Prediction #3 - By 2015, 20 percent of the VPN/firewall market will be deployed in a virtual switch on a hypervisor rather than a physical security appliance:

Physical network security appliances, such as server mobility and simplified architecture, can inhibit key virtual server benefits customers seek. Partnering with hypervisor providers has become critical to offering network security on the virtual switch.

Virtual switches allow for new firewall players such as host-based security software companies to enter the network firewall market. Since a virtual switch is one level of abstraction away from the physical data switch ports, providing network security is no longer just for physical network providers. Hypervisor providers are moving firewall offerings from the data center to the network edge. This could be key for new network firewall players leveraging hypervisor technologies to gain firewall market share outside of the data center.

"Growth in the firewall market could come from virtual players," said Eric Ahlm, research director at Gartner. "To date, the virtual firewall market has been limited to data-center-class firewalls, which make up the minority of the total firewall market. A push from the virtual providers to bring their technology to the edge could be a key accelerator to the virtual switch market growth.”

“Enabling the key benefits of virtualized servers, while not compromising security, is becoming a key requirement for network data-center-class firewalls while transportability of network firewall controls outside of a customer's data center to a third-party provider is essential to customers using these providers for more critical systems."

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