Security appliances

Outside the IT industry an appliance is defined as a device designed to perform a single function. Security appliances promise the same plug it in and forget simplicity. The idea? To provide simple-to-deploy, easy to understand and cheap to operate security devices that sit at the edge of your network and stand guard over your vulnerable digital assets.

Is protecting my network really that simple?

Of course not. As is so often the case in the IT industry the original definition is often stretched to the maximum. In fact security appliances come in a range of shapes, sizes and functionality that seems designed to bewilder and confuse. And most of the time, they're very much unlike the original idea of a single box designed to tackle a single task.

Vendor offerings include all-in-one multifunction devices under the UTM banner, boxes which are designed to perform single tasks such as email or web access monitoring but which can be upgraded to include other functions and single function devices which cannot be upgraded or modified.

What exactly do they do?

Depending on what you need you can get security appliance products which will address all or some of the following: intrusion detection; viruses; trojans; worms; inappropriate web use; email security; webmail security; spam blocking and spyware.

What exactly do you need to do?

What you are concerned with and what they are trying to sell you won't always match. If you are concerned about enforcing HR policies to stop your staff either pursuing their vices through your internet connection or spending the firm's time sending hilarious composite pictures of footballers in dresses then you want an appliance that will monitor in and outbound email and clean content before it reaches your network.

This will not only keep the staff from being distracted but will also conserve network bandwidth for actual work.

Even if you fully trust your hard working staff and have no need to monitor their emails for inappropriate content you will almost certainly be concerned to keep your client machines free of viruses, Trojans, worms and other malicious objects. Your classic anti-virus appliance will handle this. This firewall type device will sit on your network and monitor for malicious code. So again, exactly what you want to achieve will dictate which is the best model for your needs, while you may not need a high end appliance that offers stateful inspection (buzz phrase courtesy of Checkpoint) capabilities or need to deploy what Cisco calls a Self Defending Network, what you will need is an appliance that will inspect and filter out all the nasties that weirdos get a kick out of sharing.

How much are all of these devices going to cost me?

Prices for security appliances vary vastly from a few hundred pounds for those devices targeted at small to medium sized businesses, to several thousand for enterprise level boxes. The obvious differences are processing power and traffic capacity, scalability in terms of numbers of users, automated functions, quality of service and speed - the more money you spend, the larger the network it can be installed on.

Then there are the dreaded subscription fees. Rather like buying a dishwasher that constantly needs topping up with salt and rinse aid, security appliances will often require monthly or annual fees to be paid to keep them up to date with the latest virus and threat definition databases. Like all subscriptions, the devil is in the detail, these can be charged on a per user basis, a per processor basis or per server basis. Some vendors also charge virtual private network (VPN) subscription charges. Don't forget to factor these into your TCO calculations.

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