All-in-one security in a box

Communications News, May, 2004

Standalone firewall and VPN appliances may be on the way out, with all-in-one security appliances the next wave. That is one view from the recent InfoSec show in Orlando, where a number of vendors were touting their new integrated enterprise security products. In some cases, those same vendors were also offering managed security services for customers who are increasingly opting out of owning their own solutions.

Companies such as Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Symantec are combining intrusion prevention and detection, firewalls, VPNs, content filtering and antivirus capabilities in a single box. The reason, they say, is because customers are demanding lower costs and ease of use for their network security options.

ISS was touting its new Proventia series intrusion-prevention appliance, a move away from its historical emphasis on intrusion detection, and an appliance that will soon include an array of integrated security features. ISS' unified protection architecture, according to Samantha Black, global marketing manager, unifies all protection technologies into a single, all-in-one protection engine enabling protection across all Proventia gateway, network, server and desktop products. The architecture also unifies the management of all protection technologies under one management system to eliminate redundant and costly security-management functions.

Features integrated into the Proventia appliance include stateful inspection firewall, VPN, antivirus, intrusion detection and prevention, content filtering, antispam and application protection. The product also unifies common management Junctions, like command and control, discovery, visualization, correlation, deployment, reporting and workflow analysis.

Symantec's Gateway Security 320, 360 and 360R provide firewall, intrusion prevention, intrusion detection, antivirus policy enforcement, content filtering and VPN functionality in a single appliance designed for small businesses. In addition, the Gateway Security 300 Series can function as a standards-based, secure wireless LAN access point.

By securing both inbound and outbound Web, e-mail and other network traffic, the Symantec Gateway Security 300 Series provides small businesses an effective means to create a secure local area network, according to George Sluz, group product manager. In addition, Symantec's LiveUpdate technology ensures that 300 Series appliances are easily kept up-to-date with the latest firmware updates.

Pricing for the 300 Series is small-business friendly, as well, with the appliances ranging from just over $400 to nearly $800. The product includes from 15 to 20 VPN tunnels. Also available for all models is a wireless LAN access point add-on that allows customers to establish highly secure IPsec VPN tunnels from the wireless clients to the gateway.

Key product features of the 300 Series include: six integrated security functions (stateful inspection firewall, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, antivirus policy enforcement, content filtering, and IPsec-compliant VPN with hardware-assisted encryption); wireless LAN access point; a built-in 10/100-Mbps autosense network switch that provides local Ethernet LAN switching for numerous devices that need to share the gateway connection to the external network; centralized remote management; and high availability/bandwidth aggregation/load balancing.

Both ISS and Symantec, as well as a number of other security solution providers, are banking on customers' frustration with ongoing security product updates and the management required for multiple appliances or software implementations. The integrated security appliances address those customer concerns, as do the managed security services offered by both companies.

Several other vendors at InfoSec also were offering managed security services, among them ZixCorp, SunGard, Qualys, e-DMZ Security and Shavlik Technologies. ZixCorp, according to product manager Lee Brooks, is offering both managed security services and a customer appliance with antispam, antivirus and encryption functionality. The company plans to roll out a more comprehensive, integrated security appliance.

SunGard, a $3 billion professional services firm and software developer, currently provides enterprises with security assessment and development services. Carl Herberger, director of information security services, says that the network hosting side of SunGard's revenue stream has increased 100% since 2002. "It's the fastest growing segment of our business," he says.

For more information on network security products, contact:

e-DMZ Security

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Internet Security Systems

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Qualys

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Shavlik Technologies

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SunGard

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Symantec

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ZixCorp

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