Check Point has announced its first universal threat management (UTM) appliance in a bid to win over mid-sized organisations who want their own security systems, but don't want to buy security software and install it themselves.

Called UTM-1, the box will compete with similar devices from Cisco and Juniper, and from a host of smaller vendors such as Fortinet and Sonicwall. It includes firewall, SSL VPN, anti-malware and web URL filtering, plus the firewall is application-aware and can control both VoIP and instant messaging apps, Check Point's European director Nick Lowe said.

Lowe said most of it is the same technology that Check Point sells in its high-end security software. He claimed that the main omissions are scalability features aimed at larger users, such as clustering and virtual firewalls.

"UTM-1 can have a high-availability pair, and you could add QoS, but the core functionality is an application-based firewall," he said. "It is a fundamentally different approach - it is enterprise-quality security for the mid-market in an easy to deploy package."

He added that the package includes tutorials on how to set up a security policy, aimed at the IT generalist, relatively simple licencing, and a bootable USB key with diagnostic tools and an option to reset to the last known-good configuration, in case things go wrong.

UTM-1 comes in three sizes, priced from $7,500 to $15,500. Update services for the URL filtering and anti-malware services cost another $2,750 a year.

The smallest model has four ports, for LAN, WAN, DMZ and a second DMZ or WAN, and a 400Mbit/s firewall which Check Point claims will cope with up to 250 users.

Other versions add more ports, so an organisation can link its suppliers in via firewalled VPNs, or example, and can handle more bandwidth - up to 2Gbit/s for firewall throughput, for as many as 1,000 users.

Lowe contrasted UTM-1 pricing with a typical price of $18,000 for Check Point's high end VPN-1 firewall software, with no hardware included. "Typically we come in cheaper than our rivals," he claimed. ®