He suggests that organizations conduct two types of tests. The first is to test the products' performance against the configuration that the organization plans to use and those specific functions that will be enabled.

The other is to test the products with all the features engaged on the UTM. "This will give you an idea of performance should you eventually want to enable more applications than you do now," Crotty says. "You want that room to grow and should look at [these capabilities] when making the initial purchase."

DJO did a lot of testing of its UTM appliance in its labs to ensure that the device worked with the disparate hardware that the company has installed.

"We do a lot of acquisitions, and we need to make sure that there's interoperability" among the systems, Iraci says. "Testing is so important in this day and age when you've got so many pieces and the infrastructure has become so much more complex."

Testing should also apply to release upgrades.