UTM Market: Continues to Witness Steady Growth

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The UTM market has been getting saturated with too many product lines from companies since the past couple of years. But Indian UTM market has been growing consistently and is looking poised to grow further at a faster pace, in view of the increasing security consciousness among SMBs; compliance based buying from large enterprises, and vendor’s strategy to reinvent their products by adding more features.

In India, the network security domain has witnessed a great revolution, from antivirus to firewall, content filtration and finally UTM (Unified Threat Management) is gearing up. As cloud is emerging to be great enabler for businesses, cloud security can be witnessed as a major trend in the information security domain.

There are two most prominent trends in the UTM market space for SME segment in India: the growing number of vendors that are offering products in this space and the increasing number of applications that are being added to UTM security appliances. Also the security industry is increasingly moving to a service model where vendors ensure the quality and success of their end-user.
The demand and growth rate in India is larger than any other country. The reason being that the country is big, and IT enablement is happening at a very rapid pace. And also on cyber crime and risks, India is in the Top list. With increased connectivity this will further increase demand for a solution.

The emerging businesses have found the UTM appliance as a perfect fit for their security needs because of plethora of features like affordability, simplicity, scalability, flexibility etc. and this trend appears to continue for long. The dynamic and demanding businesses of today need security as an enabler and UTM provides the much required flexibility for modern enterprises.
Integrated security appliances have become a major trend, catering to the demand of the SMEs and branch offices of large enterprises. The convergence breeze of information security is expected to prolong further. Although large enterprises and service providers prefer stand-alone security appliances for their head quarters and central offices, they have started considering high end integrated security appliances (those with higher through put) for their branch offices.
As a result of the impact of the social media, which is the test trend in the security market, the security vendors are collaborating more closely on the disclosure of vulnerabilities working around developing patches and workarounds before the exploitable information is widely available. In fact, amongst the Web-based applications, quite a few of them are capable of being moved into a cloud security model. This may give organizations a chance to move from thick endpoint security clients to thin dynamically downloadable secure connection clients, which run on the endpoints and speak to the cloud security services.

Current Scenario of UTM Market in India
Unified threat management (UTM) is a converged platform of point security products, particularly suited to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). UTM appliances typically provide firewall, antivirus, content and email filtering, intrusion prevention and application control in a single package. According to a recent International Data Corporation (IDC) report, the UTM market is approximately $2.5 billion and growing at 20% per year while M&A activity will increase in the unified threat management market between 2013 and 2016, according to a new report by Frost & Sullivan.
“We at Barracuda Networks are strongly positioned in this market to cater to customers and businesses alike. Unlike traditional firewall and UTM, the Barracuda Firewall provides all next-generation application control and user identity functions in an easy-to-use and affordable solution. It outperforms traditional firewalls and UTMs by integrating a powerful next-generation firewall appliance with scalable cloud content security. The affordable, all-inclusive pricing model requires no per-user, per-module, or VPN license fees, simplifying the investment in network and content security. Administration is easy with an intuitive web interface and free, cloud-based central management. The combination of ease-of-use, powerful next-generation features, and affordability makes the Barracuda Firewall the perfect fit for small and medium-sized businesses,” said, Murali Urs, Country Manager, Barracuda Networks, India.

According to Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, Cyberoam Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the network security appliances market continues to witness steady growth. Earlier SMEs and SMBs, which lacked focus on security, now realize how investing in capable security technologies a business imperative is now. Understanding the implications of a weak security and resulting risk posture, more businesses are turning to security technologies. At the same time, CIOs also wish to have leaner networks and hence doing away with standalone security products, turning to unified solutions like UTMs and NGFWs. A leading analyst reports that for Q42013, integrated security appliances continue to register increased growth and geographically Asia/Pacific witnessed the highest year-over-year revenue growth in the quarter (14.9%). India being a key market for APAC region, this buoyancy will only grow further.
“UTM market was getting saturated with too many product lines since couple of years. Vendors now are consistently evolving their solution offerings in terms of quality as well as number of features and hence keeping it aligned with the requirements of large enterprises. Increase in number of data breaches, regulatory compliance, support from advanced technologies and capability to provide enhanced value to organizations are few of the key factors behind increase in demand for UTM solutions. It is expected that the market for Unified Threat Management will show enormous growth with credence in the coming years,” said, Sonit Jain, Founder and CEO at GajShield.

