Tenable Offers Appliance For Software Suite

Nessus is well known in the network security market for their vulnerability scanners, now available through the new Tenable Appliance 100, a hardware appliance that allows plug-and play scanning.

According to a release from the company, "The Tenable Appliance is a browser-managed application that hosts various Tenable enterprise applications including Nessus, Security Center (SC), Log Correlation Engine (LCE) and Passive Vulnerability Scanner (PVS). The Tenable Appliance is available as either a virtual machine (VM) download or as a physical hardware appliance. The Tenable appliance provides a preinstalled image of all Tenable applications in one easy to configure interface."

Ron Gula, CEO of Tenable, says that customer requests have driven the development of the hardware appliance. "We're running into organizations who have to have an appliance solution. They can't use software alone, they can't go virtual, they have to have the appliance. This is for customers who don't want to install the software on their own hardware, who want a single point of contact for the solution support," he explains.

Paul Roberts, senior analyst for enterprise security at The 451 Group says that offering the software as an appliance is an evolutionary step that's being taken by many companies. He says, "You're seeing many other vendors in the same space -- vulnerability scanning, log management, security management -- looking at appliances rather than software. The reasons are straightforward; the customers say they're easier to deploy and manage, and they can get a hardened device so they're not as concerned with security on the device. The trend toward appliance deployment is pronounced."

The initial version of the Tenable Appliance, The Tenable Appliance 100, is available with the Nessus Scanner and the Nessus Security Center. Gula says that the security center is designed to let companies manage multiple scanners from a single web-based console. He says that the basic concept of the appliance was honed through deployment of the virtual appliance, which was released in September 2008. "There's no extra cost for the virtual appliance; we've made it part of the service you get with the professional feed. A lot of our customers make use of the virtual appliance. If they're using virtual technology, they like it a lot. We have one customer who's using 300 virtual images, and they love it. For customers who want to have a single image or a cloud based solution for scanning it's a popular solution," he says.The drive toward a single appliance-based solution is part of the evolution of security software as a category. Companies that once valued the ability to deploy software on existing or company-chosen platform now select single points of contact when maintenance and support issues arise. The costs associated with the appliances are considered trivial when compared with ease of support and rapid issue resolution.

The Tenable Appliance 100 is available now for $4,995. Licenses for Nessus and Security Center are additional charges. Gula says that Appliance 200, which will target users needing to scan class B networks or single networks with more than 10,000 IP addresses, will be released later this year.