The Impact of Unified Threat Management
I recall 5 years ago when we first started installing Fortigate firewalls. A large source of revenue was virus and malware program removal and rebuilding machine after hopeless infections.
It was really no fun providing these reactive services. Sure the money was good, but was it really the best way for our clients to be spending their hard-earned money?
We started doing after-hours patch management in an effort do something proactive. This was just not enough. We needed something powerful and effective that could fill the gap between the patch schedule and the relentless release of threats to the Internet.
The answer was a product from Fortinet called “Fortigate.” We could finally suppliment the on-the-host software-based protection with a gateway-based protection device. “Block the threat at the front door.” What a great idea. This was no new idea, because we had tried Netopia, SnapGear, Cyberguard, SonicWall and Watchguard. We burned a lot of money before finally landing on the Fortiguard service delivered through the Fortigate.
The UTM (unified threat management) system represented by the Fortigate was almost infinitely configurable. We learned about configuring individual elements and binding them together in the firewall policies. This was a far cry from the weak wizard-based configuration of the SonicWall and SnapGear.
Our new tool turned out to be a double-edged sword. Now that our customers were realizing the value in the Fortiguard subscription, they were really enjoying the reduced number of trouble calls to the help desk which ultimately translated into fewer billable hours for us. Isn’t it true that when you take care of the customer, the customer will take care of you? Well, yes, but no. The new problem we had was our business model.
We did so well generating revenue from reactive system management that we didn’t think about what would happen when we really fixed the problem.
The change was so profound and so sudden that we realized two things. The first was that a properly configured Fortigate nearly obsoleted our reactive support model. The second was that we were forced to reinvent ourselves in order to maintain a revenue stream.
The key idea is that a single device, properly configured solves so many problem in the arena of proactive support that now we don’t take on new clients unless they adopt some kind of UTM. The Fortigate is an integral part of our managed services delivery.
