Infotech Lead India: The data center security hardware appliance market increased 2 percent in 2012, according to Infonetics Research.
The virtual security appliance segment grew 33 percent in 2012. This market is likely to more than double between 2013 and 2017 to over $1.3 billion.
Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet are the top players in the data center security hardware appliances market. There are many challengers includingPalo Alto Networks that is poised to move up.
“Enterprises and service providers are upgrading their data centers to support increases in traffic and handle the massive waves of attacks they face every day, and as a result, data center security spending is growing rapidly, creating significant opportunity for established vendors and new entrants with the right mix of performance, features, and pricing,” said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research.
Meanwhile, enterprises participating in Infonetics’ survey spent an average of $14.6 million on data center security products in 2012, and expect to spend nearly $17 million in 2013.
While many buyers plan to invest in virtual appliances for higher-layer security technologies such as messaging, IPS, application, and web protection, Infonetics believes that businesses will continue to utilize hardware infrastructure for DDoS mitigation and firewalls.
Survey respondents named Cisco, McAfee, HP, Juniper, and Trend Micro as the top data center security suppliers, though Fortinet, Check Point, Palo Alto, and Dell SonicWALL are expected to find their way into more deals in 2013.
As data center security vendors race to turn out the best end-to-end solution, Infonetics anticipates continued growth in hypervisor security solutions and even more partnerships (or consolidation) between appliance, virtual appliance, and server security vendors.
