Unified Threat Management (UTM) is a comprehensive solution that has recently emerged in the network security industry and is basically the primary network gateway defense solution for organizations. In theory, it is the evolution of the traditional firewall into an all-inclusive security product that has the ability to perform multiple security functions in one single appliance: network firewalling, network intrusion prevention and gateway antivirus (AV), gateway anti-spam, VPN, content filtering, load balancing and on-appliance reporting.

The main advantages of UTM solutions are simplicity, streamlined installation and use, and the ability to update all the security functions or programs concurrently. So, not only are they a cost-effective purchase, but day-to-day network running costs are also considerably lowered. Such a great degree of functionality provided by a UTM appliance is held as the justification for the replacement of older, more basic Firewalls in favor of a Unified Threat Management firewall appliance that does it all.

The ultimate goal of a UTM is to provide a comprehensive set of security features in a single product and managed through a single console. Integrated security solutions evolved as a logical way to tackle the increasingly complex blended internet threats impacting organizations.

UTMs provide the following features:

• Anti Malware updates, Antivirus, Antiphishing, Antispyware
• Intrusion detection,prevention and protection with updates.
• Protocol Filtering including Peer-to-Peer Detection
• Web content filtering
• Bandwidth Management
• Multi-link internet access

UTM functionality is provided in the "Linux Small Business Server" we offer.