Unified Threat Management
Maintaining a secure network environment using existing network security
technologies is a significant challenge due to a number of reasons:
- Increasingly sophisticated and rapidly evolving cyber threats evade
one or more standalone technologies
- The costs and complexities associated with managing an increasingly
distributed network with no clear perimeter adds strain to already
taxed resources
- The performance and processing power required to provide complete
content level protection is difficult to achieve without purpose-built
hardware
Today's standalone network security products generally consist of
security software deployed onto PC-based platforms, and provide basic
network security functions like firewall and VPN. However these
standalone network security products fail to provide the comprehensive
security, network deployment flexibility and the performance necessary
to combat today's cyber threats.
The Unified Threat Management market has emerged to address
these security challenges.
In order to solve the security problems for businesses and service
providers, the Unified Threat Management (UTM) market has emerged. UTM
devices incorporate firewall, intrusion prevention and gateway
antivirus, at a minimum. Many vendors have attempted to provide UTM
capabilities through various implementations on the theme of UTM. Some
vendors have re-packaged existing firewall and VPN appliances with
antivirus and intrusion detection and/or prevention technologies from
other vendors. Others have simply relabeled their existing network
security products, which offer limited security capabilities across all
three areas. More importantly, the act of simply cobbling together a UTM
product that can provide essential security services while maintaining
performance ratings that meet the needs of business networks is
insufficient and simply does not work. In order to address these
challenges, an effective UTM solution must deliver a network security
platform comprised of robust and fully integrated security and
networking functions. Protection must be provided against next
generation application layer threats and offer centralized management
from a single console, all without impairing the performance of the
network.