Kailash Katkar, CEO, Quick Heal Technologies said that according to a survey by New York based AMI partners, the network security market in India is projected to grow to over 16% by 2016.

“According to IDC, the India UTM market size for Q1 2014 is USD21.67 million (by vendor revenue). This represents a 10.3 percent year-on-year growth from Q1 2013. The corresponding figure for full-year 2013 is USD86.52 million. This represents a YoY growth of 22.6 percent from 2012,” concluded, Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet.

Biggest Drivers
“Accelerating consolidation of network security, growing adoption of BYOD, virtualization and cloud platforms and better awareness of new threat actors together with increasingly open and connected networks all together add to rise in demand for integrated network security solutions. Renewed focus on data security, network visibility, user behaviour and regulatory reporting serve as key drivers,” said, Sharma of Cyberoam.
According to Katkar of Quick Heal Technologies, the major drivers of UTM market are the need for IT security by SMBs. The flow of business traffic through web and mobile services has also amplified the need for network security among Indian SMBs. A growing e-commerce market has also added to UTM being a prerequisite in the network security infrastructure of SMBs. Sophisticated threats like APTs, precision targeted malware, botnets, etc.

Jain of Gajshield remarked, “The biggest drive for UTM market will emerge from mobile devices. That’s the biggest concern of enterprises because perimeter in security posture has just fallen off. Employees today practically carry computers into the office and access corporate information in cloud. There is a midpoint between convenience and security where you would like to ensure employee productivity yet ensuring the enterprise is secure. We already have an offering for Cloud security which is being used by more than 10,000+ users. We will be enhancing this to cover iOS/Android devices too.”

IT organizations today are challenged, more than ever, to secure valuable data and intellectual property from relentless hackers and threat actors. The network firewall is one important tool in network security architecture. However, in recent years, firewalls have become ineffective against new hacking techniques. The advent of the unified threat management (UTM) and next generation firewall (NGFW) provide essential new functionality that represents an important next step in the market’s evolution.
“ The biggest drivers for UTM market will emerge from the emerging technologies and web threats increase the potential risk of a security breach; New product features and security functions drive customer interest in UTM products which include BYOD strategies; UTM consolidates multiple security products into a single product which increases its value to customer and help business to stay competitive; UTM’s breadth of security functions enables efficient compliance with multiple industry and government regulations,” said, Murali of Barracuda Networks.

“It’s become commonplace to inspect and manage traffic crossing the network boundary to enforce policies, to block viruses and malware, to prevent potential intrusions or attacks, and to prevent unauthorized access. At the same time, it’s necessary to screen outbound web traffic, to filter inbound traffic of all kinds, and to watch for and block potential intrusion and react quickly to signs of denial of service attacks. This means the network needs a lot of diverse security and network technologies to operate and manage. Traditional methods just aren’t keeping up with the onslaught of traffic and the many different kinds of filters that need to be applied to the mix in real time. UTMs are commonly referred to as multifunction security appliances, capable of providing a multitude of integrated security services, such as firewall, IPS, VPN, web content filtering, data loss prevention and more,” said, Maurya of Fortinet.

“ From distributed offices, to large scale carrier and multi-national enterprises all prefer an UTM because of an integrated and holistic view of network security, Optimal TCO and  Minimal latency impact,” Maurya added further.

