Security solutions provider WatchGuard Technologies has announced its visionary ascent into next-generation unified threat management (UTM), with extensible threat management (XTM) and connectivity solutions.
“…WatchGuard is taking UTM to its next level with our XTM vision and technology direction”, said Joe Wang, CEO, WatchGuard Technologies.
UTM solutions have recently dominated the network-security arena, essentially integrating firewall, network-intrusion detection and prevention, and gateway anti-virus components.
Widely accepted by customers, the UTM market has grown tremendously from sales valued at USD 100 million in 2004 to USD 1.3 billion in 2007.
IDC forecasts UTM sales to exceed USD 2.5 billion in 2010.
In 2007, WatchGuard noticed that its appliance shipments grew by 190%, most of which were UTM solutions.
According to IDC, UTM will remain the primary security solution for distributed environments; but within the enterprise, it will evolve into an XTM platform.
“With the increase of mobility, consumer and Web 2.0 applications moving into the enterprise, security of the network perimeter is at an inflection point, changing views on security architecture and management,” said Wang.
Although UTMs offer considerable deployment flexibility, today’s increasingly sophisticated and decreasingly conspicuous blended threats require scalable appliances that can be modified, updated and customised so that maximum security is always maintained.
The changing perimeter of the workspace, coupled with the “x” factor of unknown threats, creates opportunity for future UTMs – XTM solutions – which will change the industry landscape and redefine network security.
WatchGuard plans to release more XTM-branded solutions, later this year, that incorporate more XTM feature sets – addressing extensible threats (the next generation of blended-security threats), having extensible management (improved scalability and greater granular control), offering extensible choice (network interoperability and feature-set customisation), and ensuring extensible ownership (network interoperability, total cost of ownership and return on investment).
“WatchGuard’s XTM vision combines a plethora of benefits, uniquely positioning us to give businesses around the world the peace of mind, knowing that their networks, employees’ work and data are highly secure with our XTM solutions,” added Wang. |
