eChannelLine Daily News 18-June-2006 CipherOptics launches partner program by Dave Chappelle CipherOptics Inc. has announced its Data Protection Partner Program. The program is designed to help CipherOptics partners use their security expertise to help customers deploy data protection solutions that customers need and that make sense. "This provides the channel with access to data protection solutions that are transparent to the network, and that don't require a lot of processing overhead, so there is no impact to network or application performance," said Brandon Hoff, CMO of Raleigh, N.C.-based CipherOptics. "We offer competitive margins and proven technology, giving the channel a real alternative for robust data protection." The program is intended to give channel partners a way to differentiate themselves from their competition. "CipherOptics partners can now offer top-of-the-line security solutions that are easy to sell, install, and maintain over the life of the product. In the real world of network security, compliance, and data protection, CipherOptics solutions for protecting Data in Motion will easily give channel partners the competitive advantage they need," said Hoff. "With the increased demand for data protection solutions worldwide -- security product revenue is growing at a fast pace of 35 per cent per year, one of the largest growth segments in information technology -- we see great opportunities for our partners to solve customer problems with our solutions in four areas: protecting data storage, protecting data on third party networks (Metro Ethernet and MPLS), securing sensitive virtual networks and securing wireless end-to-end. Our channel partners are an integral part of CipherOptics success, and we are committed to providing them with the resources and support they need to be successful selling CipherOptics data protection solutions." The firm has installations in Fortune 100 companies, top-tier financial institutions, healthcare providers, and government agencies. It sees its target market as any organization that moves a lot of data that must be kept confidential over the network, and any organization facing increasing regulation of how they protect data are going to be top prospects. By taking a completely different approach and providing solutions beyond just products, CipherOptics delivers a data protection overlay that is transparent to the network. It combines an appliance-based approach that integrates data protection into the network quickly and seamlessly process without any impact to network performance. The key differentiator for CipherOptics is centralized key and policy management to lower the cost of deployment and management of data protection solutions. "No other company can provide the advanced management capabilities to proactively manage a centralized management system that covers Protecting 3rd Party Networks, Securing Sensitive Virtual Networks, and Protecting Wireless End-to-End," said Hoff. "These advantages give CipherOptics partners a one-stop shop for data protection solutions that their customers need, the training and expertise to deploy Pentagon class security solutions, and the support to make sure each and every installation is a success." CipherOptics solutions provide security through granular access control and encryption policy, while delivering guaranteed data integrity. The solutions are designed to be easy to install, simple to manage, and transparent to the network. They are also designed to scale to provide data protection to the largest networks, and to work within any high-speed IP or Ethernet network. "Other data protection solutions are cumbersome, expensive and often proprietary," said Hoff. "From a competitive point-of-view there is no firm that covers all of the areas that CipherOptics does. CipherOptics covers the four areas: Protecting Data Storage, Protecting Data over 3rd Party Networks, Securing Sensitive Virtual Networks, and Protecting Wireless End-to-End. On top of this, we simplify the management of keys and policy and the ability to run encryption without breaking current operations. Cipheroptics provides the leading protection for when storage data gets risky, when it touches IP, and IP is where most records have been lost. Decru and NeoScale protect tape storage, but they don't protect IP storage, the highest growth sector as well." CipherOptics protects on third party networks at both Layer 2 and Layer 3, so that customers can deploy the network that makes sense to them. It provides data protection isolated by LAN segments, IP ports, application types, or VLANs, and even down to the client. "No other company provides such a complete network based solution," Hoff said. "In protecting wireless end-to-end, CipherOptics solves two key problems, one is where do you decrypt? Many access points are not in secure locations. And second, how does a security team provide a consistent security for all wireless links? CipherOptics enables customers to deploy a single security technology that can protect wireless networks (legacy, new installations, point to point, and emerging technologies) as a transparent overlay. No other provider can solve these problems."