NetScreen, one of the top VPN vendors, is being acquired by Juniper, which makes edge and core routers that are mainly bought by service providers.

The deal has left many confused, but customers of NetScreen security appliances shouldn't worry that their vendor will lose track of them in the midst of combining the two companies.

First, NetScreen does pretty well as a business, and Juniper won't screw that up and risk disrupting the steadily growing revenue stream that NetScreen represents.

Second, Juniper's main interest, at least initially, has to be getting NetScreen technology onto its carrier service delivery platform where it can create network-based firewall and VPN services. Security is hot, outsourcing is hot and network-based VPN services are expected to grow faster than customer premises based VPNs over the next three or four years.

All of this is great for carriers and their customers, but what about businesses that like the roll-your-own model that NetScreen represents? As already noted here, it makes no sense to hurt that business so for a while customers should expect no change.

But down the road it would make sense for a new line of what we think of now as NetScreen gear to include more routing features to format traffic so it can whip through carrier networks faster and with service quality guarantees.

This merger is a big deal by many measurements. It's worth $4 billion, which is a lot of money. It could have a big impact on security services that are based on provider networks. And it could boost performance for VPN networks.

It's also worth noting that now another of the pure VPN vendors is gone, absorbed like so many others by a router vendor.

Tim Greene is senior editor at Network World.