Vertére Delivers Secure SaaS Offering on AWS with Alert Logic

Vertére is a 30-year-old software company that helps the scientific community catalog chemicals and manage lab equipment. The firm’s software assists governments, universities, and private labs with meeting regulatory guidelines and minimizing their risk of lost inventory. Several years ago, Vertére decided to create a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, freeing its customers from software installation, implementation, and updates. However, without a dedicated security team in house, Vertére needed a way to secure its SaaS application and keep its customers’ data safe in the cloud. Alert Logic Managed Detection and Response® (MDR) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivered the solution.

Vertére is one of the oldest chemical inventory software companies and attributes its success to being forward-looking. Offering SaaS on AWS was one way it has future-proofed the business. “Our AWS-hosted SaaS has been a very popular and beneficial service for our customers,” said Jarrod Ruez President at Vertére. “By offering our SaaS application on AWS we’ve alleviated a huge burden for organizations because they didn’t have the resources to manage software on their own.” Choosing a cloud provider to host its SaaS solution was easy. The Vertére team found AWS was the easiest provider to work with and its vast ecosystem of partners was also appealing.

But as Vertére transitioned to a SaaS model on AWS, cybersecurity became an urgent requirement. Vertére is a small company, with a development team focused on its software. Building out its own cybersecurity team wasn’t feasible. In addition, many of its clients began requiring their software partners to complete security assessments and demonstrate strong security hygiene. “We needed an expert that could help us with threat hunting, intrusion management, and keeping our clients’ data safe,” said Ruez.

AWS Partner Alert Logic equipped Vertére with an MDR platform plus a team dedicated to monitoring the company’s Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2) instances and network traffic. The Alert Logic MDR platform is a fully managed suite of security and compliance solutions that provide continuous monitoring, intrusion detection, log management, and vulnerability scanning. Alert Logic not only keeps Vertére’s security protocols up to date but also alerts the company to any concerns. “Alert Logic feels like an extension of my company—I don’t believe you will find a better solution,” Ruez said. “Their white-glove service goes above and beyond expectation. Even when the team was alerted to a potential security issue on a weekend, they were able to speak with Alert Logic’s security team and quickly solve the problem."

“They were able to tell me exactly what was happening and why I was alerted,” Ruez said. “Ultimately, we were able to determine if the issue was a concern or not and close it quickly.”

One big benefit to Alert Logic MDR® is that Vertére can leverage the expertise of Alert Logic’s security team and avoid hiring the full-time employees it would take to handle cybersecurity internally. “We couldn’t put together a security team in house that does what Alert Logic does for anywhere near the cost of the MDR offering,” said Ruez. “From a business perspective, it made sense to go with Alert Logic to protect our AWS environments—they’re a leader in the field and they’re always thinking about how to make us more secure.” Alert Logic also educates the Vertére team about emerging threats and is available 24/7 with on-call experts to answer questions.

Vertére anticipates more of its customers will move to the SaaS model to keep their inventory systems up to date and lessen the burden on their internal IT teams. Because of this, security will become an even more integral part of Vertére’s business moving forward, making Alert Logic a key partner in the years ahead. “I plan to stay with Alert Logic because I don't see anyone else out there that could offer what they’re offering in the way that they're offering it. I'm comforted knowing that I have them watching over the environment to alert me if things come up and to help me mitigate, if needed,” said Ruez.