Dubai, UAE -- (SBWIRE) -- 04/22/2012 -- Gartner places SonicWALL in Leaders Quadrant of its UTM Magic Quadrant.

SonicWALL meets and exceeds Gartner’s definition criteria for UTM security appliances

SonicWALL, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, today announced that Gartner (Nasdaq: IT) has positioned SonicWALL in the leaders quadrant of its 2012 Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management.

"We firmly believe our position in the 'Leaders' quadrant confirms our ability to execute in the marketplace and underscores the strong and stable commission of our business," said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of product management and corporate marketing at SonicWALL. "We have consistently delivered innovative and competitively disruptive solutions that have shaped and transformed the market. SonicWALL TZ and Network Security Appliance (NSA) Series UTM firewalls help our customers secure their network environments with intelligent solutions that adapt as threats continue to evolve. We invest heavily in hardware and product development and continue to receive vital industry certifications such as IPv6 Phase 2, ICSA, FIPS and Common Criteria EAL4+. Beyond even UTM, our feature sets go further by incorporating granular Application Intelligence, Control and Visualization capabilities."

The evaluation is based on completeness of vision and ability to execute. In their report, Gartner analysts John Pescatore and Greg Young analyze the importance of UTM firewall deployments for businesses with up to 1,000 employees generating up to $1bn in revenue. They emphasize the importance of features such as built-in secure wireless LAN support and browser-based management, which don't appeal to large enterprises, but are highly valued by SMBs in this market.

According to the authors, the UTM Firewall market was worth approximately $1.28bn in 2011 and is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% through 2017.

SonicWALL UTM firewalls tightly integrate and exceed the key functions defined by Gartner as required to meet the security needs of businesses.

In the report, Gartner identifies required functions for UTM products as:
- Standard network stateful firewall functions
- Remote access and site-to-site virtual private network (VPN) support
- Web security gateway functionality (anti-malware, URL and content filtering)
-Network intrusion prevention focused on blocking attacks against unpatched Windows PCs and servers

The Gartner report defines UTM market leaders as "vendors at the forefront of making and selling UTM products that are built for midsize business requirements. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize business use cases, support for multiple features, and a management and reporting capability that's designed for ease of use. Vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features, and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens. These vendors also have a good track record of avoiding vulnerabilities in their security products. Common characteristics include reliability, consistent throughput, and a product that's intuitive to manage and administer.”

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About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted March 5, 2012 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with per-mission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About SonicWALL Inc
Guided by its vision of Dynamic Security for the Global Network, SonicWALL develops advanced intelligent network security and data protection solutions that adapt as organizations evolve and as threats evolve. Trusted by small and large enterprises worldwide, SonicWALL solutions are designed to detect and control applications and protect networks from intrusions and malware attacks through award-winning hardware, software and virtual appliance-based solutions. Visit http://www.sonicwall.com/

Copyright © 2012 SonicWALL, Inc. All rights reserved. SonicWALL® is a registered trademark of SonicWALL, Inc. and all other SonicWALL product and service names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of SonicWALL, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.