New WatchGuard Network Security Devices Ride the Wave of Enterprise Unified Threat Management Adoption

WatchGuard® Technologies, a global leader in manageable business security solutions, today announced the availability of seven new models in its line of Extensible Threat Management (XTM) products. As businesses and enterprises of all sizes consider the increased severity and complexity of cyber threats, WatchGuard infused its new XTM hardware with industry-leading technology to provide robust, manageable, and cost-effective network security that eliminates the need to choose between a secure IT infrastructure and a high performing business.

WatchGuard is expanding its unified threat management (UTM) offering in response to a growing demand for high performing, integrated security solutions from large enterprise customers. The XTM 1520, 1525 and 2520 models provide the kind of speeds, security and features ideally suited to headquarters, data centers and managed security services. The enterprise suite of XTM appliances provides customers with the highest level of today’s essential security tools and sophisticated administrative controls, all while maintaining the manageability for which WatchGuard is known.

“Historically, mediocre UTM performance has kept adoption limited to small and midsized businesses,” said Scott Robertson, Vice President Asia Pacific, WatchGuard Technologies. “Since re-architecting our business three years ago, WatchGuard’s relentless focus on delivering high-end UTM performance means we can now provide customers of any size with the highest level of protection in one speedy and scalable box. Our ‘faster than market’ growth in the enterprise space tells us we’ve struck a chord.”

In addition to the new enterprise-class XTM models, WatchGuard is also providing strong performance gains in the XTM 800 series for small and medium sized businesses. The new WatchGuard XTM 800, 1500, and 2500 series appliances feature the latest Intel Xeon™ multicore CPUs and QuickAssist™ technologies, to achieve a level of performance unmatched by competing options. The new XTM models also feature dynamic routing, wide area network (WAN) failover, server load balancing, and link aggregation.

The best-in-class Fireware yet

The new XTM models feature Fireware XTM 11.7, a recent software update from WatchGuard that offers an enhanced URL filtering database from strategic partner Websense, VPN applications for Android and iOS devices, support for IPV6 and L2TP VPN, and improved policy grouping. The new appliances are also equipped with WatchGuard’s configuration utility, RapidDeploy, which allows customers to preconfigure XTM appliances for branch offices, eliminating the need for IT security professionals to travel to the deployment site for installation.

As many businesses continue to struggle with bring your own device (BYOD) complexities, the 11.7 upgrade boasts an enhanced feature set that bolsters the XTM’s superior management capabilities while increasing Unified Threat Management (UTM) performance by up to 50 percent. The majority of XTM appliances are now able to access the update for no additional cost with WatchGuard’s LiveSecurity subscription.

Among its list of features, Fireware XTM 11.7 provides an updated URL filtering database from best-in-class strategic partner, Websense. Other stand-out features include Android and iOS VPN applications, support for IPV6 and L2TP VPN. Policy grouping has also been added, which now allows administrators to create custom tags and filters for firewall policies to further simplify management and maintenance in larger environments.

“These updates will help our XTM customers boost their network security, connectivity and reliability without adding a layer of complexity in today’s already intricate BYOD environments,” said Scott. “With manageability in mind, we are always looking for new ways to meet the needs of our customers and provide the highest level of network protection available in the market.”

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