CA Strengthens Security Posture with Orchestria

CA is jumping into the data-loss prevention game with the acquisition of Orchestria. The deal will fill a significant hole in CA’s security software line and provide it and its partners with a new competitive weapon.

“The DLP space is gaining a lot of traction in the market as customers are increasingly concerned with protecting their data and private information against identity theft and intellectual property loss,” says Bill Mann, senior vice president of information security strategy at CA.

CA has long produced and supported antivirus and antispam software, as well as security information management applications. However, CA is a tertiary player against market leaders such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro.

CA has seen success in the identity and access management (IAM) space, but that technology does not necessarily address the security of a company’s data, only which users and specific roles have access to it. DLP focuses only on protecting mission-critical data without specifying which personnel within an organization can access and modify the data. 

Combining DLP and IAM technology will allow CA solution providers to address shortcomings with both technologies and deliver a comprehensive security solution, he says. When used together, CA’s IAM technology and Orchestria’s DLP solution will help solution providers strengthen their customers’ security postures by controlling access to data and setting policies on how that data can be used based on an user’s identity and role. 

“To address customers’ pain points, we saw it as really critical to add IAM to the DLP technology,” says Mann.

For solution providers, the acquisition and integration of Orchestria’s technology can provide revenue opportunities built on customization services, says Mann. While both DLP and IAM are fairly straightforward software packages, solution providers can deliver services based on the specific needs of customers, whether in a horizontal or vertical market, says Mann.

“Ultimately as a software vendor, we focus on making technology easy to integrate and deploy to keep total cost of ownership as low as possible for customers,” he says. “There are, however, significant services components for our partners to define user identity and roles, set policies and classify data, depending on the customer’s unique needs,” Mann says.

This is the third security-related acquisition CA has made in the past three months as part of its strategy to develop a comprehensive information security solution, Mann says.

In November, CA acquired Eurekify for that company’s role-based management technology, which analyzes user data and suggests user roles and access rights based on their relationships with specific personnel and projects. CA’s October acquisition of IDFocus provided CA with a set of identity management tools, Mann adds. 

The deal is expected to close by the end of the month, and CA expects to retain nearly all of Orchestria’s employees. Mann says CA will carefully evaluate Orchestria’s channel relationships to determine how best to integrate the company with CA’s channel.

“Solution providers, technology partners and vendor partnerships will all be reviewed closely so we can decide the best course of action,” Mann says. “We don’t want to close any doors on existing relationships.”