Firewall management firm Tufin Technologies recently announced that it plans on expanding into the field of general network management through a clutch of 12 new plug-ins to expand its open extensible architecture.

The Israel-based security company is pinning hopes for future success on this architecture, dubbed the Tufin Open Platform (TOP). Introduced last April, TOP was designed to help organizations centralize policy change analysis and tracking, configuration change and compliance monitoring, plus optimize performance and perform auditing across a range of network security devices. When it first released the TOP Software Development Kit (SDK), Tufin announced participation from F5 and Blue Coat. But the plan has always been to expand across the industry and across network infrastructure, says Shaul Efraim, vice president of products, business development and marketing at Tufin.

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“When we announced this platform at the RSA show last April, the promise behind the Tufin Open Platform was that it would basically open up the Tufin products SecureTrack and SecureChange Workflow,” he says.  “So we are opening these up [now] to any network security device out there so that we can then monitor, change and optimize configuration for any device out here.”

The new plug-ins now support a range of switches from Cisco, Juniper, HP ProCurve, Dell, Nortel, Brocade and Extreme Networks.

“As we stand with this release, we are the vendor in this space that has the broadest set of security and networking devices. Tufin customers can now monitor more vendors that they’ve got in their network, from a centralized console,” Efraim says, adding that this extends Tufin’s reach beyond just the firewall. “We are dramatically expanding beyond being very security focused and adding the network side to our portfolio of solutions. So customers are able to span their entire set of networks and security devices.”

According to analyst Eric Ogren, principal of the Ogren Group, this shift by Tufin is a natural progression necessary to adjust to enterprise needs.

“Firewall Policy Management functions are only part of the solution when controlling access to sensitive zones within the corporate infrastructure,” Ogren said in a statement. “Access policies that are enforced by high-speed switches and routers need to cooperate, and be consistent with firewall rules for effective management of a secure network.”

Efraim says that he believes the channel will be key in Tufin’s expansion of TOP. Tufin recently revamped its channel program to include a formalized certification training program, newly defined partner levels and a new partner incentive program, all of which have been well-accepted by the channel, Efraim says.

“Overall, what we are enjoying is better traction with our channel partners,” he says. “We have fewer partners who are idle, and we definitely are seeing more business coming from the channel, which is exactly what we were targeting.”