Should a Visibility Vendor enter the Security space?

By Christian Ferenz, CEO, Cubro

Over the last few years, we have seen two major trends in our industry – virtualization and security. Virtualization has, on the first view, a significant impact on the approach to provide visibility in networks. One option of providing visibility in the virtual environment is to move the visibility gear in this virtual space. Sounds good but often it turns out that the things which look good in the first place are not really a smart option.

In legacy networks, we use network TAPs, aggregators, NPB “network packet brokers” to feed the relevant data to the probe. In a massive network environment, this could be a complex installation but it is typically an advantage because such a system can feed different probing systems for different purposes. In modern networks, with a combination of real and virtual environments, it is much more complex. Read more about the downside of virtual probing in mobile networks.

Some network visibility vendors are now moving in the security space.  Once again it seems to be a clever approach similar to the virtualization trend but in reality, is it the right move? The justification can be that it is for the same customers and it involves dealing with the networks. True, but several points are not considered.

The first is that once you enter the security space, you start competing with your former partners and the network is not a network. As a network visibility vendor, you are dealing with L1 to L4 but in the security space, you are not dealing with layers. Instead, you deal with the content of the network and this is a different story. To explain this let’s look at the example of a butcher and a chef. They are both working with meat but in an entirely different way. They need each other and they work together but they are not competing. 

As a network visibility vendor, Cubro does not compete with its solutions partner. On the contrary, we focus on developing advanced visibility solution to provide data in the right manner to the tools. We totally understand that the best analytic tool cannot work when the input is incomplete or wrong.  

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