Corporate Dossier 2013: UTM, Need of the hour

Today, UTM has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments in the overall network security marketplace. As network security has grown beyond its traditional definition of protecting against network threats, the expansion and acceptance of the UTM is obviously on the rise.

According to IDC data for Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker for June 2012, the market for UTM solutions registered a 12.2% increase y-o-y. It also represented the second fastest growing segment with 28.5% security appliance revenues. Another research firm Gartner expects the market to grow at a CAGR of 16.4% from 2011-2016.

From the Indian market perspective, towards the end of fiscal year 2011-12, UTM market in India has grown at the rate of 30-35% from 2010, compared to 18-23% growth observed in total network security market in India. The size of UTM market in India at the end of FY12 was around $60 mn. The industry pundits believe that this growth seems sustainable and market might grow to the size of $80 million by the end of financial year 2012-13.

India UTM market has been growing consistently and is looking poised to grow further at a faster pace, in view of the increasing security consciousness among SMBs; compliance based buying from large enterprises, and vendor's strategy to reinvent their products by adding more features.

TRENDS PREVAILING

 

As the businesses are increasingly opening their networks to customers, partners, and public users through wireless and guest access, the potential for new security risks has increased immensely. Henceforth, UTM as a product has evolved to offer security features against the backdrop of rapidly emerging unprecedented sophisticated network threats.

Diwakar Dayal, VP, sales (Security), Cisco India and Saarc, pointed out, "UTM is ideal for businesses that need a simple, affordable and easy-to-deploy solution that provides Internet access in addition to all the security they need; however threats have moved beyond viruses and are becoming more diverse and more elusive. As a result, additional and different layers of protection are required to address the new generation of attacks. All this is driving the need for a security infrastructure which offers broader coverage and greater performance capabilities."

In the wake of growing consumerization of IT, both SOHO users and SMBs are demonstrating heightened state of awareness towards potential risks their business networks and information assets face in their current IT environment and also considering the new IT technology and trends.

Adding further, Sunil Sharma, VP, sales, India and Saarc, Cyberoam, said, "With SOHO and SMBs considering UTMs as a pragmatic solution for effective risk mitigation of network security challenges, this trend is driving enhanced adoption. On the other hand, enterprise segment is also becoming more receptive towards adopting UTM as a solution for securing their networks. Few key reasons for this shift include high performance throughputs and enterprise-grade security offered by UTMs today."

"SMBs continue to gain more security awareness and as they do they often buy a UTM. This segment is still a stong area of growth for UTMs. Where we see additional growth is in the mid-sized enterprise. As vendors like WatchGuard continue to improve UTM throughput, larger companies can take advantage of a UTM without the performance concerns of the past. While we retain our leadership position in the SMB space, we are growing at a fast pace in mid-size market and also exploring in the enterprise segment," stated Mohit Puri, country manager, Watchguard India and Saarc. 

Ravishankar, president, India Operations, Nevales Networks, said, "There are two most prominent trends in the UTM market space for SME segment in India-the growing number of vendors that are offering products in this space and the increasing number of applications that are being added to UTM security appliances. Also the security industry is increasingly moving to a service model where vendors ensure the quality and success of their end users."

TRACTION IN INDIAN MARKET

The threat landscape has been evolving with employees adopting ‘my way' of work and using their personal devices to access the corporate network. Over the last few years, security is evolving rapidly from Internet perimeter protection to an all-encompassing defense-in-depth model. (Source: Cisco's Annual Security Report 2013)

The growth in this market is also being helped by the new government regulations. The Department of Telecom has mandated that Indian telecom companies to be responsible for security of their own networks. The Reserve Bank of India's mandate is also forcing banks to follow the guidelines laid down by it on information security. Following on these guidelines, banks have been drafting and implementing their IT security policies, and thus have been investing in network security solutions to curb their vulnerabilities against cybercrime and fraud.

"Network security has been one of the top agendas to be handled by CIOs in 2012, and we expect this trend to continue. This phenomenon is mainly due to the need to comply with the government regulations.

