vice-President – Operations, Cyberoam (India). “One more feature of UTM appliances is that they fulfil regulatory acts for compliance and privacy requirements,” adds Tushar.

Fortifying Channel
Channel fraternity is very serious because they realize that there are huge opportunities due to rapid growth of the SMB sector and there is increasing security awareness. “What is more substantial is that the B and C class towns today present huge opportunities and are slated to be future growth drivers for UTMs in preference of their performance advantages, convenience, and choice to customers, resellers, and product vendors,” says Tushar.

Tushar adds,”In keeping with the prospect of huge opportunities, we have created large prospective client databases – enough information for partners to focus on. We closely operate with partners through regular road shows, distribution meets and promotions in the key channel media. Simplified partner functioning through automated processes, channel awareness, increasing customer support infrastructure are other key aspects applied to strengthen partnerships and helping them reach out to more of them.”

Cyberoam’s channel partners are also appreciative of the company’s support. “Cyberoam provides identity-based technology which is exceptionally good for education sector and the vendor is transparent with us where as others are not,” says Binit Shah, Director – TM Systems.

“Support is a big challenge to the IT industry. We find Cyberoam is very good at support vis-a-vis its completion,” says Pawan Sanghavi, CEO, Techno Firm. “Cyberoam is very aggressive in the market. Their pre- and post-sales support is one of the best.”
The sales team of Cyberoam guides partners to add value while delivering security as Cyberoam invests not only in the development of powerful, integrated solutions that creates more value than comparably priced competitor products but also in training them. Cyberoam helps its partners achieve and demonstrate competence and gain industry recognition for skills, networking and security as well as in deploying, configuring and managing the Cyberoam CR appliances through its certification programmes, viz. Cyberoam Certified Network & Security Professional, CCNSP and Cyberoam Certified Network & Security Expert, CCNSE – for which instructor-led training is provided on demand. CCNSP and CCNSE are thoughtfully designed to increase efficiency in maximizing the benefits of Cyberoam appliances not only for customers and partners, but also for the certified professional’s career.

“Customers depend on their solution providers to support optimized solutions that will help them maintain a competitive advantage and build business continuity. SonicWALL enables its partners to rise to these challenges – not only by providing new programmes and promotions, but as a direct result of the foundation on which SonicWALL was built,” says Shubhomoy.

SonicWALL’s Technical Assistance Centre (TAC) which was opened last year in Bangalore provides engineering, quality assurance and customer support for the company's enterprise-class products including SonicWall Aventail Secure remote access line, SonicWall email security and the recently introduced network security appliance series.
The Bangalore facility has already delivered results in terms of improved customer satisfaction scores and enhanced product quality. “Further, it will be concentrating on growth of internal businesses, subscription services, E-class products and scale operational productivity,” says Shubhomoy.

Through the SonicWALL Medallion Partner Programme, SonicWALL builds profitability into partners' business models and supports growth with incentives that accentuate each partner's unique business.

In India, SonicWALL outlined the company's channel blueprint for this year, which will help it increase market share across its four product lines – UTM, SSL VPN, CDP and email security. It has created a breadth and depth categorization where it define breadth as the number of partners it has in B, C and D-class cities and depth as partners who have been engaging with SonicWALL for some time and generate substantial business for it.
The company will train partners on networking and security skill sets based on the regions they operate in. “Partners in metro cities need to have technical skill sets, so they can address the needs of corporate clients. But in rural cities, partners should have high geographical knowledge they operate in,” Shubhomoy elaborated.

SonicWall's CAGR growth in India over the past four years has been between 100 and 120 per cent.

Partners Training
Cyberoam enables its customers and partners to gain maximum value out of their association with Cyberoam by gaining access to greater security knowledge. Cyberoam offers four levels of trainings, as given below:
1. Basic Two-Day Workshop: Provides an overview of Current Threat-landscape and Emerging Hacking techniques.
2. Network Security Workshop: Provides knowledge on optimizing and securing your network with live Workshop on Desktop & Gateway-level Scenarios.
3. CCNSP (Cyberoam Certified Network Security Professional): Designed for acquiring expertise necessary for the installation and configuration of all Cyberoam features and functionality.
4. CCNSE (Cyberoam Certified Network Security Professional): Designed for advanced product installations, integration, support & management, and advanced troubleshooting.

Also, Cyberoam training is regularly updated and enhanced to meet its partner’s requirements of flexible, convenient, self-paced, at reduced cost and on demand training without having to take key staff out of the field or away from critical engagements. “For the year 2009, Cyberoam training will seek to innovate and improve all the time geared to increase productivity, ensure customer satisfaction and faster product adoption,” says Tushar.

SonicWALL has recently introduced three initiatives. One of the new initiatives is a "Try and Buy" programme where customers can review a SonicWALL product in their own environment for up to 30 days. They then decide if they want to purchase or return the product.

“Enabling customers to test the products live in their operating environments is the best proof-of-concept they would get. Customers can then experience first-hand the benefits of the product, ensuring that if they do invest…It will bring to them the RoI (return on investment) they are looking for,” says Shubhomoy.

Finally…
It is hardly surprising that the first half of 2009 has been among the most testing times for the industry. The scenario in the final analysis continues to pose challenges. The next one-two quarters will test the skills of the security companies in India as they fine-tune their expertise in new technologies and seek new customer orders as they come in.