“To successfully defend against these situations, network security alone is not sufficient. Since adversaries are targeting all control points from the gateway to email to the endpoint, the need is to expand the focus from prevention to detection and response. Therefore indicating a need in the market for greater Advanced Threat Protections (ATP) that can provide holistic coverage or full-functionality to adequately detect and tackle the complex ecosystems, which currently is missing in most enterprises,” concluded, Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec.

Consolidation of UTM market

“Customers of today are looking at vendors who can provide end to end solutions. This actually works to Barracuda’s advantage. The UTM market has been getting saturated with too many product lines from companies since the past couple of years. The consolidation of UTM vendors creates a vacuum and adds confusion amongst the channels of acquired company. As a dedicated Security, Application Delivery and Data Protection Solutions company, Barracuda Networks offers a comprehensive product portfolio of NGF products which has worked to our advantage in order to make a sizable penetration in the market. The Barracuda Firewall is an application-aware network firewall appliance that leverages cloud resources to extend next-generation security and networking beyond the capabilities of legacy UTM products. Barracuda Firewall offers enterprise-grade security technology – including application control, user awareness, secure VPNs, link optimization, and advanced malware protection – but is designed for unsurpassed ease of use, and priced competitively. The Barracuda Cloud Control centralized management portal makes it easy and intuitive to deploy, configure, and manage the Barracuda Firewall from any location, and is included at no extra cost,” said, Murali of Barracuda Networks.
“We do not see these acquisitions as a key development. It has no significant impact on our strategy and plans, and we remain focused on our business of providing the best network security solutions in the market to our customers. We will continue to support our channel partners, stay invested in research and development, and devise better strategies to add value to our partners and provide competitive security solutions to increase our market share,” said, Maurya of Fortinet.
“For Cyberoam, where the consolidation of UTM market is concerned, it has more to do with combined mutual opportunities. Together Cyberoam and Sophos are aiming to seize greater market share and strengthen our reach into untapped customer segments. While several inorganic pacts have been witnessed through 2013 and 2014, we see this trend resulting in a greater opportunity. The best part is, the role of security is changing. Today, businesses realize that they don’t have to secure IT but there’s a need to secure business from the new disruptive face of IT. Security now ties as a critical ingredient in enabling more open and collaborative enterprise networking,” said, Sharma of Cyberoam.
“No, it doesn’t scare our brand. Consolidation in a market such as that of UTM actually provides an opportunity for us to be niche players in the SMB segment,” said, Katkar of Quick Heal Technologies.

“Consolidation of market is good for our company. With the acquisition of other UTM products by larger players, India is not seen as a big market by them and hence causes a vacuum and confusion with partners and customers. GajShield is ready to fill in this vacuum with its enhanced product offerings,” concluded, Jain of Gajshield.

Business Opportunities of Vendors
Today’s enterprise network requires an advanced firewall solution that is capable of delivering a range of attributes:  High speed performance and scalability, Protection against sophisticated threats, Future-ready functionality that protects investment along with consolidation and integration of technologies and simplified policy creation.

“Security buyers may seek a combination of firewall options, such as NGFW, unified threat management (UTM), virtual and stateful firewalls, to meet a wide range of enterprise needs, such as data centre, small offices or highly distributed enterprises. For example, a large network may deploy high-performance firewalls for its data centers, NGFWs for their campus perimeters and UTMs for their distributed offices. Partner need to equip themselves to service customers based on their needs. Fortinet provides a wide array of solutions that extend beyond UTM. We offer advanced wired and wireless access solutions, application delivery controllers, authentication, analysis and management solutions, as well as advanced and specialized threat protection solutions, such as DDoS, DNS, WAF and database security,” said, Maurya of Fortinet.

“We are getting a good response from our clients and customers from almost all industry verticals. Our widespread and well-connected network of channel partners ensures that we reach out to our customers,” say, Katkar of Quick Heal Technologies.

