Multifunctional Network Protection

Unified threat management devices guard against attacks.

Unified threat management devices guard against attacks.

$3.1 billion

The size of the unified threat management market in 2011, according to an estimate from researcher IDC.

The Internet is a nasty place, and getting nastier. Rather than continuing to add an array of standalone security devices to protect public-sector networks from the latest threats, some government IT managers are deploying unified threat management (UTM) appliances that roll firewalls, intrusion prevention, antivirus, content filtering and virtual private networks into a single device.

UTMs are useful because they can provide more network protection for the money, require less training to operate and can be easier for IT to support, especially for remote offices.