Network Security

Oh boy! A new group.

The big news this month is the addition of a new element: a set of reviews on emerging products that you can find exclusively on our website. Really, this is more than emerging products. It's more of an emerging market segments group. For example, this month we are addressing virtualization and the cloud. This is, truly, an emerging area of concern for security professionals. The virtual world is growing way faster than our ability to secure it. And there is a lot of confusion around the differences in clouds and virtualized systems.

For all of that, there are a few companies that have stepped up and addressed the issue. They have done it with imagination, ingenuity and market and technology savvy. We started dipping our collective toes in those murky waters a couple of years ago. We identified one of the few companies in this market space at the time, cited them as innovators for three years, promoted them to the Hall of Fame, and then they were gobbled up by the king of virtualization.

Even with this new area of focus, we have not forgotten the meat and potatoes of the technology section: Group Tests. And we have a corker for you this month. UTMs have become a staple of our business, and the market space is beginning to stabilize and mature. One of our favorite SIEMs, for example, was acquired recently by one of the security giants.

We have a bumper crop this month – 14 products, all of which are first-rate and hard to discern from one another. No worries, though, the two Mikes (Stephenson and Lipinski) are shepherding these through their paces in the lab. They have the challenge well in hand. With our new full-page format, we are betting you will find a lot to think about this month.

And, as always, we'll have a few thoughts at the start of the group, not to mention my thoughts – occasionally irreverent – on the topic of the cloud and its attendant hype. I am the sworn enemy of hype in our business, but you'll probably figure that out fairly quickly.

So, it's on with the show. To summarize, we have five emergents in the cloud and virtualization space (posted exclusively on the website), plus our Group Test of UTMs. That's a lot to absorb in one month. So we'd best get to it. Remember, we are always interested in your comments. Email me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.

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