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Unified Threat Management market 2008
10/06/08
In today's
modern, distributed computing network, where companies and
organisations need to secure IT not just for the head office, but
for remote locations as well, the ability to control security for
multiple sites from one single location is becoming increasingly
important.
With some
security systems, the tasks of configuration, updating, rebooting,
etc. for remote sites might all have to be done separately and
repeated for each location. Administrators could be faced with
managing remote security appliances individually, possibly having to
send someone out to a remote site to carry out certain tasks, such
as configuration or establishing VPN tunnels. This can be difficult,
time consuming, costly and complex and, in some cases, it is
practically or financially impossible
It can be
further complicated if there are multiple appliances, delivering
multiple levels of security, such as firewall, VPN, spam blocking,
gateway anti-virus, web content management and intrusion
detection/prevention.
The need for
strong centralised management
Many problems
arise when strong centralised management is not available for
extended networks with multi-site locations. Critically, the lack of
good centralised management takes control away from the
administrator, making it more difficult to implement and report on
company security policies throughout an organisation, and increasing
the likelihood of security lapses.
Administrators
have no clear visibility of what is happening across the network and
if problems do occur, it's harder to resolve them quickly and
effectively throughout the company. Additionally, without proper
centralised management, it is more likely that branches will fail to
carry out all necessary updates and security procedures. And, of
course, the lack of centralised reporting means that organisations
are unable to provide audit logs confirming that they have met their
security and staff protection responsibilities.
The
availability of skilled staff at remote sites is another issue.
There simply may not be enough of them to do all the necessary
updates, configuration, etc. Or the level of understanding of
security issues may not be high enough to maintain the required
level of security. It will also be harder for administrators to
manage security services such as anti-virus, spam blocking, web
blocking and intrusion prevention.
Some specific
functions, such as setting up VPN tunnels between locations, can be
very complex and prone to error, as well as time-consuming and
costly if tackled without central control. A centralised management
system, such as one which can set up VPNs from a central location
and can do it in a simple way, such as by using 'drag and drop'
techniques, can save an enormous amount of time, effort and money.
Cost is an
important issue. Having to deal separately with each remote site,
and possibly having to visit sites, is time consuming and
consequently expensive. The lack of control can lead to errors at
remote sites, or security lapses which can be costly. Or, it may be
felt necessary to employ skilled staff to suitably manage remote
site security, again another cost to an organisation.
The key
benefit of a centralised management system is control for the
network administrator and the more remote sites a company has, the
greater the potential benefit. A good centralised management system
empowers the network or security administrator to flexibly mange the
whole network in real time. It saves a huge amount of time, effort
and cost. And it allows corporate policies to be easily deployed
across the network.
Nick Gibson, editor
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