“Channel partners should be looking for opportunities to climb up the value stream in the face of new opportunities in Wireless, NGFW, Web Application Security, DDoS prevention and Sandboxing. Partners need to come out of being box pushers or competing on price to start a value chain with technology specialization. Being a solution specialist in the long run will help them sustain and grow their business to more regions and technologies,” Maurya added further.

According to Sharma of Cyberoam, “Cyberoam grew by over 50% in FY 13-14 over FY 12-13. Our partners and the channel ecosystem that we have created have added to our strength and our leadership. Our channel partners continue to receive committed support and cutting-edge know how to demonstrate competitive skills for emerging security needs. We are very upbeat for the changing times and are bracing up to meet buoyant demand for our network security solutions. Our channels definitely get bigger earning opportunities’ with the expanded product portfolio and get to become a one stop shop for their customers. Several recent channel surveys has voted us as the chosen one, providing testimony to our channel-focused approach and the opportunities that lie in store for them.”
“With the push of government in providing internet connectivity to the every corner of India, there will be an exponential growth of security requirement in India. Also, with the ever growing threat land space and data leak being the prime concern of enterprises, we, together with our channels, are working towards providing a holistic security solution. We train our channels and acquaint them towards newer threats and how GajShield can help organisation improve their data security,” said, Jain of Gajshield.

“India is an important market for Barracuda. Both storage and security market is rapidly growing in India, we are very optimistic on the business opportunities. The channel ecosystem is a key pillar of Barracuda’s strategy for India that will help and enable the customer’s product, services, and support needs. We consider the channel ecosystem to be a cohesive system of support between the company and our customers and help us get a better appreciation of customer challenges and their requirements,” said, Murali of Barracuda Networks.

“We have a comprehensive channel program that enables partners and offers a win-win situation to both Barracuda and partners. Barracuda is fully committed to helping its partner succeed and to grow hand-in-hand with the company. Barracuda has also been bestowed with the honour of a 5-Star Partner Program rating by CRN for its world-class partner program two years in a row that recognizes an elite group of vendors that give solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs. The Barracuda Partner Program encompasses a number of rich benefits and services to help partners enhance their businesses. Depending on a partner’s needs, different levels of participation in the program are available. Benefits of membership include marketing, training, lead generation, support, and special incentives, including Marketing Support, Lead Generation, Discounted NFR Evaluations, Joint Marketing, Product Information, Interactive Webinars and Partner Seminars, Onsite Training, Barracuda University, Free Customer Evaluations, Partners can download helpful resources, Online Demo Access, Web-based Online Demos, Joint Account Calls, Product Promotions, Channel inside Sales Team and Product Specialists and SPIFF Program,” concluded Murali of Barracuda Networks.

New Products or Solutions

“Cyberoam enjoys entrenched presence in SMB segment and has successfully expanded into enterprise. With a comprehensive portfolio of UTM and NGFW security appliances we have also made efforts to seize opportunities in Virtual security. Recently, we announced a mega overhaul for our CyberoamOS, which underpins our innovative security solutions. With this brought a vast array of features, benefitting SMBs, Enterprises and MSSP partners,” said, Sharma of Cyberoam.
“With the perimeter of enterprises falling, we are working towards enhancing our cloud based security solution for road warriors. This will ensure that the same level of security policy will be implemented on mobile devices too, which includes prevention of data leak and remote filtering. This solution will also ensure secure communication of these devices with their enterprise network even when using insecure network without reducing the end-point performance and battery life,” said, Jain of Gajshield.

According to Murali of Barracuda Networks, with the unprecedented growth opportunity for security and storage markets in India, Barracuda Networks launches all new products in India in tandem with its global launches and announcements around the world. This signifies our total commitment to the Indian market as a whole. Last month, the company announced the latest release of the Barracuda Web Application Firewall, version 7.9 which extends Microsoft Azure support with automated provisioning and configuration that enables customers to take advantage of the dynamic, elastic nature of the cloud. For many of our customers, these applications are their business, meaning they have to be available, secure, and provide a great user experience. As one of the first Microsoft Azure Certified partners, we see tremendous opportunity with Microsoft Azure to be able to seamlessly deliver the security, value, and peace of mind to our enterprise customers.

