According to IDC, the UTM segment of the Security Server Appliance Market is the fastest growing segment of the security appliance market. The leading global market analysis organization believes that by 2008 UTM security systems will comprise a majority of the $3.45 billion combined firewall/VPN and UTM appliance market – outpacing traditional stand alone firewall/VPN appliances, with 58% of the overall share. IDC defines Unified Threat Management security appliances as products that unify and integrate multiple security features integrated onto a single hardware platform.
Qualification for inclusion within this category requires network firewall capabilities, network intrusion detection and prevention (IDP), and gateway antivirus (AV) functionality. All of these security features need not be utilised concurrently, but need to exist as complete applications within the product. In fact, larger enterprises and service providers offering managed security service offerings vary their use of the seven different Fortinet FortiGateT antivirus firewall capabilities in their networks. IDC attributes the rapid market adoption of UTM security appliances to the fact that the rise in blended threats requires a greater breadth of integrated functionality and deployment flexibility.
Oliver Harcourt, Senior Research Analyst, European Enterprise Server Solutions, IDC said,
“The UTM marketplace is gaining rapid traction in Western Europe, as many businesses are adopting these multi-function security systems. UTM security appliances offer customers additional benefits over point product solutions through their ability to integrate best in class security applications on a single platform. Such benefits include combined protection against today’s blended threats, simplified management through a single management interface and a lower TCO. Fortinet was one of the pioneers of this technology, and today the company continues to lead the Western European UTM marketplace, which represented 28.5 % of all UTM security appliances sold worldwide in the fourth quarter.”
Leading Universal Threat Management: FortiGateT Antivirus Firewalls Fortinet’s FortiGate antivirus firewalls deliver the highest level of security available. Recently awarded certification for the Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Augmented (EAL 4+), they are the only security systems in the world that are certified by the ICSA for antivirus, IPSec, firewall and intrusion detection functionality. The systems add a critical layer of real-time, network-based antivirus protection that complements host-based antivirus software and supports “defence-in-depth” strategies without compromising performance or cost. Fortinet platforms are deployed for antivirus protection and content filtering alone in conjunction with existing firewall, VPN, and related devices, or as complete dynamic network threat prevention systems with just a simple configuration change.
Since introduced in May of 2002, Fortinet’s FortiGate antivirus firewalls have gained widespread market adoption within thousand’s of end user customer sites, with more than 80,000 systems shipped to thousands of customers worldwide.
“When IDC named Fortinet as leader of the UTM category in September 2004, it confirmed worldwide acknowledgement and adoption for our best-in-class applications offered either separately or as a unified approach to security,” said Adam Stein, vice president corporate marketing for Fortinet. The latest figures from IDC endorse this fact, and illustrate that both large and small businesses across Western Europe are continuing to recognise the benefits of Fortinet’s FortiGate systems, making Fortinet their choice of UTM vendor for managing today’s increasingly complex network security threats”
About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is the confirmed leader of the Unified Threat Management market. The company’s award-winning FortiGateT series of ASIC-accelerated antivirus firewalls, winner of the 2004 Security Product of the Year Award from Network Computing and the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year, are the new generation of real-time network protection systems. They detect and eliminate the most damaging, content-based threats from e-mail and Web traffic such as viruses, worms, intrusions, inappropriate Web content and more in real time – without degrading network performance. FortiGate systems are the only security products that are quadruple-certified by the ICSA (antivirus, firewall, IPSec, NIDS), and deliver a full range of network-level and application-level services in integrated, easily managed platforms. Named to the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies, Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.