Avaya Inc. on Tuesday announced it is dipping its fingers into the enterprise security pot with the launch of security consulting offerings through its services division.
The Basking Ridge, N.J.-based network provider said it will address the security needs of firms by supplying assessment, policy development and design consulting for all communication networks – what it refers to as an “all-inclusive approach.” Avaya’s security consulting team will work with individual enterprises to minimize vulnerabilities on any vendor’s communications system, according to a statement issued by the company.
Avaya says it has developed two offerings to support policies that are developed: the Avaya Security Assessment and the Avaya Security Architecture and Design offer. The first will provide customers with an understanding of what state their networks are in, and will include a view of the network from a hacker’s perspective; the latter will allow consultants to “integrate and mitigate security issues in the network,” the company said.
The company is targeting the services at large enterprises, according to Clay Sutton, Avaya’s Atlanta-based director of network consulting services. With that in mind, the company will be working with both CxOs and technical staff.
“We certainly have to deal with the CxO level in order for them to understand the value proposition of the services that we bring and how that addresses their heightened need for security,” he offered. “But during implementation we certainly will have to team with and work with the technical people inside that organization.”
And, just as with any consulting group, Sutton said customers will be “paying for our time.”
Avaya also on Tuesday said it will be releasing financial tools to enable enterprises to monitor and assess the results of network operation through a maintenance services agreement with the company.
Sophia Williams, Dallas-based vice-president of marketing for Avaya Services business group, explained that these offerings are not actual products that are sold to the customer. Instead, they are used by Avaya to “allow customers to make informed decisions as to the wide breadth of services solutions available to them, and to consider alternatives, (and) the costs of alternatives,” she said.
“But they are much more than a cost comparison. They in fact allow a business impact decision to be made by looking at, for example…hidden costs. So it is not just a comparison of this bill to that bill. It really takes it much deeper and really assesses the true business impact.”
The company announced a total of five tools on Tuesday. The first, according to Williams, focuses on Avaya’s maintenance services and compares the cost of Avaya maintenance services agreements against other alternatives for customers’ Avaya systems.
“The other four tools are return on investment tools and they focus on assist services, application services, managed services and remote network management services,” she said.
Avaya Canada Corp., in Markham, Ont., is on the Web at http://www.avaya.ca.