Astaro Makes UTM Move
You may remember Astaro from our scoop on January 29th. We asked if VARs could turn a profit from using Astaro’s free offerings, and some readers expressed skepticism. But Astaro is looking to get its foot in more doors by dropping prices for their unified threat management (UTM) solutions. So is Astaro worth another look?
Simply put, Astaro wants their products out there one way or another. The price cut brings in a new licensing model that lowers the entry prices of their hardware Unified Threat Management solutions up to 50%. Astaro wants to see their partners increase their margin in a service-oriented market. Additionally, with UTM solutions that are more accessible, partners could then leverage a swath of dedicated applications on the platform.
Astaro believes that their “Astaro Security Gateway is the central platform in any organization’s network,” and promote it by reminding everyone that their services can be deployed three ways:
- Astaro Security Gateway hardware appliances, available in seven different sizes
- Astaro Security Gateway Software appliance, to be installed on any hardware
- Astaro Security Gateway Virtual appliance, certified as VMware Ready
“This new strategy not only goes in line with the modern market’s preference for investing in services rather than buying infrastructure hardware components, it will also help our partner community better solve their customers’ needs,” said Jan Hichert, Astaro CEO
Astaro plans on releasing more applications come summer 2010 to maintain the easy-entry, pay-per-services/app model.
As a recap, the following Astaro Security Applications are available:
- Network Security (Firewall, Intrusion Prevention, DoS Protection, Bandwidth Control, Branch Office VPN, SSL Remote Access, IPSec Remote Access, Native Windows Remote Access, Directory Authentication etc.)
- Web Security (URL Filtering, Spyware Protection, Antivirus Scanning, HTTPS Scanning, IM/P2P Filtering, User Reporting etc.)
- Mail Security (Anti Spam, Antivirus Scanning, Email Encryption etc.)
Will Astaro gain some more traction with this new move?
This is a move in the right direction. If they did it with the software only version and bring the content filtering and spam filtering down it would be a great. When you add the content filtering, antivirus and spam filters it gets pricey. Every business needs this service. Particularly the smaller ones. There are many SMB locations with 5 or less workstations. When you are dealing with the “dinks” then you are fighting against the all in one security software solutions on each workstation. If you are going to penetrate this end of the spectrum then you need to price it accordingly. Astaro is a first class product. I would love to use it more. It is exponentially more efficient to manage one device rather than few workstations. As you get to larger locations the pricing scales out much better.
Also look at your recent articles about Netgear and their UTM product line and other open source solutions like Vyatta and Endian. The more players in this market the better. Competition keeps everyone on their toes.