The commoditization of services means that providers face serious challenges as margins are eroded away. Andreas Åsander, VP product management, Clavister explains: “Service providers trade in intensely competitive areas where industry saturation is forcing the price of standard services down virtually eliminating profit margins. The result is that there is little to differentiate suppliers and so no competitive advantage.

However, as the Internet is used as a business platform, it has become a greater target for people who aim to use it in a criminal manner.

Some service providers already sell security services as part of their offering but these often require installation of a physical box at the customer’s premises. That involves the cost of the hardware and the resources to install it, placing the final price tag beyond the means of the average small to medium sized business (SMB).

Now, operators and network infrastructure players wanting to ride the wave of this significant business opportunity have a more attractive virtual alternative thanks to network security specialist Clavister.

Clavister’s Virtual Security Gateway (VSG) can be installed at the data center or on the core network of the operator and each individual Internet connection or customer can have their own dedicated security gateway. It can also support managed service providers in achieving effective data center security while reducing total cost of ownership of equipment.