With the networking and security industries evolving rapidly, Fortinet has listed eight trends that it expects will become the most important developments and technologies to look out for in 2015.
First is that security breaches are harder to stop. The development of defense systems over the past 10-15 years has led to a myriad of disparate security appliances, software agents and management systems that in many cases are unable to talk to one other.
Next-generation security architectures will integrate discrete security systems into a platform, which can correlate threat life elements and break the infection chain in different places.
Second, cloud technologies are finally taking root. Cloud bursting, hybrid clouds and personal clouds will mean more sharing of distributed services, management and security.
Third, mobile apps and management will be diverse with at least two to three platforms across the globe. Improved JavaScript performance will begin to push HTML5 and the browser as a mainstream enterprise application development environment. This will lead to richer applications and more focus on their usability, rather than larger and cumbersome applications.
Fourth, software defined modular infrastructure becomes the norm. The effect is that APIs are being consumed at a much higher rate. However, APIs are also a potential security hole to the network element.
Fifth, the Internet of Things and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) will collide. These networks are separate today and individual in nature. However, both need to deal with cyber threats, which can cause huge damage across industrial complexes, public operational networks (like power grids) or consumers.
Sixth, wireless continues to replace wired access. Wireless systems are becoming the primary network access control mechanism, meaning that tight integration with authentication systems is essential. Wireless technology itself continues to improve with ac Wave 1 now rolling out rapidly and Wave 2 on the horizon in 2015.
Seventh, networking bandwidth continues to double every 10 months. All parts of the infrastructure need to perform within the high-speed infrastructure. More recently ASIC-based firewall appliances have taken a quantum leap in performance, allowing 100G interfaces and throughput in the hundreds of Gbps, saving space and power.
And eighth, analytics will be for everything that’s attached to the network. Segmenting big data can lead to more actionable results. For example, collecting WiFi presence of consumers in retail stores can lead to understanding their buying behavior. Monitoring where and when clients connect to the network can help determine security posture. Forecasting shipments based on real time data can lead to more efficient operations.