SonicWall Inc. will announce the Pro 4100. The 10-port, gigabit UTM (unified threat management) appliance offers a wide range of security features, including a “Clean VPN” function that spots malicious traffic in encrypted VPN sessions. The Pro 4100 appliance from SonicWall will sell for US $6,995 and is a high-speed gateway with built-in antivirus, antispyware, antispam, intrusion prevention, VPN and secure wireless LAN features, said Jon Kuhn, director of product management at SonicWall of Sunnyvale, Calif.
The high number of gigabit ports is designed to support organizations with internal segmentation and a large number of applications that need high-speed Internet access and a port density, SonicWall said. As opposed to just putting a “brick wall” between corporate networks and the Internet, the 4100 is designed to spot threats originating inside corporate networks, or over wireless network segments, as well as those from the public Internet, Kuhn said. For example, the Clean VPN feature inspects connections from mobile users and branch offices for malicious code and vulnerabilities. The idea is to create a “trusted network” across both wired and wireless networks, SonicWall said.
The news follows an announcement from Symantec Corp., which unveiled Symantec Gateway Security 5600 Series, a new line of security appliances that can scale up to 3 Gbps of throughput suitable for campus-sized networks. The appliances use Symantec’s DDR (Dynamic Document Review) technology that allows administrators to define sensitive words and word relationships. Customers using existing Symantec Gateway Security 5400 series appliances and Symantec Clientless VPN Gateway 4400 Series can get the 5600 series features with an upgrade to the Symantec Gateway Security Version 3.0 software, Symantec said.
Unified threat management appliances have become very popular with enterprise IT managers in recent years, said Charles Kolodgy, an analyst at IDC. While companies advertise the speed of their UTM devices, Kolodgy warns that throughput ratings are typically based on configurations with the firewall and intrusion detection features enabled.
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