SDN and NFV are set to bring important changes in data center security investments and there will be more demand for purpose-built virtual security appliances, said Infonetics Research in its latest Data Center Security Products report.
Sales of purpose-built virtual security appliances rose 44 percent to $150 million in 2013.
Infonetics is projecting a cumulative $1.35 billion will be spent on purpose-built virtual security appliances from 2014 to 2018.
The ported virtual security appliances segment of the data center security market grew 10 percent to $437 million in 2013.
Interest in SDN- and NFV-compatible security solutions is expected to drive consolidation among established security players, virtualization platform vendors, and specialist vendors.
Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research, said: “But as more providers virtualize their data centers and roll out SDNs and NFV, we anticipate a fairly significant revenue transition from hardware appliances to virtual appliances and purpose-built security solutions that interface directly with hypervisors, with SDN controllers via APIs, or orchestration platforms.”
Cisco, Juniper, and Fortinet are the top three revenue share leaders in the data center security appliance market, said Infonetics Research.
