Sophos extends UTM to the enterprise

• New Unified Threat Management and branch office security hardware models improve performance, connectivity and operations
• IT departments at larger organizations beginning to recognize benefit of UTM and Next Generation Firewall solutions: Sophos

SOPHOS said it has strengthened its network security offerings with two enhanced high-end Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliances, the UTM 525 (pic) and 625, and the new Sophos RED 50 (Remote Ethernet Device), the first security solution to offer complete and centrally managed Unified Threat Management for medium-sized branch offices.
 
With these updates and additions, Sophos claims it extends UTM, Next Generation Firewall, and branch office security to the enterprise by improving throughput speeds and performance as well as offering additional flexible deployment options.
 
To accommodate the needs of larger organizations, Sophos said it has included performance and flexibility enhancements in its new enterprise appliances.
 
The new appliances can see a 300% increase in firewall throughput speeds to 40 Gbps, as well as the option of field-replaceable LAN (local access network) modules which extend the UTM appliances, allowing organizations to configure the Sophos UTM devices and Next Generation Firewall features to scale their deployments for use in any size organization - even where multiple 10Gbps-Ethernet connections are required.
 
The company has also released a larger RED model, which offers increased performance, enhanced connectivity capabilities and new operational functions.
 
The Sophos RED 50 appliance has throughput speeds of more than 300 Mbps, 10 times faster than RED 10 devices – ideal for organizations that need to send larger files, run daily data backups or protect large branch office networks.
 
Sophos RED 50 also comes with a 4-port gigabit switch and two gigabit wide area network interfaces. These ports can be connected to two Internet connections at once, allowing for the bandwidth load balancing or failover capabilities many larger branch offices require, the company said.
 
“IT departments at larger organizations are beginning to recognize the benefit of protecting their networks with Unified Threat Management and Next Generation Firewall solutions. However, enterprises require a higher level of performance than SMBs, due to network size,” said Martin Becker, product manager, network security, Sophos.
 
“Our new hardware models make it possible for enterprises to reap the benefits of protecting a network with a UTM device without sacrificing performance and security.”
 
 
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