With UTM 9 fast approaching it’s mid-July release date, we’d like to invite you to test the next major version of our central management tool. Previously called Astaro Command Center, it is now named Sophos UTM Manager (SUM). You can test out SUM 4 with UTM 9, and also see how it operates against your older installations; things should be backwards compatible. We are purposefully overlapping our beta of SUM 4 to start in advance of the UTM 9 launch, so that we have the opportunity to address discovered issues before UTM 9 is GA. From there, our tentative plan is to then polish up SUM 4 for a release in late August or the first half of September 2012. If you have not yet had the chance, I’d invite you to try this product oday! You do not need dozens of installations to benefit from the information gathering and time savings of Sophos UTM Manager. Many administrators use it simply as a login tool, since once authenticated to your SUM, you can access the WebAdmin of any connected ASG/UTM device without the need to re-authenticate.
You may skip right to the download by heading over to our Beta test forums here and reading the sticky posts for the latest download links, license keys, and other information. A summary of what is new in Sophos UTM Manager 4 can be found by reading on.
Keep in mind that Sophos UTM Manager has two different "admin" portals. The traditional WebAdmin on https://x.x.x.x:4444 which is used for configuring the device, user accounts, and other administrative functions for the installation itself, and the Gateway Manager which is on https://x.x.x.x:4422 (note its 4422!) which is used to access the management, monitoring, reporting, and configuration of your connected sites. The Gateway Manager is where you will spend most of your time once the product is setup.
Immediately visible will be the overview and status information for all your installations. Besides information and monitoring, there is many configuration features; you can define network and service objects, firewall rules, and even web protection profiles, then issue them to some (or all) of your UTMs. Choose to make a VPN tunnel between two sites via a quick wizard, and run aggregated reports for any combination of locations.
Sophos UTM 9 Feature Overview The following features are available for you to test today:
- Global object import: Allow for importing certain objects from an ASG to the ACC, where they can then be used as regular global objects. Objects are not tied to the ASG where they came from.
- Guid Setting: Allows you to set the guid of a device from ACC. This is usefull for when an existing ASG/UTM is for example re-imaged, and reconnects to the ACC with a new guid. The two devices can then be merged, such that in ACC there is only one device (with the old guid)
- Single Sign-On Redesign (username passthrough): Fix the Single Sign-On mechanism to use the two access roles used in SUM (admin, auditor). Also, login to the UTM with the username of the user logged into ACC, instead of the old CM__admin/CM__audit.
- GUI in Sophos design: Use the new UTM9 (Sophos) Design for Gateway Manager.
- Scalability / Bandwidth Usage: You should notice significant savings in the amount of bandwidth consumed by your installations when communicating with UTM Manager 4
- Global EP policy Management: You can now manage EPP AntiVirus Policies and DeviceControl Policies (UTM 9 features) from within UTM 4.
- Message Queue: Have a dedicated page/view that shows a table of the most recent events on the ACC. As events, we use everything that could also have triggered a notification, and ACC shutdown/restarts.