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These days, small and large businesses need the internet to maintain their operations. Virtually every section of a company has some level of dependence on the internet. Commercial (marketing and sales), after-sales and even production sectors, have people/equipment connected to the internet, requiring a high degree of reliability and availability.
Whether it is to establish a good relationship with customers, to control equipment on the shop floor or to prospect new customers, computerization and the internet have come to improve quality in organizational processes.
However, with the advancement of technology and the growing volume of information transiting the corporate network, the likelihood of claims associated with data hijacking, and other virtual threats, has also increased. This new reality has made the demand for security solutions projected in a representative way.
In this context, one can highlight the use of UTM firewall solutions, one of the main security assets in corporate networks, widely used by companies of various sizes and segments. The main function of the UTM firewall is to control the traffic between the internet and the corporate network of the company, intercepting threats of the most varied types, and playing a critical role in the network topology.
In this blog post, it will be characterized the concept of high availability of firewalls, including introduction on modes of operation and application in corporate environment.
Understanding what a UTM Firewall is
Em tradução literal, “Firewall” significa “Parede de Fogo”. An UTM firewallis a unified solution for virtual threat prevention, including perimeter security modules, secure remote access, and content management. UTM firewalls aim to bring security to the corporate data, being the bottleneck of all incoming and outgoing connections generated by the assets (computers, cell phones, etc) present in the company’s network.
An UTM solution also allows the creation of visibility on the use of the internet, as well as the application of access controls, avoiding problems related to productivity, security and availability. In addition to these features, an UTM firewall allows the application of other security features, including Internet traffic management (failover), traffic prioritization application (QoS), secure remote access (VPN).
In short, the UTM firewall represents the primary security asset of a company, and its availability is highly critical to the organization. The criticality is due to the fact that, in case the firewall solution presents some kind of failure, all security controls, including the internet itself, will be affected, causing a serious inconvenience to the company operation.
High availability on UTM firewalls
It is well-known that the concept of high availability in technology environments involves a number of requirements, including hardware and software infrastructure replication, for concept effectiveness.
However, the focus of this content is to clarify what the concept of UTM high availability is. High availability, in these cases, has the objective of maintaining the operation of the security solution in an uninterrupted manner, avoiding impacts on the corporate structure.
The contingency structure must be configured according to the needs of each business, always emphasizing the best use of resources. In this sense, it is important to emphasize that the concept of high availability can make use of UTMs in appliance or virtual appliance/software platforms, respecting the characteristics of the technology structure used by the company.
“High availability is the ability for the service/application to function properly without failures or interruptions for a long period of time”
The concept of high availability can be implemented in active-active, active-passive or hybrid cluster format, as described in the blog post “The Importance of High Availability of Firewalls to Organizations”.
Another point to emphasize is that the concept of high availability of firewalls does not always require the expenditure of large investments. The investment is directly proportional to the criticality of the operation and existing structure in the company. In this sense, it is reasonable to say that high availability can also be applied to small businesses.
The concept of high availability in security solutions is a step that tends to be given by many organizations in the coming years, following the same path covered by the concept of digital security, which is widely disseminated in organizations.
The transformations seen in recent years, which include computerization of processes, evolution of the internet, SaaS concept, have contributed to the creation of an increasingly high level of dependence on the internet resource, being a reality in companies of the most varied sizes and segments.
This movement reinforces the concept of high availability of security assets, present in corporate networks, generating reflection and reaction of technology professionals that aim to act in a strategic way, collaborating for the development of the business and maintenance of the operations.
If the topic associated with high availability adheres to the need of your company, seize the opportunity and talk to one of our specialists. Our team counts on certified professionals with vast experience in small, medium and large projects.
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