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One-Stop Network Security: Considering the Options

June 24th, 2006 · No Comments


Setting up and maintaining a reliable defense around your network takes hardware, software, PC.jpgdiligence and a good measure of security expertise. That’s a tall order for a small business. But that’s exactly what it takes to track constantly evolving threats, to monitor network activity and to maintain the collection of tools required to combat attacks.

For many small businesses, it makes sense to shift some or all of these requirements outside of the company by making use of either managed security services or an integrated security appliance. If you choose to go the security service route, all security concerns simply become the concern of the service provider, and your company connects to the Internet only through that provider. Since all of the work is done before any traffic ever reaches the customer’s site, managed security services are described as "in-the-cloud," or hosted services.

A security appliance consists of a collection of security tools built into a single box, and the box is installed at the customer site, typically between customer equipment and the Internet. Security tools may be automatically updated over the network through a subscription service. Such appliances are often called Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices.

There’s some overlap between the service and appliance models and a great deal of variation between products, so it can be hard to work out exactly what each vendor has to offer. We’ll take a look at a few representative products and services a bit later. One-Stop Network Security: Considering the Options

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