IHS released excerpts from its 2015 IHS Infonetics Cloud and Data Center Security Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, for which data center and cloud operators were interviewed about their strategies for deploying security in the data center and their ratings of security vendors.

Jeff Wilson, senior research director for cybersecurity technology at HIS, said many of the data center operators participating in study are also looking to provide off-premises security services to customers.

“As virtualization and SDN (software-defined networking) deployment increases, it becomes easier and easier for service providers to provide protection for their virtualized infrastructure and deliver customized for-revenue security services to customers,” Wilson said.

IHS said when asked about basic strategies for deploying security in the data center, survey respondents clearly favor a multi-layered approach, with most already deploying a mix of hardware appliances, virtual appliances and per-VM software

Respondents’ highest-rated drivers for deploying virtual appliances for security are diverse: adding cloud-based services for security, deploying SDN and improving agility when deploying new security services

Operators surveyed have deployed or are evaluating security products from a massive list of vendors, and there is no clear leader.

Telecomasia.net