Cilasoft Sales Boosted by Security Migrations

June 25, 2013 Dan Burger

Cilasoft, an international software company based in France that specializes in security, audit, and compliance software for the IBM Power Systems running the IBM i operating system, is reporting a 20 percent gain in revenue in 2012, according to company president Guy Marmorat.

A growing portion of the increases comes from companies already equipped with security software. These replacement deals, which Marmorat estimated were responsible for one-fifth of all sales in 2011, have increased to more than one-third of Cilasoft sales in the first quarter of 2013. To better accommodate IBM i shops that are unhappy with their previous security software vendor, Cilasoft has worked out a “migration path program” that translates rules from the previous product to Cilasoft.

“We have a strong, well-selected partner channel that is increasing each year. It’s doing good job for customers and our customers generally behave as if they were our sales people and we get new leads this way,” Marmorat says.

The primary reasons for companies’ dissatisfaction with existing security software is increased cost combined with a lack of product enhancements, according to the Cilasoft president.

“When a change occurs in their hardware [such as an upgrade to a new machine or the addition of a virtual partition] that will have a significant impact on a company’s software budget,” Marmorat says. “Companies are taking this opportunity to revisit what products are available on the security and compliance market and think to switch. As a result, more companies are evaluating and choosing to buy our products. Lack of flexibility is also an issue. Security and compliance are not static. Customer applications and technical environments are changing, which brings new potential breaches and making reports and alerts inaccurate. Companies are complaining about that, too.”

One advantage Cilasoft has over some competitors is its pricing, which is tied to the processor group. The company levies no additional charges based on the number of partitions a company is using.

“We know that IBM is currently working on a new software licensing model and we will wait and see if it is more convenient for our customers,” Marmorat says, leaving the door open to possible licensing changes in the future. (For more details on what IBM has in mind, see “IBM Is Working On New Software Licensing Schemes”, which was published by IT Jungle in April.

The Cilasoft product lineup is led by a tool called CONTROLLER, which was designed for controlling and monitoring network security via the exit points IBM built into the IBM i OS to augment traditional 5250 access. Cilasoft covers the most popular exit points–like FTP, ODBC, DDM, and SQL–as well as some of the more obscure ones, including the Distributed Relational Database Access (DRDA) protocol. Much of its success can be attributed to its combination of being highly customizable, yet simple enough that an IBM i technical expert isn’t required to configure the monitoring and protection required in regulated environments.

The latest enhancements to CONTROLLER, covering more exit points, were announced in February.

Marmorat says the company is now focusing on new features like message queue auditing and monitoring and better integration with SIEM products. The company is also working on audit models for some well-known ERP (but unnamed) software vendors.

Cilasoft products have received “Ready for Pure System” certification from IBM, a program that IBM i chief architect Steve Will says is a key to the success of Pure Systems.

“From what I heard and saw from this machine, it looks promising,” Marmorat noted. “I noticed that only a few of our customers are planning to upgrade to Pure Systems in the short term. But I expect a more significant move will happen later.”

Cilasoft is hosting a webinar Thursday, June 27, that will cover five access point controls that optimize IBM i security and compliance. The topics to be covered include: STRSQL at the statement level, unauthorized interactive jobs, interactive joblogs, access to command lines, and access to critical files. The session begins at 1 p.m. EDT. For additional information and registration, click on this link.