The Blending of Two Concepts
Historically, Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) appliances were designed to deliver a very specific set of security services – firewalling, IPS, and URL filtering. Anything that consolidated more than those services was commonly referred to as a Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance. Today, however, we see significant blending of these two markets and products. The performance gap has disappeared and solutions marketed as NGFW appliances are being released with the same security services once unique to offerings marketed as UTM appliances.
So, if NGFW and UTM appliances are the same when it comes to security and performance, what is the difference?
The Real Choice: Customization vs. Simplicity
UTM appliances provide out-of-the-box policies, management, and reporting tools designed for ease of deployment and ongoing management while NGFW appliances cater to organizations that wish to customize their security policies and prefer manual reporting and management techniques.
Neither approach is wrong, however, many organizations do not have the time, resources, or security expertise required to manually build security policy and manage a variety of disparate appliances. UTM solutions give those organization the same enterprise-grade security without the extra layer of management. This is particularly useful for small, midsize, or widely distributed organizations that typically don’t have dedicated security or IT teams.
Performance: A Number is Worth a Thousand Words
It has been long debated if one appliance that centralizes a variety of network security tasks could ever compete with the performance of dedicated point solutions. Not only is the answer yes, but the performance of some UTM appliances, with all security engines running, outperform many dedicated NGFW point solutions.
(Don’t Get) Lost in Packaging
The security threats that face organizations, small and large, are ever-changing and the solutions for combating these threats should be as well. As such, there is not a static definition of what services should be considered standard within a UTM appliance. Never make any assumptions – always be sure to ask exactly what is included in the offering you are evaluating.
Fueling the confusion for end-users, vendors all take a slightly varied approach when it comes to pricing and packaging. Be on the look out of a la cart pricing for each service and for locked functionality within management platforms that quickly raise deployment costs.
Downloads & Resources
“What we really like about the WatchGuard appliance is that it has all these technologies available—it's very flexible. This provides us with the opportunity to evaluate these best-in-class security technologies along the way, and implement the ones that works for us.”
Melissa Andrews, Director of Information Technology, Maloney Properties
WatchGuard's Solutions
Our unique approach to network security focuses on bringing best-in-class, enterprise-grade security to any organization, regardless of size or technical expertise. Ideal for SMB, Midsize, and Distributed Enterprise organizations, our network security appliances are designed from the ground-up to focus on ease of deployment, use, and ongoing managing in addition to providing the highest security possible.
Not only does WatchGuard offer the greatest collection of network security services on a single platform, we do so in a way that has proven to be the most agile, able to adapt to new and evolving threat vectors faster than any other solution on the market. Learn more >
We are a security company and we want the best protection for every customer, every time. As such, we strongly recommend the adoption of our full security suite. When running our Total Security Suite, our Firebox network security appliances offer the strongest security against network threats. However, every Firebox can be purchased as a standalone NGFW appliance as well, however, we never recommend the deployment of an NGFW without other security mechanisms in place. The best approach to security is a layered approach.
