The unified threat management (UTM) appliance market sees more activity today as Check Point launches its first dedicated appliance designed for mid-sized businesses, following on from recent launches from competing network security vendors Fortinet and Astaro.

Check Point's UK regional director Nick Lowe said that whereas others had tried to "inflate" kit designed for small businesses, "This is running the full enterprise technology with all the high-end features but with set-up and management targeted at firms who might not have dedicated security staff."

The UTM-1 appliance comes in three models, the 450, 1050 and 2050, which support 250, 500 and 1,000 seats respectively. The appliances are all gigabit systems with a LAN console port, WAN link and a demilitarised zone (DMZ) port, but the 1050 and 2050 have four extra 10/100Mbit/s LAN connections.

System set-up is wizard-driven, and Check Point's UK security engineer manager Caroline Ikomi said that firms should be up and running in 10 minutes. Existing Check Point customers can manage this appliance through their existing SmartCenter/Provider-1 infrastructure, use it to manage other Check Point appliances or run it in standalone mode.

The appliance uses USB keys for system restoration and troubleshooting, and although the USB key can only set the box back to its factory defaults, a "last best config" can be reloaded from the appliance itself if problems occur.

An advanced application layer firewall, gateway antivirus, intrusion prevention and site-to-site and remote access IP-Sec VPN systems are standard on the appliances, with gateway anti-spyware, SSL VPN, and a web application firewall are expansion options available now. Check Point says that a URL-filtering option will be available by the end of Q1.

In a recent report on threat management security appliances, IDC's security products research director, Charles Kolodgy, said that the threat management security appliance market was being transformed by UTM and IDS/IPS appliances.

"These products provide the functions and features customers find compelling, and they will be popular because they offer substantial advantages in performance, convenience, and choice to customers, resellers, and product vendors," he said.