According to Willie Low, IDC's Asia-Pacific market analyst for software research, the UTM market in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 43 percent between 2004 and 2009.
3Com's AP senior manager for enterprise marketing
The projected growth rate for the UTM market is "much faster than the growth rates for firewall and intrusion detection and prevention appliance products", Low added.
The rollout of UTM appliances by vendors in recent weeks attest to the potential of the market. In November, Fortinet announced two security appliances in its FortiGate system family for large enterprise networks, while CheckPoint launched two products targeted at the small business market segment.
TippingPoint, the security arm of 3Com, last month also announced the debut of its UTM product. According to Ken Low, 3Com's Asia-Pacific senior manager for enterprise marketing, the appliance is the first-ever integrated security platform built on an intrusion prevention system. The traditional UTM appliance is built on a firewall.
"For a long time, customers have been told best-of-breed is the way to go… at the end of the day they want the very best," Low explained. "But there may be cases where they want a simple solution that has multiple security tools combined into one box, because they may not have the resources and manpower to manage so many products."
IDC's Low said integrated security appliances appear to match the needs of smaller businesses. "UTM solutions are attractive to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) due to benefits such as reduced complexity, combined protection against blended threats and lower costs."
However, he added, the deployment of UTM appliances by large organizations for remote offices and branch sites is not uncommon.
Drivers for adoption
One clear driver for the uptake of UTM appliances in the region is the lower cost of owning one single appliance, rather than multiple security devices. They are also easier to manage.
Said Hansen Chang, Fortinet's Asia-Pacific vice president: "Implementing UTM devices is often less challenging than installing software because administrators do not need to wrestle with the complexities of operating systems, such as tuning the kernel parameters, or ensuring that certain patch levels of software are installed for the OS.
Chang noted that a UTM appliance is typically set up by simply connecting the device to a network, and launching a browser to activate the system configuration.
The proliferation of viruses and worms and the increase in spam are also driving the adoption of UTM appliances in the Asia-Pacific region, say market observers.
"According to some studies, some viruses actually originate from Asia and a large proportion of spam also originate from this region," noted Chang. "This means that
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