Comment Re:Pfffft! (Score 5, Informative) 219
irregular_hero, you are of course entitled to your opinions. Hopefully I can provide a little more information about some of the points you are confused on.
> Not too long ago, ISS made the fateful decision to knife most of its IDS/IPS product lines in the back by discontinuing support for "General Purpose" servers and third party appliances, effectively forcing all of its enterprise customers to buy an "owned" ISS appliance (the Proventia series).
I'm guessing by "General Purpose" servers you are referring to the Network Sensor and Server Sensor products which could run on hardware you bought. The first Proventia appliance launched was the Proventia A, which was the Network Sensor software pre-installed on a rackmount, sold as a unit. In truth the Proventia A was not very different from the Network Sensor software because it was almost running the same software. The appliance came about because many customers did not wish to buy their own hardware -- they wished to have the appliance. On the other hand, many customers did still wish to buy their own hardware. Thus, Network Sensors, Server Sensors, and Proventia As are in fact all still fully supported. The exception is the slow phase-out of the least popular Nokia and Solaris platforms.
For more information on the Product Life Cycle of the above mentioned products, please see the Product Documentation for the product you're interested in:
Server Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=15&family=7
Network Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=12&family=6
Proventia A -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=35&family=12
Or for a full listing of products you can see the documentation for, please see: http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/index.php
There may have been some confusion on this point due to the wild popularity of the Proventia G and Proventia M products which is a completely different product and relies on completely different software. The older Network Sensor, Server Sensor, and Proventia A products are in fact still available, supported, and sold.
> Companies with large deployments of ISS RealSecure on now End of Lifed platforms suddenly found themselves offered a year of update support and another capital outlay to "upgrade" to Proventia appliances. Not many followed the company down that path, but the ones that did get "first cut" appliances found that they, well, sucked. The company then recentered on a more "appliance"-looking hardware platform, but, by then, the damage was done.
I believe you may have to be more specific to help resolve your confusion here. Perhaps you were on one of the least-popular platforms of Nokia or Solaris which has been slowly phased out to improve support for more popular products? Based on your mention of appliances, I can only guess you had a Network Sensor (since there is no such thing as a Server Sensor appliance)? The first appliances that came out were the Proventia As, which ran pretty much the same exact software as the Network Sensor software. So your frustration was perhaps due to the hardware? As I mentioned above, the Network Sensor software on many platforms including Linux is still fully supported.
> Then ISS took a market-leading desktop security product, BlackICE, and folded it into their IDS/IPS management product. The integration damn near killed a lot of existing BlackICE customers, not to mention the fact that succeeding software releases were, in many cases, incompatible with previous releases. Those customers who bravely rolled out a BlackICE installation found themselves in the unenviable position of having to do the rollout all over again.
Again, you will have to be more specific here if I were to clear up your confusion. I believe what you are referring to is when they added the ability to manage the Desktop Protection software from SiteProtector, the central management console for all of your sensors. Luckily, it is entirely possible to create "stand-alone" builds of the Desktop Protection software that does not even have to be managed by SiteProtector. If you had decided to deploy your Desktop agents in this manner, the Desktop Protection software doesn't even come in contact with the SiteProtector management software.
I see that you are frustrated by perhaps some confusion in the past. I hope I have helped clarify some of the items you were confused about.
> Not too long ago, ISS made the fateful decision to knife most of its IDS/IPS product lines in the back by discontinuing support for "General Purpose" servers and third party appliances, effectively forcing all of its enterprise customers to buy an "owned" ISS appliance (the Proventia series).
I'm guessing by "General Purpose" servers you are referring to the Network Sensor and Server Sensor products which could run on hardware you bought. The first Proventia appliance launched was the Proventia A, which was the Network Sensor software pre-installed on a rackmount, sold as a unit. In truth the Proventia A was not very different from the Network Sensor software because it was almost running the same software. The appliance came about because many customers did not wish to buy their own hardware -- they wished to have the appliance. On the other hand, many customers did still wish to buy their own hardware. Thus, Network Sensors, Server Sensors, and Proventia As are in fact all still fully supported. The exception is the slow phase-out of the least popular Nokia and Solaris platforms.
For more information on the Product Life Cycle of the above mentioned products, please see the Product Documentation for the product you're interested in:
Server Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php
Network Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php
Proventia A -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php
Or for a full listing of products you can see the documentation for, please see: http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/index.ph
There may have been some confusion on this point due to the wild popularity of the Proventia G and Proventia M products which is a completely different product and relies on completely different software. The older Network Sensor, Server Sensor, and Proventia A products are in fact still available, supported, and sold.
> Companies with large deployments of ISS RealSecure on now End of Lifed platforms suddenly found themselves offered a year of update support and another capital outlay to "upgrade" to Proventia appliances. Not many followed the company down that path, but the ones that did get "first cut" appliances found that they, well, sucked. The company then recentered on a more "appliance"-looking hardware platform, but, by then, the damage was done.
I believe you may have to be more specific to help resolve your confusion here. Perhaps you were on one of the least-popular platforms of Nokia or Solaris which has been slowly phased out to improve support for more popular products? Based on your mention of appliances, I can only guess you had a Network Sensor (since there is no such thing as a Server Sensor appliance)? The first appliances that came out were the Proventia As, which ran pretty much the same exact software as the Network Sensor software. So your frustration was perhaps due to the hardware? As I mentioned above, the Network Sensor software on many platforms including Linux is still fully supported.
> Then ISS took a market-leading desktop security product, BlackICE, and folded it into their IDS/IPS management product. The integration damn near killed a lot of existing BlackICE customers, not to mention the fact that succeeding software releases were, in many cases, incompatible with previous releases. Those customers who bravely rolled out a BlackICE installation found themselves in the unenviable position of having to do the rollout all over again.
Again, you will have to be more specific here if I were to clear up your confusion. I believe what you are referring to is when they added the ability to manage the Desktop Protection software from SiteProtector, the central management console for all of your sensors. Luckily, it is entirely possible to create "stand-alone" builds of the Desktop Protection software that does not even have to be managed by SiteProtector. If you had decided to deploy your Desktop agents in this manner, the Desktop Protection software doesn't even come in contact with the SiteProtector management software.
I see that you are frustrated by perhaps some confusion in the past. I hope I have helped clarify some of the items you were confused about.
