By Editor
The Unified Threat Management (UTM) market is reckoned to be the largest and fastest growing security appliance segment in the region. Leading brands are keeping pace with what their partners and customers expect of them to stay on the growth path
The UTM and the NGFW appliances, have been successful product categories and continue to see healthy growth rates because they offer integrated security features in one box. MarketsandMarkets expects that the global unified threat management market is estimated to be $2584.6 million in 2014 and is expected to grow to $4445.7 million in 2019 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 11.5%.
With different manufacturers enhancing and fine tuning their product lines, these categories are likely to continue meeting the security needs of small, medium and large sized organizations. The outlook for growth in this segment is robust and the Unified Threat Management (UTM) market remains the largest and fastest growing security appliance segment in the region. According to reports from IDC, UTM appliances increased by 37.7% year on year, making up 45.3% of total market revenue. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) security appliances market will expand at a CAGR of 9.6 per cent over the next four years to total approximately $350 million in revenue.
“The region has shown great demand for security products, specifically the need for secure cloud access and deployments in conjunction with growth in mobility. This strong demand and growth in mobility has resulted in an increase in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) Market in the Middle East,” says Fabrizio.
Further, the BYOD acceleration and the heightened cyber threat scenario have coupled to increase demand for security solutions.
“The growing complexity and frequency of financially motivated cyber-attacks in the region are forcing organizations to raise their level of concern and look to invest in IT security, adds Fabrizio Croce, Regional Director, Southern Europe and Middle East.
Customers are looking for more functionality from their security appliances, while simultaneously searching for technologies that can help protect their organizations from new advanced threats.
Fabrizio comments, “When you combine our hardware, firmware and best-of-breed services, complemented with new management tools and capabilities, WatchGuard delivers unparalleled visibility, flexibility and security for today’s businesses. We’re proud to say that we have been named a Leader in Gartner’s 2014 Unified Threat Management (UTM) Magic Quadrant for the fifth consecutive year. With award-winning solutions like WatchGuard Dimension, and new best-of-breed services, such as APT Blocker and Data Loss Prevention (DLP), the report confirmed that WatchGuard continues to deliver innovative security solutions that help customers and partners secure networks around the world.”
Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet opines that what is one man’s NGFW is another man’s UTM. The confusion in the nomenclature is unnecessary he believes whereas the focus should be on capabilities.
Alain says, “Rather than focus on whether a device is classified as “UTM” or “NGFW” the real focus needs to be on capabilities of the device and the architecture of the network in question. The FortiGate products that could be considered UTM have an extensive range of networking and security features including those specifically designed to handle mobility and BYOD concerns. These products could be complemented by other Fortinet products such as FortiAuthenticator for strong 2 Factor Authentication.”
Sophos believes the UTM solutions market will move towards offering end to end propositions. Sophos is focusing on further combining different security aspects in one solution which currently are most often covered by non-integrated stand-alone solutions
Thomas Thoelke, Sales Director, Sophos NEEEMA says, “The UTM space will develop in a very interesting direction. We will see overall more end-to-end solutions, also covering BYOD concerns. The challenge for the vendor market will be how to integrate different solutions into one meaningful security package.”
The focus will be on solutions working in tandem to ensure security.
He elaborates, “We will see for example UTM and MDM solutions working together in the way, the one solution detects a policy violation, e.g. a Mobile phone is not compliant to the policies and this will trigger an action on the UTM, e.g. the phone will not be allowed to connect via WiFi to the corporate network. In the same way we will see endpoint and UTM coming together. So if there is an even triggered on the endpoint, e.g. Laptop, or if there is continuous suspicious behavior originating from that laptop, the UTM solution will be able to take action on that specific laptop, may it be taking it off the network or block the outgoing traffic or similar. In any case, higher security will be achieved by making the solutions work together.”
Fortinet has made several significant enhancements to functionalities offered by its products. Its UTM appliances now feature FortiOS 5.2, the latest version of the Fortinet’s security operating system, which underpins Fortinet’s products and Advanced Threat Protection Framework. The vendor has also introduced the FortiSandbox which provide enterprises with a powerful tool to help combat Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).
Alan comments, “All FortiGate appliances share a common operating system, FortiOS. A number of significant enhancements were introduced during the past year such as a cloud based sandboxing capability, client reputation, device based identity and end point control.”
It was the enhancements in UTM technology, as with many vendors, which led to the evolution of the Next Generation Firewall Technology. The NGFW appliance brings application level intelligence into play to keep out threats.
Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director at Dell Software says, “Factoring that a firewall needs much more intelligence than just the threat protection, today’s Next Gen Firewall technology caters to being application aware by offering granular control of applications, recognizing them by their signatures. In turn, Businesses also need visibility of what’s been processed by the firewalls, hence the visualization play a key role in giving intelligence to IT on how to manage bandwidth and business policies over individual applications. Further, they also at the same time help address the needs of remote users from authentication and deep scanning of remote connectivity.”
