Juniper, IBM and Verizon will be among the big-name companies airing new products and services in San Francisco this week at the RSA Conference, the annual security industry event that is expected to draw 17,000 attendees and 350 exhibitors.

Show organizers are aiming for an edgier event than in years past, taking a page from the annual Black Hat Conference and adding a track dedicated to the sorts of researchers known to rip the lid off security vulnerabilities. Virtualization security, network access control, data leakage prevention and protecting against Web 2.0-borne malware will be among hot topics for discussion. Top executives from EMC’s RSA security division, CA, Symantec and IBM Internet Security Systems will deliver keynotes.

While IBM, Verizon and some others are keeping their news under wraps until April 8, Juniper revealed that it will air its next-generation intrusion-detection and intrusion-prevention appliance line, which some analysts say will put the company’s offerings at the front of the pack of intrusion-prevention systems (IPS).(Compare Intrusion Prevention Systems.)

Juniper will look to generate lots of buzz with four new appliances -- the IDP 75, 250, 800 and 8200 -- that scale from 150Mbps to 10Gbps. The previous high-end Juniper appliance topped out at 1Gbps. 

Click to see: Juniper plans to unveil its new line of intrustion detection/prevention appliances, which scale from 150M to 10Gbps, at the RSA Conference.

Jon Oltsik, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, says “a few others, TippingPoint, Internet Security Systems [now part of IBM] and McAfee,” have gear to compete at those speeds. But he considers these more like a “security add-on” to prevent attacks, while Juniper’s IDP devices are meant to work with other equipment for wider security management, such as network-access control.

Another factor is using IPS not just at the perimeter of the network but in the core, where speeds are usually higher, in enterprise and carrier networks.

HCR Manor Care, which has a data center in Toledo, Ohio and uses Juniper’s older 1100F appliance, anticipates migrating to the IDP 8200. “We have multiple 1100Fs inside the data center, but we need to be able to have higher speeds,” says Craig Hulbert, senior network engineer for information services.

HCR uses the Juniper IPS to protect against attacks and to cordon off data according to three company-designated classifications -- public, restricted and confidential -- by using a Juniper profiling mechanism that helps segment data. “If anyone tries to go after unauthorized data, we treat that as an attack,” Hulbert says.

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