Hitting a wall: The great UTM challenge
In the beginning was the firewall, and it was pretty good. A big box of rules that sat between your network and the evils of the Internet, the firewall examined ports and protocols to decide which packets got in and which were barred at the door. Then things got, as things often do, complicated. New threats came sneaking in on trusted protocols, ports and protocols became tangled, and looking inside packets became just as important as noting their source, destination, and type.
Protecting a network now meant deploying multiple firewall types (network, endpoint, application), anti-virus protection, content filters, intrusion detection systems, and more. Instead of a big box of rules, you needed a relay rack stuffed top to bottom with appliances -- each with its own administrative interface, and each representing a possible point of failure in the network. There had to be a better way, especially for smaller companies that couldn't afford a massive staff to feed and care for the relay racks full of appliances -- and thus, the unified threat manager (UTM) was born.
[ Read the InfoWorld UTM reviews: Astaro Security Gateway 425 | SonicWall NSA E7500 | WatchGuard Firebox Peak X5500e | ZyXel ZyWall USG1000. Compare the UTMs feature by feature. ]
Indeed, a rapidly growing number of small and mid-size companies are opting for the administrative and operational simplicity of the single-box solution. And so we decided that UTMs aimed at the mid-size company were the perfect group to use for the rollout of InfoWorld's new firewall and UTM test protocols. When we began this process well over a year ago, we asked for input from virtually every firewall and UTM vendor we knew, and we invited every UTM vendor we could find to send us an appliance to test. In the end, four vendors answered the call. Astaro, SonicWall, WatchGuard, and ZyXel submitted units for this first set of tests.
Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world
On Twitter now
utm
Powered by Twitter
jfruh
Apple syncing patent can't come soon enough
pasmith
New Twitter features borrow from 3rd party clients
Esther Schindler
Open Source Changes the Software Acquisition Process
mikelgan
How to set up continuous podcast play on the new iTunes
David Strom
Five important Windows 7 mobility features
sjvn
Guard your Wi-Fi for your own sake
Sandra Henry-Stocker
Grepping on Whole Words
Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
Join the conversation here
Quick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.
Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.














SCEPTRE Laptop Battery
SCEPTRE Laptop Battery