Denim, Rackspace Partner On Remote Scanning

Instead of evangelizing managed services on its own, Denim Group is working through a partner — Rackspace Hosting — to offer remote vulnerability scanning services to Rackspace customers. Here are some quick observations.

John Dickson, principal at Denim Group, is taking his message to video — offering a quick summary of the news in this clip:

More Perspective

As part of the Rackspace effort, Dickson said the company had to resize its traditional services for large enterprise networks.

“We were able to decompose the components of a security assessment … and build them back up to the size of a Rackspace deployment,” Dickson said.

Many of the assessment services in the market, however, aren’t geared toward customers with five to 10 machines in a hosted environment, Dickson explained. He said Denim aims to provide a service that is more than an automated scan, but costs far less than a custom consulting engagement. He noted that Rackspace customers are price sensitive.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard could prove a source of managed security business. Dickson said a lot of companies need to comply with PCI and scanning is part of the regimen.

Other services Denim said it plans to provide Rackspace clients include training in secure software development and the evaluation of software development strategies.

(Quick side note to MSPs: Apple iMovie, part of the iLife software suite, allows you to edit and crop video quickly. And Rode Microphones can vastly improve sound quality in your videos.)

Contributing blogger John Moore covers Master MSPs, Web hosts and emerging opportunities. Additional reporting by Joe Panettieri. Follow MSPmentor via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. And sign up for our Enewsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center.