DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today announced that it is joining forces with its long-standing channel partner NEC Corporation and NEC’s affiliate Netcracker Technology, the providers of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) solutions, as well as business and operations support systems (BSS/OSS), to integrate NEC and Netcracker’s management and orchestration capabilities with Trend Micro’s Virtual Network Function Suite. This will create an effective, high-performance and comprehensive virtualized network security solution that can be used in carrier-grade NFV deployments.

“As NFV continues to be recognized as next-generation network architecture, it brings not only opportunities, but also challenges, especially in how we design and plan security protections in dynamic NFV networks,” says Dr. Terence Liu, vice president of Network Threat Defense Technology Group at Trend Micro. “It is not enough to convert physical security function to a virtualized platform. An effective security virtual network function (VNF) needs to be natively crafted and optimized for NFV infrastructure, while also working closely with the rest of NFV components to provide the best elasticity and most efficient response. With Trend Micro’s security intelligence and the rich experience in managing carrier NFV networks from NEC and Netcracker, we will enable communications service providers (CSPs) to provide effective and agile security protections to businesses and individuals in the NFV era.”

“We are happy with our decision to team with Trend Micro, which will give our customers a broader choice of pre-integrated partners and enable them to seamlessly implement security capabilities for their virtualized infrastructure,” says Shigeru Okuya, general manager of the SDN/NFV Division at NEC Corporation. “Bringing together the power of Trend Micro and NEC/Netcracker’s SDN/NFV portfolio will provide a more robust network solution for CSPs and contribute to safe and secure networks for enterprises and consumers.”

“Virtualized and distributed NFV architectures require a ‘back to the drawing board’ approach on security. It is not sufficient to use paradigms used in legacy networks and apply them to the cloud-based and service chained networks of tomorrow. NEC/Netcracker is pleased to collaborate with Trend Micro to address this critical need for our customers,” says Rahul Chandra, vice president of NEC/Netcracker’s Worldwide SDN/NFV Business Development. “Through rigorous integration of their solutions with NEC/Netcracker’s market-leading network as a service (NaaS) solution, we are excited to offer service providers highly secure and pre-integrated orchestration capabilities that can serve as a foundational and secure platform for supporting their virtualized service portfolios going forward.”

Trend Micro’s Virtual Network Function Suite is designed to offer flexible, reliable and high-performance virtual network security functions for CSPs from premise, to edge, to the core network. At the foundation of the Virtual Network Function Suite is Trend Micro’s innovative deep packet inspection (DPI) technology, which provides various network security functions including intrusion prevention, URL filtering and application control. It has been widely adopted in a variety of network security products, from home routers to enterprise-facing next-generation firewalls and intrusion prevention systems.

By validating and integrating Trend Micro’s Virtual Network Function Suite with the NEC/Netcracker NaaS solution, the companies will be able to work together closely to create further technical and business synergies as more NFV migrations occur.