Glasshouse Technologies has acquired Chicago-based CSSG, a privately held security services firm.

CSSG, which operates mainly in the government and financial services sector has developed its own security framework which helps "simplify and optimize the customer's existing assets within a complex IT environment."

"CSSG brings experience and intellectual property into GlassHouse's new security practice," said Mark Shirman, president and CEO of GlassHouse Technologies. "We are moving into this market in response to high customer demand that we address their data security concerns. It will be an extension of our current offerings in storage/recovery, virtualisation, and data center, and allow us to assist our customers in securing their data from the center all the way to the edge. CSSG will also allow us to compliment our current Managed Services portfolio."

In 2007, GlassHouse announced its proprietary Transom service delivery framework, a unique combination of software tools, proven methodologies and domain expertise leveraged across every customer engagement. GlassHouse also expanded its capabilities in data infrastructure services from a focus on storage and backup to include data center migrations and consolidations, and virtualisation. With the addition of CSSG, GlassHouse now has services to protect customer data where ever it resides - within the data center or outside of it in mobile or wireless devices. CSSG will be integrated into GlassHouse's existing organization, with Robbie Higgins leading the security services division.

Comprehensive and cost-efficient offerings for mobile/wireless and virtual environments will focus on compliance, optimization and best practices implementation as well as ongoing managed services that provide monitoring, reporting, remediation and response support from security experts.

"We often remind customers that spending more money on technology doesn't necessarily mean they are more secure," said Higgins. "GlassHouse takes the same approach - a focus on the collective whole of people, process and technology to create a complete security solution that supports your business needs. We look forward to new growth and opportunities as part of the GlassHouse team."