The wait is over: Introducing Sophos UTM Accelerated (9.2), our best UTM release ever

Today is the day we announce UTM Accelerated (9.2) to the world. If you’ve been following our blog series over the past couple of weeks, you’ll already know about many of the excellent new features we’re introducing. However, you may still be asking yourself why we’re calling this version of our UTM “accelerated” and how you can get hold of this great new software. Read on.

Why “Accelerated”?

This release is all about shifting up a gear to more quickly recognize a broader range of threats and rapidly alert administrators to allow them to isolate infected systems. It’s about accelerating scanning speeds – in particular for IPS – to ensure the optimal use of resources in every deployment scenario and the best possible performance. And it’s about streamlining administration processes to provide simple yet more effective security.

Challenged by complexity, limited by resources

The typical Sophos UTM customer is what we call a pragmatic enterprise. They have limited IT resources and want a single solution to provide complete security. But they don’t want to make security compromises due to the size of their business. Rightly so! UTM 9.2 offers many features which other vendors can often only offer in a separate appliance, designed with the larger enterprise in mind. That means their products are complex to set up and maintain — and when you start to scale down the solution, you lose important functionality. That’s not the way we work. Every feature is available on every appliance, accessible to organizations of any size.

Advanced Threat Protection gets faster and smarter

Advanced Threat Protection in this release is near and dear to us. It’s a prime example of how we can provide enterprise-grade security for the mid-market – without the complexity or the need for additional budget. By combining a number of technologies we’re able to leverage multiple layers to detect more threats and prevent wider damage to the network.

Click, click, secure

You may have heard us say in our videos that simple security is better security. Set it up, switch it on, and it just works. But sometimes you can’t entirely factor the user out of that process. If something can be automated, of course, we’ll automate it – see our email encryption and DLP. But if not, then we try to look at how users work and give them tools they can and will use. Whether that’s ensuring they can use their smartphone to authenticate, or providing more user-friendly ways to log in to the web with their latest iOS or Android device.

How do we measure up?

UTM 9.2 is one of the most feature-rich unified solutions on the market. For example, numerous third parties have already endorsed the suitability of our Web Application Firewall as a Microsoft TMG replacement. But what about how we compare with Fortinet, DELL SonicWALL, WatchGuard or other network security solutions? Now could be the ideal time for you to make a change. If you want to find out how we measure up, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to show you or provide a quote.

Last but not least, UTM Accelerated (9.2) is now available for manual download for existing customers to upgrade. The automatic upgrade process will begin in early April and run over a number of weeks. Any customer who purchases UTM today will also be able to upgrade and — provided you have a license for the respective module — benefit from the host of new features in this release at no extra cost. And yes, you read that correctly.

It would be our pleasure to give you the chance to enjoy your UTM Accelerated (9.2) experience very soon. If you do have any questions or comments, as always, we’re only an email or a phone call away.