“We also recently had a product release in the form of Barracuda Backup 290, and a capacity upgrade to its current Barracuda Backup 390. These line-up additions provide further purchasing flexibility by better aligning Barracuda Backup with the data protection and recovery demands of small and medium-sized organizations. Our products extension in providing our customers with the choice and flexibility has always been a top priority for the company.  Meanwhile, Barracuda Backup 290 provides an option for branch offices looking to back up their local data at an affordable cost. This combined with the buying flexibility of our integrated appliances and backup-as-a-service plans enable Barracuda Backup to be one of the most flexible, cost effective backup solutions on the market,” Murali added further.
“Fortinet has redefined the standard for Firewall performance by being the first network security vendor to deliver a firewall – the new FortiGate 5144C – that exceeds 1 terabit per second (Tbps) throughput performance and offers 10GbE, 40GbE and 100GbE connectivity options. This has firmly positioned the FortiGate 5144C as the world’s fastest firewall, making it the ideal security solution for carriers, service providers and large-scale enterprises who have the most demanding performance and scalability requirements for network security, and who want unparalleled versatility and flexibility in delivering high performance data, application and network protection to their customers and users. The threat landscape has seen a proliferation of highly targeted zero-day attacks and APTs that are designed to steal intellectual property or other critical enterprise data. Researchers at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs have discovered more than 140 new zero-day vulnerabilities to date, including 18 found in 2013 alone. In such context, Fortinet has integrated significant new security features to its operating system for a more effective protection against APTs and other targeted attacks. FortiOS 5.2  – which will still be supported by current versions of FortiAnalyzer 5.0 and FortiManager 5.0 with a new patch release – strengthens Fortinet’s Advanced Threat Protection Framework at the following levels Access control, Threat prevention, Threat detection and Incident response, Continuous Monitoring,” said, Maurya of Fortinet.

“The new products in the enterprise segment in pipeline are Advanced Data Loss Prevention, Application Control and Mobile Device Management,” concluded, Katkar of Quick Heal Technologies.

Vendor’s Future Plans
“Key objective is to further strengthen our leadership, make ties with government and enterprise customers stronger, roll out more exciting opportunities for partners and enable SMBs & SMEs  to transition successfully to IT led paradigm with simplified security. With massive rise in security incidents and growth in overall IT spending, we are keen to address the disconnect between C-suite executives, delivering security that’s a win-win for CIOs, CSOs and CEOs alike,” say, Sharma of Cyberoam.
“Our plan is to provide the same level of enterprise security to SME and SOHO enterprises too. This will be driven through our cloud model without requiring these SOHO offices to invest in technology and can pay as they use. This model, coupled with data analytics will enhance the visibility of network security for these organisation and work towards providing optimum security solution for these organizations,” said, Jain of Gajshield.

“Symantec’s holistic methodology captures the benefits achieved when security technologies work together, transforming the complex fight against advanced threats into a manageable function that delivers stronger protection and more value to businesses. Symantec has recently launched two new solutions called Symantec Managed Security Services -Advanced Threat Protection and Symantec Advanced Threat Protection Solution, which correlate alerts and intelligence across a range of security technologies to deliver more comprehensive attack prevention,” said, Kaura of Symantec.

“We consistently make efforts to ensure that our product line remains at par with industry standards and demands. We are currently upgrading our product offerings by adding in-demand features. Simultaneously, there is a lot of awareness generation amidst our existing and new partners on board to substantiate our presence and increase our market share in this domain,” pointed out Katkar of Quick Heal Technologies.

