Stamford UCI - Page 13

White Paper i
Security Market
With a clearer picture of the computing security solution marketplace, enterprise decision-makers
can identify and understand the implications of critical market trends on their purchasing decisions.
Compaq has identified four key computing security trends that have important repercussions for
enterprise customers and Compaq’s own security strategy:
• the expansion of firewall functionality
• the developing need for strong identification and authentication measures
• the importance of balancing hardware and software in one’s security approach
• the rapidly growing, but immature security marketplace
Security Market: Firewall Expansion
Over the past 12-18 months, firewall vendors have been aggressively expanding their security
solutions to meet the multiple objectives of security (see Figure 9). To accomplish quick growth
and diversification, most vendors have announced partnerships or acquisitions in order to embed
their functionality and technologies, such as authentication and encryption (VPN), in the firewall
and/or establish interoperability with other leading solutions. In addition, several firewall vendors
have attempted to establish a common, open platform and a security middleware standard to define
architecture for enterprise’s complete security solution. In effect, these vendors intend for the
firewall to become the management console for enterprise’s security infrastructure.
As one of the most validated security solutions, a firewall’s functionality was traditionally limited
to network boundary access control, allowing only certain types of packets of information and
applications to travel into and out of a defined network. In the early years of development, firewall
vendors focused on refining their technology. They developed firewalls for multiple platforms,
building their installed base by educating users about firewalls, and finding VAR or OEM partners.