Datacom Secures Cloud with Trend Micro

Data centre provider Datacom has signed up as Trend Micro’s first Australian partner for its Trend Ready for Cloud Service Provider’s program.

According to Datacom director of cloud enterprise tools, Rob Purdy, the service is aimed at the  mid market, and is designed to allay fears that segment has about cloud security and data sovereignty.

“It’s a platform that is designed to provide secure cloud toolsets, such as anti-virus, data sovereignty and secure tenancy,” said Purdy.

Datacom has nine data centres around Australia, and Purdy said the Trend deal will assist in securing cloud tenants to the highest degree. “The market we are aiming at is between 250 and 2000 seats,” he told CRN. “We find that the larger enteprise organisations are still typically hosting their own solutions.”

Trend Micro’s local managing director, Sanjay Mehta, said the program is intended to provide organisations confidence about having their data in the cloud. “When I am talking to these companies, what they are most worried about is their data security,” he said. “And that could be things like anti-virus, or where their data is physically located so that it’s not subject to foreign laws.”

Mehta said there has been a significant change in attitude to the cloud over the last twelve months. “I think we’re moving from a cloud last strategy to a cloud first strategy,” he said

“That means there’s also been a change in the type of customers wanting to go to the cloud, and associated with that is a change in their expectations about the security of the cloud,” he added.

Mehta said Datacom has been a long-term partner for Trend Micro in Australia, and that the deal between the two organisations would assist in driving cloud adoption further into the mid and upper mid markets.

The deal between the two companies comes as research firm Gartner has found Australian companies will spend $1.7 billion on security technologies and services in 2013, a figure up 12.2 percent from $1.5 billion in 2012.

According to Gartner, there are four trends shaping the security market both here and overseas. These are mobile security, cloud, big data and changes to the concept of identity. “Smart organisations will realise in advance there is going to be some security spend associated with planned cloud adoption,” said Gartner analyst Rob McMillan.

“Others will organically adopt cloud and then figure out they need to spend something on security later on,” he added.

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