EdgeCast’s entrance into the CyberSecurity space signals a new era in cloud based security. Not only are the competition wars going to intensify in the next 12 months, but the market will see the “passing of the guard” from the old school security players, to the new cool CDN cloud-based security services whose owners have massive infrastructures in place to thwart Layer 3, 4 and 7 attacks. EdgeCast’s entry into the market closes a big gap in the CDN ecosystem, where their DDoS Mitigations Services & WAF Platform is designed for the untapped mid-market. Everyone in the CDN industry understands that Akamai-Prolexic is the security solution of choice for the large enterprise, including the Fortune 1000, large banks, government agencies, and so on. At the other end of the spectrum, CloudFlare and Incapsula offer security solutions for the SMB market. EdgeCast’s security solution plugs the hole in the market, catering to medium size businesses.
Metrics for Defining the Customer Market
The two key metrics that determine whether a CyberSecurity CDN is designed for the SMB, Mid-market, or Large Enterprise are price and functionality. Customers can sign up for CloudFlare and Incapsula starting at prices below $500 per month. Akamai’s DDoS Mitigation Services with all the bells and whistles starts in the five figures. EdgeCast can go in either direction and compete with Incapsula/CloudFlare in the SMB Market, or take on Akamai in the enterprise. As the executive team at EdgeCast clearly explained, their security solution (DDoS Mitigation, WAF, DNS Protection) offers the most extensive rules engine/WAF rule set in the industry that is highly customizable, enabling them to compete with Akamai at the enterprise, yet simple enough for the non-sophisticated SMB customer.
Old Guard Security Companies in for Rude Awakening
As far as the established security hardware manufacturers are concerned, they are at a major disadvantage, and in the next two years their security appliances are going to become less relevant as the use of cloud based applications grows in market share. The CyberSecurity CDN is cloud ready that scales on demand, and that can be deployed in dozens of countries in minutes fending off attacks at the edge tier, not the corporate perimeter.