The Department of Telecom and Reserve Bank of India mandates mentioned above are two important examples. These regulations have prompted the industry to invest and implement network security solutions, and have contributed towards the growth of the network security and UTM markets," said Vishak Raman, senior regional director, Fortinet India and Saarc.

Amit Singh, Country Manager, Dell SonicWALL India, highlighted, "The demand is emanating out of the trends like regulatory compliance, rise in mobility and cloud based operations, and emergence of new technologies such as BYOD. Most of the companies (irrespective of their size) are experiencing one or more of these trends hence making security as one of their topmost priorities."

VENDOR'S POWER-PLAY

Data from Frost and Sullivan dated December 2012 for CY Q3, 2012 suggests that Cisco leads the network security market in India with 33.8% market share.

"Cisco, particularly has been offering enhanced security solutions which enable network security managers to move towards content neutral plumbing shifting from endpoint and the periphery to the network. We see an increasing demand from consumers for solutions like Secure X (based on the borderless network architecture) as it allows for more effective, higher-level policy creation and enforcement. We also offer the Cisco Small Business ISA500 Series Integrated Security Appliances to small and medium sized businesses. The ISA500 offers the combined benefits of comprehensive unified threat management (UTM) enhanced security, easy-to-use design, and superior threat intelligence," added Dayal.

Cyberoam has always been persistent in facilitating a big picture to its customers with its innovations and evolved offerings in network security. Launch of NG Series and Virtual UTM security appliances are recent innovations from the company. While NG Series brings next-generation security capabilities and support for gigabit throughputs, Cyberoam's virtual UTM appliances helps customer fathom network security in a virtualized IT environment.

"Leaving no stone unturned, we have offered adequate and timely support and education to our customers and their users in improving their understanding and awareness into rapidly changing threats landscape. Similarly, we have enabled our partners to meet customers' evolving security needs by effectively communicating Cyberoam's value proposition to address security challenges," said Sharma.

Highlighting Fortinet's positioning in the Indian market, Raman asserted, "We expect to continue to gain market share as we deepen and broaden our portfolio. In the last three years, we have diversified from our core UTM solutions to related products so that we can become an end-to-end IT security vendor, offering enterprises security that extends from the client, to databases, to Web applications, to the overall network. This broad based solution portfolio is serving us well and we expect to continue to benefit from it across all sectors. We foresee healthy demand for our FortiGate UTM appliances in the years ahead."

Similarly, WatchGuard pioneered first hardware based firewall in 1996 and integrated all UTM services into one easy to use appliance. The company is now moving security forward with its award winning range of XTM (Extensible Threat Management) family of next-generation network security appliances, which are best-in-class, performance-driven solutions with blazing fast throughput combined with advanced networking features to handle high-volume traffic securely.

"WatchGuard XTM (Extensible Threat Management) range of appliances offer robust security through industry-best set of security services with easy to use appliance at a great price point. That's why organizations of all sizes rely on WatchGuard solutions for comprehensive network protection, peace of mind, and value,"asserted Puri.

Meanwhile, Nevales Networks' next generation security gateway is a SmartPhone sized device that comes with built-in support for wired-line and wireless technologies including 2/3/4G and Wi-Fi. With its futuristic form factor and smart design, the device can be easily wall mounted. The fan-less device specially designed for Indian weather condition, can withstand a temperature of up to 50 degrees.

"The Nevales Security Gateway integrates several features such as Firewall, VPN, Intrusion Detection, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, Surf Detection, Spyware Guarding, Access Management, Bandwidth Management, Traffic Monitoring and Efficient Reporting in a single management platform and is available on a subscription model," said Ravishankar.

GROWTH PROJECTIONS

Since medium and small businesses now consider technology as a strategic investment, this is pushing sales for security solutions in the Indian market. UTM market has good prospects and given the state of buoyancy and awareness among various customer segments towards changing scenario in network security, UTM market is likely to arrest good traction and may exceed conservative growth projections in the coming years. From the trends perspective, BYOD, cloud and Web2.0 are expected to drive the continued growth of the UTM market in India.