Dell SecureWorks says it is expanding - not closing - UK SOC

Security services giant reveals plans to relocate to new Edinburgh facility with twice the capacity

Dell SecureWorks has shot down suggestions it is shuttering its UK secure operations centre (SOC), stressing instead that it plans to aggressively grow its local footprint.

Based on SecureWorks' 2009 acquisition of dns, the Edinburgh SOC is one of seven operated globally by the security services firm, alongside five in the US and one in India.

Some customers had heard Dell was planning to close the facility at the end of 2014, possibly as part of a consolidation exercise. Such a move would potentially alienate public sector customers who require data to remain in the UK but Steven Drew, executive director of global operations at SecureWorks, insisted "nothing could be further from the truth".

"EMEA is a strong market for us and we are expanding our footprint there and are looking to relocate our facilities to expand our square-foot capacity," he said.

Customers may have got the wrong end of the stick either because Dell is planning to relocate to a larger facility in Edinburgh before the end of the year or because it is about to migrate the last 20 to 30 legacy dns-platform customers to its Counter Threat platform, Drew speculated.

The Counter Threat platform processes 80 billion cyber events every day and will "deliver an enhanced level of security" to those UK customers moving across, Drew said.

Dell plans to move from its current facility in Edinburgh, which houses about 70 staff, to a new facility nearby with approximately twice the capacity, Drew said, adding that there are no plans to rationalise any of its seven global SOCs.

"We have a couple of options and hope to make a decision quickly and be in before the end of the year," he said.

Drew added that Dell has been battling misinformation from rivals that it will rationalise SecureWorks' SOCs since it bought the firm in 2011. "Three years later, nothing like that has happened," he said.