By Editor
With internet speeds rising fast, many organizations are seeing their security appliances being left behind of the high speed bandwagon. Ajay Nawani, AVP Global Presale Operations at Cyberoam explains how the company can help
Why is it crucial for Cyberoam to launch the Next-Gen series of UTMs at this time?
The NG Series enables SOHO/SMBs networks to become future-ready as they move towards gigabit network infrastructure and high Internet speeds. However, today, their network security is not ready for these trends as few security vendors today offers them security throughputs or gigabit ports required for such networks. This is resulting in security becoming a bottleneck for the networks.
The need for Next-Gen UTM like the NG Series is being driven by several factors including the rise of superfast internet. We are seeing data moving at 10 times current internet speeds. Examples include Google which launched a 1000 Mbps ‘Google Fiber’ Internet service in the US. IDNet also launched 1000 Mbps Leased Line Business Ethernet Service in the UK. The MEA region cannot be further behind. There has also been a device explosion with on average multiple internet devices per user. In the enterprise, employee-owned smart devices are expected to reach 350mn by 2014, up from 150mn today. Cloud is also driving some of this need for fast internet. A lot of critical business applications and services are moving to the Web. Cloud computing is expected to generate more than $45.4 billion in revenue by 2015.
Why is it important then for security to move with the same speed as the rest of the network?
In many organizations, network infrastructure is moving to gigabit and anything less than gigabit is nearly obsolete. Security must also keep pace. With gigabit internet speeds to be available soon from ISPs and Telcos, the question is whether your security appliance can match these high Internet speeds and offer gigabit throughputs. With more devices per employee connecting to the IT network, the approach is changing from ‘Users’ to ‘Devices’. CIOs need to consider whether their security appliance can support any more number of Devices. The risk is that security becomes a bottleneck in the network. The most viable solution to tackle this is for organizations to move to future-ready security appliances. Cyberoam NG series offers ‘Future-Ready’ security with the fastest UTM appliances for SOHO and SMB segments, while offering Next-Generation firewall protection for large enterprises.
How is Cyberoam NG series then able to offer future-ready security?
The NG Series offers a combination of powerful hardware with superfast processing speed, a must for gigabit internet speeds, coupled with gigabit ports to enable gigabit speeds. Users also get nano-second security processing with multicore Gigahertz processors. The new NG-series also features a complete overhaul of appliance design outside, while inside we have included faster, next-gen memory and high capacity storage. This ensures superior quality for high performance and robustness. The design and components support high speed I/O throughput while also being able to withstand extreme environments.
A lot of regional Telcos are busy deploying 4G/LTE networks. What does this development portend for UTMs?
Our Next-Gen UTM products are 4G high-speed ready. We offer very easy deployment for high speed internet connection including VPN over 4G/LTE. This can be done through a simple USB modem plug-in into a Cyberoam UTM appliance. Further, our devices have auto detection of modem plug-in and plug-out making it easy and simple to deploy. The plug-and-play attributes of our Next-Gen UTMs continue with automatic failover to 4G/LTE WWAN connection as well as gateway failover over VPN. We’ve also extended this secure connectivity to support BYOD in organizations, offering Layer 8 Identity-based security for mobile devices. Users can thus securely connect their iPhones, iPad and Android devices to their corporate network through VPN.
With the new UTM, you have also included your own operating system, the Cyberoam OS. Why is this software different?
NG Series appliances come pre-loaded with Cyberoam OS – the most intelligent and powerful Cyberoam firmware till date. The new firmware tightly integrates with the hardware for network and crypto acceleration to deliver very high performance. The Cyberoam OS also extracts full performance from a multi-core platform, along with offering minimum latency and improved processing speed with use of optimized Interrupt rates and FastPath technology.
Please discuss a specific security application available with the new UTM
YouTube for Schools, an educational service from the video sharing giant, offers a huge repository of relevant and engaging content for students. However, in most instances, teachers cannot access these YouTube educational videos due to institutional security policies. Cyberoam’s Layer-8 controls on “YouTube for Schools” allows access to selected educational content while offering user (teachers/student) and group (school/class) level control after which it will generate user-based access reports. This application will also block all inappropriate and peripheral content such as ads, comments and links.
As virtualization grows in the region, what security challenges are organizations facing in this area?
Existing UTMs cannot scan Inter-VM traffic with externally based security hardware despite the fact that a single compromised virtual machine can infect the entire data center. Virtual machines face a higher risk of attacks on the hypervisor management console. Virtualized applications also face vulnerabilities from hackers. We have the right solutions for protecting virtualized servers from intrusion attacks. The Cyberoam Virtual Appliance resides on the virtual layer and scans all traffic inside the virtual environment.