These enhancements help organizations to have full-fledged threat protection with granular application control and by providing visualization so that IT can delicately balance between business needs and user needs. In a nutshell the enhancements offer comprehensive security of the customer’s network without compromising on the security, granularity of managing applications and bandwidth and visualization that can help IT managers of business owners to have multi-layered protection and control with minimal TCO.
Today, within corporate enterprise as well as networks of educational and other institutions as well SMB networks, UTMs are now an integral component of a comprehensive security implementation.
Shahnawaz says, “The enhanced UTM’s or the Next Generation Firewalls are an integral component of the comprehensive security implementation. While there could be few adjacent services when added can offer greater effectiveness and comprehensive security, the nucleus of it however starts with the Next Gen Firewall.”
The virtual play
Manufacturers are also offering software versions for virtualized and cloud computing environments. Therefore UTMs will continue to play a strategic role even in the transforming IT networks. Having said that the demand for physical appliances is still higher.
Thomas says that Sophos UTM has software and virtual versions and while the virtual installations are increasing steadily, the hardware based solutions are still doing more business.
Questions have arisen around security within virtualized environments and if they are as safe as physical environments or even perhaps safer. Fabrizio claims that WatchGuard virtualized solutions address the challenges that are faced by enterprises today, and how to tackle them successfully.
He elaborates, “Through our virtual appliances XTMv (Extendible Threat Management) and XCSv (Extensible Content Security) we offer virtual security deployment options for businesses of all sizes. This is important because virtual environments cannot depend on physical infrastructure alone for protection.”
Dell Software therefore while offering virtual versions of some of its standalone security appliances, does not as yet offer a virtual version of its NGFW.
Shahnawaz says, “As of today we have the software versions for virtualization and cloud computing environments of Secure Remote Access, Email Security, WAN Optimization etc., except Next Generation Firewalls. The local region still has the high demand for appliance based firewall technology and we believe that we are addressing the regional customers meeting their expectations.”
Channel initiatives
Almost all the UTM vendors are channel focused in their go to market strategies. Training and boot camps feature prominently in their channel engagements.
Fortinet for instance holds quarterly pre-sales partner training sessions across the GCC region. The intensive technology training workshops provide partners with an in-depth understanding of the latest Fortinet products.
According to Maya Zakhour, Channel Director for the Middle East region at Fortinet, “Fortinet’s ‘Power to Learn’ workshops are an invaluable source of information for our partners across the region. We not only train partners on the latest products but also help them identify and understand customer requirements and grow their technical knowledge in the IT security and networking industry. These sessions are designed to help our partners understand our competitive edge and grow their business.”
Dell Software also has a predominant focus on channel training and sessions are held regularly. The channel initiatives are ongoing and a dedicated team of 4 – 5 are always keeping an eye on enablement and development activities in the interest of the business growth and expansion.
Shahnawaz says, “There have been numerous channel initiatives implemented by listening to what they expect from us. One of the most common and consistent requirement is training, we have delivered sales, technical and advance technical trainings consistently in all major markets in the last 12 months. We see this as an ongoing activity that needs to be delivered every year in multiple cities across the region. Further, the other areas of channel enablement include ensuring that the channel complies with their partner program requirement and they have the needed access to the partner portal, avail the required demo pool, level-3 technical support and lead-gen benefits as part of the partnership.”
Sophos has a very clear channel strategy and does all business via the channel. The vendor has a comprehensive partner portal that partners can access for training and information, online certifications as well as customer leads.
Thomas says, “The channel program is detailed and includes different partner levels with different requirements and discount eligibility based on partner level. In addition, there are also free licenses available for the partner’s company use and this is valid for all Sophos product portfolio. The Sophos Partner Portal includes a lot of web based training materials with the first level sales and technical trainings that can be taken online, as well as the exam. As an extra we do deliver our lead management through the partner portal giving the partners, both distributors as well as reselling partners, the chance the benefit from all the corporate leads we are getting.”
WatchGuard is also 100% channel focused. This year the vendor is announcing its newly enhanced partner program, WatchGuardONE. The new program leverages a value-based model that places additional focus on reseller certification and training in addition to simply volume sales. WatchGuardONE brings game-changing value to the market for partners.
Fabrizio says, “We work with our partners and trust them to sell and support WatchGuard, while managing sales and implementing software and products. WatchGuard have never dealt with the service side of client relations, and allow partners to develop this area of business.”
WatchGuardONE delivers a variety of membership levels including Silver, Gold and Platinum. Discounts and rebates vary depending on the partner’s level of commitment and range from 30 to 46 percent. Key reseller benefits include a training and certification program for partners to expand their knowledge.
In sum, differentiation based on product features coupled with strong channel strategies and the right set of required services to meet customer expectations are what the top manufacturers are banking on. Getting all pieces of the jigsaw right when it comes to execution will determine each vendor’s pace of growth.