Cisco tops in content security

Infonetics survey finds users would like to move it into cloud

Cisco rates highest overall in user ratings of content security manufacturers, according to data compiled by Infonetics Reseach on user plans for content security. But Cisco leads only by a slight margin for most criteria, followed closely by Symantec.

The real meat of the Infonetics study of 240 small, medium, and large North American organizations though is in these findings:

-- Appliance sprawl forcing consideration of cloud services. Infonetics found that companies are using a hodgepodge of host products, gateways and gateway software, including purchased standalone software and licensed SaaS clients. Notes Infonetics analyst Jeff Wilson:

This phenomenon is one of the biggest drivers for many companies to move to hosted and cloud-based solutions; appliance sprawl and large and unwieldy client deployments are time consuming and expensive, and the promise of moving that headache into the cloud is very tempting

-- Consistent with the cloud theme is the finding that respondents are increasing plans to deploy virtual appliances for content security. It's interesting to note that cloud computing itself is a security 'nightmare,' according to Cisco; yet more users, according to Infonetics, are interested in cloud-based content security services provisioned from virtual appliances. Wouldn't security itself then be insecure?

Which brings us to the next Infonetics finding:

-- 60% of respondents planning to roll out a SaaS solution cited strength of security as a chief driver. Is it more secure than the appliance mishmash in the IT department? If not, I'll herd the appliance sprawl, thank you;

On cost and the current economic situation, Infonetics found these nuggets:

-- Cost is the number-one barrier affecting customer deployment of new content security solutions
-- The combination of the high cost of multi-box solutions and the current economic environment has driven cost to the top of the list; yet  
-- The majority of respondents say the current global economic climate is not forcing them to cut content security spending. Compliance projects and the fundamental need to protect company data keep the purse strings open.

So users will pay for cloud-based content security but the security itself has to be secure.

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