WatchGuard rates highest in UTM

WatchGuard Technologies has been awarded a “Performance Verified Certification” by independent test lab, Miercom, for performing nearly 3.5 times faster than competing unified threat management (UTM) solutions with standard UTM features enabled.

The award gives both small and mid-sized enterprises assurance that WatchGuard UTM solutions can deliver the security and performance they need, while allowing them to benefit from the cost savings  of UTM compared to stand alone solutions.  According to Gartner, “savings of half of the total cost for network security can be achieved for small or midsize businesses (SMBs) using UTM.”

Miercom conducted throughput tests on WatchGuard’s XTM 850 solution against similarly priced competing appliances from Fortinet, SonicWALL and Sophos. The test explored the impact on throughput speed with standard UTM features switched on, including not only basic firewall packet filtering, but also deep packet inspection or proxies, intrusion prevention and anti-virus.

“Our hands-on testing proved the WatchGuard XTM 850 provides the best overall performance compared to competitive products when UTM features are applied,” said Rob Smithers, CEO, Miercom. “Today’s businesses need more than a firewall. They also need to employ anti-virus and intrusion prevention to have the best chance at catching today’s advanced threats, and they need a way to do this without slowing network speeds or increasing their budgets.”