UTM (Unified Threat Management) systems are the norm of the day to counter the ever-growing complex security threats that businesses have to combat with. Managing multiple vendors, each with a wide array of products, is asking for a little too much of an effort.
UTM, for that reason, makes a lot of sense for most businesses since it cuts down the costs and eases up the management a bit. Multiple point solutions within a network are a pain to manage. When looking for support, it’s usually the arduous task of having to contact multiple vendors that’s a sore point in IT management.
In the case of UTM, set-up and troubleshooting is a great option for business IT Network and threat management because you just deal with one vendor and hence simplifies your threat management greatly.
Ease of Use
Never pick a UTM solution that you don’t understand. Look for ease of use, tight integration, and your ability to solve issues when they crop up. Some of the best UTM solutions allow you an efficient, standardized environment to work in. They make your threat management tasks much easier and have a simple interface that’ll allow anyone to work with.
What do you really need?
Just because it’s “unified” don’t pick up all components within the system. Pick up only those components and functionalities that you need. According to a Sophos Whitepaper on UTM, some of the UTM solutions have “Spam filters and URL filtering functionality offer minimum or no protection for companies”.
Versatile and adaptability
Some of the best vendors and the UTM solutions are those that change with the times. When looking for a UTM solution or a vendor, look for vendors who are quick to adapt to changing times. For instance, IT network risk doesn’t just come with Internal threats, hacking, DDOS, etc. An ever-increase exposure to social media, for instance, is an area that your UTM should be able to handle the huge influx of incoming content.
What about the licensing?
Be wary about the licenses you purchase when investing in a UTM product. Most products come with licensing types such as “unlimited users”, “bandwidth limits”, “Single user license” and “multiple user license”. Make sure you read the fine print and take the right decisions.
If you haven’t yet done it, graduating to a UTM is one of the best IT-based decisions you will take. If you need help in implementing a UTM or any other network related implementation, do feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear from you.
714-333-9620