Exclusive Interview: Anuj Gupta, CEO, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic

Details of your business in the IT sector  

We are a global SI providing Security and Datacentre solutions to Enterprise and government businesses. At Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic, our focus is to create new values through co-creation with customers. By applying our deep industry and functional expertise we bring an entire gamut of expertise to manage the digital ecosystem from cable to cloud.

Our Managed Security Services combines consulting, design, products and services to provide an end-to-end solution that ensures high performance to enable digital transformation in a secure framework. Our credentials in this space are derived from our expertise and experience in designing, integrating implementing and managing some of the most secure networks for large enterprise businesses in the country.

As our MSSP’s services portfolio broadens, vendor selection becomes increasingly important as this not only impacts customer satisfaction and security but our profitability as well. That is where Fortinet comes in and we have been partners for more than a decade as their Security Fabric helps us integrate third-party solutions into a close-knit ecosystem. Using their open and integrated architecture we have delivered advanced services across markets and verticals, including advanced threat protection, Internet of Things (IoT), SD-WAN, hybrid cloud security, automation, secure WiFi and more.

How is the security market progressing and what are the business challenges from an SI perspective?

With the digitization boom and increasing, threat landscape data breaches have become inevitable as no one can be 100% secure. And in many cases, network breaches are going undetected for a long time. At a time when businesses are forced to move faster than ever, no one can afford a slow-down associated with security incidents and hence we are seeing an increased spend on security solutions.

As an SI it is challenging in terms of hiring professionals with technical skills. The cybersecurity skills gap continues to widen, it is creating what some now consider to be one of the top cybersecurity risks for many customers. Along with technical skills we also have a shortage of domain expertise that is required to design the right solution for a customer’s specific needs.

What measures are you taking to meet these challenges?

To address the skill gap we regularly conduct a campus recruitment drive to acquire a good number of fresh graduates. We train them on various security technologies like the Fortinet’s Network Security Experts program which is designed to give freshers the skills and first-hand experience required to secure customers’ networks from existing and evolving threats.

The cybersecurity skill gap has made it difficult for organizations of any size to find qualified employees with the necessary cybersecurity background needed to protect their digital assets from advanced threats. Without these professionals in place, however, it is impossible for customers to build in-house security operation centers (SOCs) needed to adequately monitor, detect, and respond to threats. As an SI we are seeing opportunities in providing the required security expertise and Security-as-a-Service to address this challenge, giving customers access to the expertise they need in a more accessible way.

What are the business opportunities in securing Hybrid Cloud, Applications, IoT, SD-Branch, SIEM, Access Control, WAF and NGFW?

The network perimeter is being replaced with new edge networks, such as SaaS applications, user-owned mobile devices, or directly connected systems that no longer backhaul traffic to the central network for inspection. As data moves between multi-cloud, IoT, SD-WAN and next-gen branch offices, and mobile devices, the challenge is ensuring consistency in securing these environments. Securing each of these environments is a specialised business opportunity as the deployed solution needs to be adapted to the unique requirements of each edge environment.

One trend in the MSSP space is the expanding range of services we provide and our offerings may include everything from virtual private networks (VPNs) to data center virtualization, from software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) to SD-Branch, and from endpoint protection to web application firewalls. Further, as companies in every industry undergo digital transformation, it is critical to offer multi-cloud security. Threat intelligence and advanced threat protection—through sandboxing, security information and event management (SIEM), and other capabilities—are also crucial in combating ever-more-sophisticated threats.

The most effective security infrastructure is built on tightly integrated solutions that share real-time threat intelligence. The Security Fabric integrates both Fortinet and third-party solutions into a close-knit ecosystem. This approach enables us to offer easier, faster, and more complete visibility into vulnerabilities and threats across the network. Using a single interface we are able to manage a wide range of security components, which can substantially improve productivity. Leveraging threat intelligence from FortiGuard Labs helps us further enhances the solutions’ ability to defend against unknown threats.

Please share details of any Customer wins and deployments

One of our leading customers a NBFC had branch offices across India connected through MPLS lines. With increasing bandwidth requirements, they were looking at moving away from MPLS in favor of broadband in order to reduce OPEX spending.  The separation of network and security operations was a challenge as it would be labor-intensive and also make it difficult to tie things like traditionally network-centric issues such as performance and functionality to critical security and data inspection. They were looking at an SD-WAN solution with security to provide an enterprise-class next-generation firewall security to all its branches and applications.

We deployed a FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall with tightly integrated SD-WAN functionality. This helped realise the benefits of a compelling solution that combines the increased scalability, flexibility, simplicity and cost savings of SD-WAN with industry-leading security protection. Fortinet has helped them simplify monitoring of SD-WAN deployments with a single-pane-of-glass view for centralized management, configuration and monitoring tools for both SD-WAN and security.

FortiNAC provides the required visibility to monitor and manage all devices connected in the network and FortiSwitch significantly reduces the access time by selecting the most efficient route for SaaS, Voice over IP (VoIP) and other business-critical traffic through the tracking of granular WAN path information, such as latency, jitter, and packet loss.

The customer is now able to save cost on OPEX spending with direct internet access and also investments in point solutions for security with reduced management time. The solution has ensured that users have high availability and performance to all applications in the network.