I don't normally post on the partner world in this blog, although identity being necessary with security for now and the future is a cause close to my heart and belief system and I look forward to opportunities to write on it. But with the reception we received with the UK partner community, I can't help referring to the Cyberoam launch here. And I'm sure the welcome is more for the user identity the partners could see in Cyberoam than for the Go-Karting where they had great fun.

And this was true of both London and Manchester where we met the partners. More came from Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff & Bristol. So it was a fair representation.

The dip in Firewall/VPN purchases, for long the arbiters of security basics, is a clear indication that customers have long headed towards UTMs. IDC does say that the Firewall/VPN market has dipped with a -0.3 % growth in Q1 2008 over the same period last year.

With more than 10 vendors offering their UTMs in UK, partners and customers are ready for something more.

Not just for the sake of being different, but for one that offers real value. Well, if customers are moving from Firewall to UTM, they had a reason. Now if they are demanding more than a UTM, they have a reason too.

A valid reason. And it is that they see the need to humanize security. To see the users and what they do, the way humans can, making the security response individualized, taking into consideration the context and the individual quirks in behaviour.

Essentially, what attracted them is the fact that Cyberoam is the closest they'd get to human security ? the ability to know the user and his or her pattern of activity. That takes security to a different realm ? that of human control with all the nuance and intelligence involved.

There's nothing automatic about security. It's human."