"Enterprise IT departments prefer best-of-breed security technologies. That's been a statement of fact for as long as it has taken information technology to evolve from the mainframe to the network.
That statement of fact may not be holding water for much longer, however. Rumblings of all-in-one security appliances are getting louder as companies, vendors and analysts wonder how much they can integrate into a single box."
This article exposes a confusion that is persisting in the security space. Does the term appliance have to mean integrated? The answer is no, but it's a little hard to discern from a lot of writing. An appliance, such as a 1U or 2U unit or a blade can house just a 'best of breed' solution. There are two issues here, but both fall under appliance and the market needs to separate them.
One: integrated appliance. This is a 'swiss army knife' solution that houses multiple security products on a single unit.
Two: single use appliance. A 1U, 2U, or even a blade that comes pre-loaded from the vendor with a 'best of breed' solution.
There are pros and cons to both solutions, and even to software only solutions, but the market needs to make a strong distinction between integrated v. single use appliances. In the future more companies will be looking for software that ships on hardware, whether that hardware holds integrated or single use security applications is another matter.