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In the trenches
Clear network picture spares UTM headaches
Buyers beware: Defining your security requirements saves you time and money with your UTM vendor.
If your organization is shopping for a unified threat management appliance, users stress the importance of diagramming your network before sitting down with a vendor.
"We talked with our provider about what our network would look like and the implementation between [Juniper Networks'] SSG in our Internet space and the SSG in our local corporate network space; that was fully documented and agreed upon," says Matt Lauth of Six Disciplines, a corporate coaching service based in Findlay, Ohio. "Once that was agreed on we just followed the recipe. It made the implementation work very smoothly."
Lauth says if you don't define your security requirements with your solutions provider you end up spending too little in critical but overlooked areas, and spending too much on features that aren't necessary for your operation. "By documenting our network we were able to perform a balancing act," he says.
Midmarket and smaller firms with 100 users or fewer are wise to hire a solutions provider for a UTM installation, says Melissa Young, in...
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formation technologies manager with the Portland (Ore.) State University Bookstore. "The first time I installed SonicWALL's UTM device, I wish I had hired a consultant," she says. "It was easy to operate but I wish I was more knowledgeable about it and a consultant could have helped me there."
Shopping for UTM devices isn't easy, even with a solutions pro-vider, says Adam Hansen, manager of IT security with the Chicago-based law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.
"They'll do everything possible to try to confuse what you're getting," says Hansen, who eventually chose ISS's Proventia MFS UTM appliance. "One vendor was calling something antivirus when it really wasn't. Then, when you [talk with] references, you find they had to change things and upgrade things after they bought the product."
Hansen chose ISS in part because it agreed to his demand to put in writing all the products it was proposing for his needs, the function and performance of each product, and price quotes.
Once Hansen understood each ISS product, his decision was easy--and the product has worked great, he says. "With UTM you get a lot of vendors with good products but they don't have a good fit for your company," he says.
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