Network Security Technology On Tap For The Enterprise
In November, analyst firm IDC predicted the sun would shine on the
network security technology
market this year, to the tune of $8.16 billion in revenues. Whether
vendors hit that mark remains to be seen, but the past few months have
seen no shortage of network security technologies aimed at protecting
corporate networks. Among the challenges -- unifying management across a
distributed workforce increasingly using mobile devices and boosting
data protection and monitoring in virtual environments.
From Juniper Networks to McAfee, vendors have their eye on offering
security resellers new solutions to pitch to customers looking to secure
their organizations. In this slideshow, we take a look at some of the
latest network security technologies and announcements shaping the
market.
McAfee Bolters Network Security Platform
McAfee recently announced enhancements to its
Network Security Platform.
The security company’s latest release includes virtual network
inspection technology to enable the platform sensors to examine traffic
between virtual machines and detect attacks against virtual data center
environments. McAfee also enhanced its reputation-based capabilities to
fight botnets, and added traffic redirection capabilities to allow
arbitrary network traffic to be inspected by McAfee and third-party
products.
Cisco SecureX framework
Pictured here is one of the
Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances.
At the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco earlier this year,
Cisco announced it would be bringing context-aware firewalling and
policy enforcement to these appliances. The capabilities are part of
what Cisco calls its SecureX Architecture, which also encompasses pieces
like Cisco AnyConnect and extensible APIs (application programming
interfaces) that permit Cisco's management systems and partners to plug
in to complete the security ecosystem. The context-aware capabilities
will be added to the Cisco ASA 5500 Series this summer.
CheckPoint Adds New Blades
Check Point R75
was released in February, and offers four software blades: Application
Control, Identity Awareness, Data Loss Prevention and Mobile access. The
Application Control Software Blade was brand new in the release, and
integrates Check Point’s UserCheck technology to “engage employees in
the remediation process” and leverages the Check Point AppWiki, which
includes more than 100,000 Web 2.0 application and widgets. The Identity
Awareness blade is also brand new, and allows organizations to create
policies based on identity.
Juniper Networks Looks To Unify Network Access
Juniper Networks announced the availability of its MAG Series Junos
Pulse Gateways April 13. Offered in four models, the Juniper Networks
MAG Series Junos Pulse Gateways deliver SSL VPN connectivity and network
access control (NAC) capabilities.
PacketMotion Eyes Virtual Networks
PacketMotion released the PacketSentry Virtual Probe to help
organizations monitor access to data in VMware clusters and secure and
audit communications between virtual machines (VMs). PacketSentry
Virtual Probe is delivered as a guest VM. Among the applications
monitored are databases, fileshares and Web applications.
Fortinet Targets the Data Center
The
FortiGate-3140B security appliance
is aimed at large enterprises and their data centers. The appliance
offers a total of 22 ports, and can be deployed either as a firewall or
unified threat management solution configured to support VPN, IPS,
application control, anti-spam and antivirus.
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