Intel Security will discontinue McAfee SaaS products
On Jan. 11, 2016, Intel Security will stop selling McAfee SaaS Endpoint and SaaS Email Protection and Archiving. Although new sales will cease next year, existing customers can continue renewing their subscription and receiving support until Jan. 11, 2019, Intel Security said in its notices. Depending on certain subscription types, limited support will be available for some services until 2021.
All McAfee SaaS Endpoint products will be discontinued at the same time, including McAfee Security Center, Browser Protection and Content Filtering, Antivirus/Anti-Spyware Protection, and Firewall Protection. Customers will have to switch to the new McAfee Endpoint Security platform for client protection technology.
McAfee SaaS Endpoint and McAfee Security Center customers will move over to McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) Cloud for managing endpoint security. ePO Cloud provides a single pane of glass for highly scalable, flexible, and automated centralized management and enforcement of security policies.
McAfee SaaS Web Protection is not affected and will continue to be sold and supported.
For Email Protection and Archiving, affected components include Email Archiving, Email Encryption, and Email Protection & Continuity. For SaaS Email Archiving customers, email will continue to be archived until the subscription's expiration date, and then customers must extract archived messages and import into an alternative platform within six months. After that six-month period, all messages will be automatically and permanently deleted from the archive.
The services will be available online until Jan. 11, 2021, with varying levels of support. For example, customers who also have the McAfee Email Gateway appliance can renew Email Protection and Archiving for up to five years, getting full service support until 2019, and then two years of limited service support. On the other hand, customers who don't have McAfee Email Gateway will not be able to renew their services past Jan. 11, 2017. An Intel FAQ has more details on how long customers can renew their subscriptions and when support will cease.
Customers are encouraged to switch to Proofpoint as the alternative email security platform, but details on the switch to the third-party tool are not yet available.
Intel Security also announced end-of-life plans for the McAfee Email Gateway appliance, McAfee Vulnerability Manager, McAfee Network Threat Response Software, McAfee Qurantine Manager, McAfee Enterprise Mobility Management, and McAfee Asset Manager. The SaaS applications are being turned off because McAfee Enterprise Mobility Manager and McAfee SaaS Email Protection will no longer be supported.
Instruction on how to switch to the new products are "forthcoming."
One of the advantages of SaaS is the fact that companies can update components and fix issues in the background without disrupting the user experience. However, all those advantages disappear when the entire application gets shut down, as is happening here.
Customers have to perform multiple steps to switch to what is essentially the same application, with more capabilities. To move to the new endpoint security platform, customers will need to activate a new account in McAfee ePO Cloud and reinstall McAfee Endpoint Security. Administrators have to set up new accounts, reinstall software, and redefine policies all over again.