'If you're going to evaluate a UTM box, start with the basics: What are your needs? How big is your company? Is your company growing?' Crotty says. Not all organizations will need particular security features and capabilities that could drive up the total cost of the technology as well as the complexity involved in implementing the systems. There are several dozen UTM products on the market, and they vary broadly in terms of features, capabilities and price. The same can be said for purchasing many types of IT security products, but it's especially true with technologies such as UTM appliances, which combine a number of security functions into one system. If your organization is considering implementing a UTM system, here are some things to consider.Д«efore looking into products on the market, determine the specific security needs of your organization. IDC and others are beginning to call the newer UTM appliances (with these added security and networking features and functions) 'extensible threat management' (XTM) systems. More vendors are adding new messaging security capabilities such as e-mail spam filtering and instant messaging security, and Web security features such as Web application firewalling and content filtering, says Jon Crotty, research analyst for security products and services at IDC.Д¬rotty says other new developments in UTM include centralized management using graphical interfaces, enabling networkwide changes for licensing and upgrades, and network features such as the ability to monitor latency and throughput and automated event correlation and network logging.

In November 2008, Fortinet introduced a UTM product that gives organizations the ability to segment their networks for greater policy granularity and event isolation. For example, the latest version of Astaro's Security Gateway product includes HTTPS Proxy Filtering, which allows users to filter and control secure Web traffic and block programs that attempt to bypass security policy with SSL tunneling.ДЄnother new feature, Site-to-Site VPN, lets users create permanent tunnels between Astaro Gateways, providing a simple way to permanently connect two gateways while supplying the security level of an IPsec VPN tunnel. Vendors continue to add new features to the basic functionality of the products.

Among the market leaders are Fortinet, Cisco, SonicWALL, Juniper, Secure Computing, Check Point, Watchguard, Crossbeam Systems and Astaro. The UTM market has attracted a large number of vendors. Research firm IDC (a sister company to CSO) released a report in October 2008 saying that it expects UTM products, which passed the $1 billion mark in market size in 2007, will make up 33.6 percent of the total network security market by 2012.

Utm appliances