Barbara Gengler | April 29, 2008
TO keep pace in the competitive intrusion detection and prevention market Juniper Networks says throughput speed in its new offerings will make the difference.
Its upgraded IDP devices scale up to 10Gbps.
Gartner analyst John Pescatore says several vendors, including Tipping Point, Force10, McAfee and Reflex Security, have high-speed intrusion detection appliances, but Juniper has an advantage.
"The real issue is what was the test load (types of legitimate traffic, types of attack traffic, percentage attack versus legitimate). The only reliable test I can point to for throughput testing is the NSS Group and I don't think they have any 10Gbps devices," he says.
With 10Gbps of real-world throughput, up to 80Gb modular Input/Output and other important features, the new flagship appliance, the Juniper Networks IDP 8200, is a leap ahead, Juniper says.
The most important new feature, particularly for customers buying the devices to install in data centres, is the built-in bypass feature on all ports.
If, for instance, there is a failure of some kind on the IDP (power, hard drive, software), the IDPs can fail to wire without disrupting the network and without the need for an external box.
This built-in bypass feature is available on the 8200 and on Juniper's mid-range appliances the IDP 75, 200 and 850.
The new boxes run on Juniper's customised version of Linux, which is a shift away from its own operating system, Junos.
Pescatore says Juniper's major advantage is that its traditional networking products are already widely used at carriers and enterprises, so the company has "high believability" in both performance and reliability at rates of 10Gbps.
"The markets for these rates are large data centres and services providers, not the typical large enterprise internet connection," he says.
"So, reliability and predictability (consistent latency, no jitter) are important, along with high reliability." It is the throughput that is tempting a long-time customer of Juniper, health care organisation HCR ManorCare, to upgrade from the 1100F to the 8200.
"We need to have higher speeds," senior network engineer Craig Hulbert says.
Pescatore also says in a recent research report that customers of Juniper's IDP boxes consistently rate post-sales support very highly.
As well, the Juniper console and NetScreen-Security Manager, which is a centralised rule-based management solution for control of the system's behaviour, rate highly in competitive assessments, particularly for NetScreen firewall customers.
He isn't, however, dismissing the competition from others.
For instance, of TippingPoint, Pescatore says the 3Com unit has considerable experience in the IPS market, and the company's products have a broad model range of purpose-built appliances, including high-throughput options, and are known for low latency. IDC analyst Charles Kolodgy says network attacks are growing in numbers and sophistication.
"To address these threats, businesses look for high-performance security systems to safeguard their networks," he says.
"Companies require easy-to-maintain intrusion prevention products that handle ever-increasing levels of traffic, rapidly detect attacks and clean application-level attacks before they do damage."
Companies are spending big on their security needs.
The worldwide network security appliance and software market grew 20 per cent to $US5.2 billion in 2007 over the previous year, according to a recently released Infonetics Research's Network Security Appliances and Software report.
IDP sales made up 15 per cent of that total.
Cisco continues to lead the overall network security market, followed by Juniper and then CheckPoint, according to research by Infonetics.