NetScreen, which mainly plays in the firewall/VPN space, sees IDP as a major opportunity, and released its NetScreen IDP series of appliances last October, with integration of the technology into its firewall/VPN devices expected this year.

The difference between IDP and IDS is that IDP can sit in the data stream and can block potentially harmful traffic if it is sufficiently confident that is what it is seeing. IDS generally sniffs traffic and issues alerts and logs for security people to peruse.

We believe the market is opportunity rich as there is a high degree of dissatisfaction with legacy intrusion detection systems, Thomas said in a conference call announcing NetScreen’s second fiscal quarter financial results.

I wouldn’t say everyone out there with an IDS system is ready for IDP yet, he later added. I wouldn’t say everyone with an IDS system is an IDP convert yet, I think that’s happening gradually… It needs some time.

Customers are putting IDP into their networks in an IDS mode, to test it out for accuracy before becoming confident enough to turn IDP mode on, Roberts said. NetScreen is leveraging its strength in VPNs to push IDP into new accounts, he said.

But Roberts added that a lot of the traction is at the lower-end. High-end customers, which were early adopters of IDS, are apparently proving tough sales, due to a degree of disillusionment with their installed products.

I think there’s a bit of a stall in the market, a lot of large customers have lot of IDS systems installed, 10 or 15 of them, and are not deploying any more because of the problems they’re experiencing with a high false positive rate and the immense amount of data they have to wade through, Roberts said.

The IDP market, sometimes known by the acronym IPS for intrusion prevention system, is one that most of the major security vendors are looking at. Network Associates Inc bought two IPS firms recently, spending over $200m.

Internet Security Systems Inc, which arguably leads the IDS market, says its IDS already has some prevention capabilities. The company will add to this functionality later in the year, and will also add firewall and VPN features, taking it head-on with NetScreen.

NetScreen does not yet break out how much revenue it gets from its IDP line, but Roberts said the business is growing faster than the market, if only because NetScreen started from zero revenue just two quarters ago.

The company reported its second consecutive quarter of GAAP profitability last week. For its second fiscal quarter to March 31, the company reported a net income of $5.9m, compared to a loss of $3.3m last year, on revenue up 82% at $58.3m.

Roberts credited NetScreen’s selective channel model with much of its success. He said 94% of sales came through the channel, with the remaining 6% direct sales mainly to service providers in the North American market.

Source: Computerwire