Tired of trying to maintain and update a handful of different security products? Then security supplier Sophos offers you an alternative : the Sophos Security Suite Small Business Edition, one in a growing of integrated security suites.Security challenges have evolved from simply blocking unwanted intruders at the network perimeter to making sure that hackers are not inserting bogus code into your Web site or making their way into your enterprise network via fraudulent email messages. As a result, small and medium businesses now find themselves managing a wide and ever growing array of security products. Rather than update them in a hodgepodge fashion, they would like to work with them all at once. Consequently, vendors have been moving away from stand-alone security applications to integrated suites, products dubbed Unified Threat Management (UTM) systems.

The Sophos Security Suite Small Business Edition fits with that theme: it includes anti-virus, firewall and email security capabilities all in one system. Anti-virus and firewall functions have been lumped together for a while, and recently vendors added email monitoring functions to their security systems. The Sophos suites features PureMessage for Microsoft Exchange 3.0, which scans email for malware, spam, suspicious attachments and offensive language, The products data leakage prevention (DLP) function determines if internal and outbound messages include sensitive customer or financial data.

A number of companies have targeted the security space, which has been gaining attention as companies exchange information with more and more customers and suppliers. Sophos is one firm trying to make inroads into the small and medium business market. While the company does not have the marketing might of its formidable competitors, it does offer decent functionality with small and medium businesses focus, so you may want to take a closer look at its integrated security suite.

How many different security products does your company have? How much time do you spend managing them? Have you had any experience with Sophos? How easy or difficult has it been to deal with the company?