Sourcefire FirePOWER – Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Today marks an achievement not yet seen in our industry. NSS Labs has released three product analysis reports on IPS that contain testing data on the of the 8120, 8250, and 8260. For the fourth year running, we have received independent validation of the security effectiveness, performance and total cost of ownership (TCO) of our our Next-Generation IPS (NGIPS) products. When you look at our effectiveness you will note that we have consistently improved our effectiveness while the testing and security environments have become more demanding. We even managed to exceed the previous record we set for effectiveness, achieving 99% coverage over last year’s 98% coverage.

In 2011, we brought to market FirePOWER, which is the foundation for our next-generation network security platform. Our approach is one of hardware acceleration combined with software innovation to deliver capabilities to market in the fastest and most reliable way possible. Over the years you will have noticed us implement in software, optimize that software, and transition that to hardware where appropriate. This platform provides us the fundamental packet handling needed for our NGIPS and is the building block of our Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW). The performance results of all three products were consistently 170% of rated throughput. The 8260 model tested at 34G of inspected throughput when measured against a real world mix of traffic. This consistency demonstrates Sourcefire's commitment to providing appliances that can both scale and grow as network security needs change.

It makes me proud to tell you that Sourcefire invests significantly in our products to ensure that we provide the most effective tools available to protect our customers’ networks. I’m also proud to acknowledge that before we can bring to market superior products, we must start with superior people. Finding exceptional talent that meets our high standards is challenging, but that has culminated in creating the best technical team one could find. This incredibly talented team is directly responsible for these results, which aren’t just important for our customers, it is important for our industry.

Independent testing serves as checks and balances on vendor and data sheet claims and we are proud of our achievement. What makes us more proud of this work is looking at numbers from competitors over the years, you can see that even larger organizations have been unable to maintain the focus and dedication it takes to consistently protect their customers. In the end, we are bigger, stronger and faster than they are.

We are proud of our advancements, yet we know they are not the end of the road. We will continue to innovate and advance our core engine, because we believe deeply in the need for security. It is also important to us, and the foundation of our company, that we continue to provide our enhancements to our core engine as open source, and we expect that the community continues to benefit from them and ultimately demands more from us in the process.

From our perspective, any vendor claiming to provide security that cannot at least meet this expected level of consistent security effectiveness and performance should think seriously about their commitment to their customers. Any company evaluating a next-generation security platform should especially take this type of innovation and investment into account. At Sourcefire, we will continue to innovate aggressively to protect our customers, and we’d like to think this innovation will raise the industry-wide quality bar so high that our adversaries decide there are better businesses to be in. We welcome the competition and challenge them to join us in continually raising that bar.