Firewall Blowout

Posted by Greg Shipley on May 3, 2005

Firewall Blowout Analyzing the Threat-Management Market Review: Deep Inspection Firewalls Review: XML Gateways Review: Branch Office Devices Read More Defense Mechanisms XS40 XML Security Gateway 3.0 Ups the Ante Reactivity's 2400 Series Gateway and Manager with XOS 4.1 Enemy at the Gateway Web Services Security

The bottom line: We suspect the firewall market will look vastly different in a year or two. Although we don't envision the demise of standalone firewall appliances anytime soon, what we thought was a product a year ago is starting to look suspiciously like a feature. After spending three months testing firewalls, interviewing customers and grilling vendor executives, we know enterprises building a cohesive network-protection strategy need these questions answered: Will next-generation routers and switches come bundled with application-level policy enforcement? Will silicon-based network-access-control devices finally overtake their PC-based rivals? Will today's NIPS (network intrusion-prevention systems) become tomorrow's firewalls, or vice versa? Will network infrastructure heavyweights like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks finally put the squeeze on companies like Check Point Software Technologies and Internet Security Systems?

Is this the last time we'll review standalone firewalls? Probably not, but this market is about to get more confusing, not less. Prepare for more changes--and carnage.

History Repeats

Most of us date the birth of the network firewall industry to Digital Equipment's design in the early '90s, which was soon followed by Trusted Information Systems' Gauntlet firewall and Check Point's FireWall-1. By the late '90s a slew of network firewalls had hit the market, ranging from the Raptor (now owned by Symantec) to the PIX (Cisco) to the Sidewinder (Secure Computing) to products from NetScreen (now Juniper), SonicWall and WatchGuard.