Next generation firewalls (NGFWs) have become perimeter security “table stakes” for enterprise security. Potentially the most important network security investment an enterprise can make, NGFW technology is in high demand. There is considerable differentiation within the market, in spite of the fact that it has yet to reach maturity, and new features such as integrated threat intelligence feeds, cloud forensics, automated black-list population, and sandboxing have made purchasing decisions more complex.

Management is a crucial component of these decisions as some environments scale globally. In such environments, manual configuration of policies, control lists, and application behavior is simply not feasible and could even increase the threat surface area if incorrectly or inconsistently managed.

NSS Labs findings show that the 2013 total addressable market for NGFW was US$2.87B with a growth rate of nearly 18%. At this pace, the NGFW market is estimated to hit close to US$6B in 2018, which further underlines the strong global demand.

Today, performance is less of a concern during deployment decisions; many offerings from leading vendors exceed tens of Gbps of sustained aggregate throughput while running a full complement of services. Cloud deployment workflows are becoming more and more popular due to common configurations and policies between physical and virtual sites

The 2013 NSS Labs Market Analysis for Next Generation Firewalls assesses the market for both technology and business leaders and finds it remains a dynamic, exciting, and fast-paced segment within security. Find out how Barracuda Networks (NASDAQ: CUDA), Check Point (NASDAQ: CHKP), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Dell, Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), HP TippingPoint (NYSE: HPQ), Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), McAfee (NASDAQ: INTC), Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Sophos, and WatchGuard fared in this research, and find out how these vendors stack up against each another.