“At Barracuda Networks, we remain committed to building the brand, establishing a firm customer market and developing our channel community on an ongoing basis for the future. We have also invested resources in building a team to focus on a hybrid model which will work with the partners and end customers alike to provide them with even greater value and experience thereby extending and powering our channel community further. We will continue our extended focus on promoting and selling strategic solutions like WAF, Message Archiving and Next Generation Firewall to large enterprise businesses. India is a high potential market for the entire portfolio of products we offer and we expect it to become a significant contributor for Barracuda’s global revenue in the next few years,” said, Murali of Barracuda Network.
“We have channel strength of over 550 partners in India and our priority is to consolidate our channel base by aligning them to our partner program much more comprehensively. The first step in this direction would be to upgrade around 50 Bronze partners to Bronze+ level in the coming six months. Our partner specialization program helps partners define their approach to the market by targeting one or more Fortinet solutions. We will identify 15 partners who have experience in wireless products and enhance their expertise to become Fortinet Wireless specialists. The specialization will transform partners from box pushers to technology specialists giving them the power to create a lucrative revenue stream for their business.Fortinet certification helps partners to have the in-house expertise to support their customers.  In order to encourage partners to complete their certification we will be running attractive incentive programs. Sales and pre-sales individuals who contribute towards Fortinet business will also be recognized and incentivized through our promotions,” concluded, Maurya of Fortinet.

Finally
No doubt, UTM solution offers multiple advantages in terms of cost effectiveness, integrated approach, regulatory compliance, simplicity and reduced technical training requirements. Expected drivers for UTM market are emerging technologies and sophisticated threats, new product features and security functions, consolidation of multiple products into a single product; UTM products support new technologies enabling competitive business, its security functions that enable efficient compliance with government and industrial regulations. Increased competition from specialized vendors, customer fear of single point failure for network traffic, increase in product prices and economic slowdown resulting in reduction of security budget are expected to be major market restraint.

Mr. Sunil Sharma, VP Sales & Operations, Cyberoam Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

“Cyberoam grew by over 50% in FY 2013-14 over FY 2012-13. Our partners and the channel ecosystem that we have created have added to our strength and our leadership. Our channel partners continue to receive committed support and cutting-edge know how to demonstrate competitive skills for emerging security needs. We are very upbeat for the changing times and are bracing up to meet buoyant demand for our network security solutions.”

Mr. Kailash Katkar, CEO, Quick Heal Technologies

“We consistently make efforts to ensure that our product line remains at par with industry standards and demands. We are currently upgrading our product offerings by adding in-demand features. Simultaneously, there is a lot of awareness generation amidst our existing and new partners on board to substantiate our presence and increase our market share in this domain.”

Mr. Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec
“While the promise of network security-based solutions as the answer to advanced threats gains increasing attention, IT departments are still left grappling with massive amounts of incidents, too many false alarms and a laundry list of manual processes to be tackled without adequate staffing and skill sets, leaving organizations exposed and vulnerable. “
Mr. Sonit Jain, Founder and CEO at GajShield

“With the perimeter of enterprises falling, we are working towards enhancing our cloud based security solution for road warriors. This will ensure that the same level of security policy will be implemented on mobile devices too, which includes prevention of data leak and remote filtering. This solution will also ensure secure communication of these devices with their enterprise network even when using insecure network without reducing the end-point performance and battery life.”

Mr. Murali Urs, Country Manager, Barracuda Networks, India
“The consolidation of UTM vendors creates a vacuum and adds confusion amongst the channels of acquired company. As a dedicated Security, Application Delivery and Data Protection Solutions company, Barracuda Networks offers a comprehensive product portfolio of NGF products which has worked to our advantage in order to make a sizable penetration in the market.”

Mr. Rajesh Maurya, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Fortinet
“Fortinet provides a wide array of solutions that extend beyond UTM. We offer advanced wired and wireless access solutions, application delivery controllers, authentication, analysis and management solutions, as well as advanced and specialized threat protection solutions, such as DDoS, DNS, WAF and database security.”

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