Security made simple

Beyond firewalls Protecting thousands A sampling of security appliances What to ask your security appliance vendors

Today's security appliances perform so many necessary security functions, they are becoming irresistible to network executives. IDC reports that worldwide unit shipments of security appliances increased 17% in the first quarter of this year over the first quarter of 2002.

True, network executives still prefer the traditional software-on-server approach for their conventional needs - like the main corporate firewall. But they like appliances for their simplicity and convenience, particularly when securing small or home offices.

"What appliances have going for them is you can drop them into a network, configure them and you're done," says Laura Koetzle, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. "We see this in organizations that have a lot of branch offices, with people in the field who are not technical but need to have some sort of security. You can configure the appliance in the head office and ship it out to the remote office."

Adds Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC: "You don't have to worry about patch levels on the systems, you don't have to worry about interactions between software on another machine, and you don't have to worry about buying an operating system. You just have to receive the box from the vendor."

However, appliances have limitations. They aren't as reconfigurable as software-based security applications. "Appliances can really only do what they're designed to do," Koetzle says. "If your needs change radically it's tough to update appliances. If your needs are stable then appliances make total sense."

Beyond firewalls

The earliest models mostly combined firewall and VPN functions, but today's crop integrates a wider range, such as intrusion detection, anti-virus protection and content filtering. "Pretty much everything that you can do with software you can do with an appliance," Kolodgy says.

As appliances' capabilities have expanded, network executives gained a path for adding new security protections to their networks. Mike Grimm, CIO at Seton, a Norristown, Pa., manufacturer of leather automotive products, uses Fortinet's Fortigate 200 and 400 appliances for VPN, packet-level virus-scanning and firewall functions. He soon will use the products' intrusion-detection capabilities as well, he says.

Seton is in the midst of an appliance rollout that began early this year, with plans to use appliances at 11 regional sites worldwide, Grimm says. All traffic going in or out of each facility passes through the devices. Grimm initially had concerns that the packet-level scanning might cause latency problems with data flow, but says his fears have proven unfounded.