In a recent study that measured the time to deploy and manage an integrated security solution compared with two suites of point products, independent third-party engineers concluded that, from a time-to-deployment and management perspectives, many companies may be better off with a integrated security suite strategy than a best-of-breed security stategy.
The test exercises compared the effort required to deploy and manage a comprehensive perimeter security solution during a 12-month period for a company with 1,200 employees in a headquarters and three satellite offices.
The study examined common business security requirements such as firewall and packet filtering, VPN connectivity, and Internet content filtering -- including, anti-spam, anti-virus, and URL filtering.
The report concluded that systems administrators and IT managers need to tread carefully. While organizations can roll their own suite of security offerings, the degree of complexity and pain, which ultimately translates into dollar cost, seems to far outstrip any perceived advantage associated with best-of-breed point solution strategies.
"Time and time again, the complexity created by manually integrating multiple products became strikingly evident," analysts said.
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