WatchGuard enhances network security tool

MANILA, Philippines - WatchGuard Technologies, a leader in integrated security platforms, recently announced that it is enhancing its real-time network security visibility solution, WatchGuard Dimension, which has already helped drive record financial results for the company in the fourth quarter of 2013. 

The new enhancements extend Dimension’s capabilities to support Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform, in addition to VMware, and also increase scalability, availability and visibility. 

“The global response we have seen from customers using Dimension with our XTM family of unified threat management (UTM) platforms has been unprecedented,” said Scott Robertson, Asia-Pacific vice president of WatchGuard Technologies.

“In record numbers, customers are using this cloud-based visibility tool to get key insights into security threats and critical trends in their environment. Although this product has been on the market for less than six months, we are moving quickly to make new enhancements in response to enthusiastic feedback from users,” Robertson said.

“I find the new FireWatch interface in Dimension invaluable to help pinpoint issues and identify problematic users. I love the ability to drill into protocols or categories with ease. I can also expand timeframes to see if this is a one off or long occurring issue,” said Tim O’Leary, IT manager at Civica Pty. Ltd. Australia.

WatchGuard Dimension is delivered as a free virtual appliance for XTM customers, which simplifies set-up.

The latest update includes faster access and increased scalability with external and shared database support. It also improves visibility with dynamic hostname resolution, and native language support for key countries will be available toward the end of the first quarter.

Frank Dickson, principle analyst at Frost & Sullivan, understands the value Dimension brings to the market as well and said, “We did a survey of more than 12,000 information security professionals and 56 percent reported that their organization has too few information security workers.”

“WatchGuard Dimension is a tool designed to make life easier for security professionals, especially those in the resource constrained mid-market, so they can more quickly distill key information security data into actionable policy creation,” Dickson said.