The Forrester Wave™: Infrastructure-As-A-Service Platform Native Security, Q2 2023

Infrastructure-As-A-Service Platform Native Security Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

Key features and pros and cons of top Infrastructure-As-A-Service Platform Native Security products:

Amazon Web Services - Leaders

Pros:

Provides powerful IAM and hypervisor and container security
Has been investing in postquantum cryptography, detection of code vulnerabilities, and its AWS Nitro System
Offers Amazon GuardDuty, Amazon Detective, and Amazon Macie cloud security features
Has bench depth in supporting services with large proportion of partner-ecosystem-related IPNS revenue
AWS's admin IAM is superior as is its hypervisor security and storage and data security
Network security provides granular policy definitions
Ahead of others in terms of the scale of its IPNS deployments
Reference customers said vendor provides good support and quick resolutions to most issues

Cons:

CSPM/CIEM, guest OS security, and multicloud support are on par with others evaluated

Google - Leaders

Pros:

Offers strong administrative IAM, hypervisor, guest OS, and container security
Has invested in digital sovereignty and Zero Trust, policy intelligence and automatic data leak prevention
Security foundations provide continually updated architectural blueprint for security posture management
Strong vision and strategy for developing market approach based on real-life customer requirements
Innovation as well as delivery and commercial model are ahead of other vendors evaluated
Offers convincing admin IAM capabilities as well as robust hypervisor and confidential computing security
Network security, especially WAF, and segmentation/microsegmentation are ahead of competitors
Reference customers said they are happy with container runtime security (container scanning and health monitoring)

Cons:

Multicloud support is below par relative to others evaluated
Cloud security posture management/cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CSPM/CIEM), storage and data security, and the scale of deployments are on par

Microsoft - Leaders

Pros:

Provides multicloud support and strong CSPM/CIEM capabilities
Has made significant investments in CSPM and CWP
Multicloud support across AWS and Google Cloud Computing became available in 2022
Entra Permissions Management and Verified ID offerings as well as improvements to attribute-based access control place vendor in strong position in CIEM and general IAM
Strong vision for IPNS offerings with execution roadmap and market approach ahead of competition
Offers strong admin IAM management, above-par CSPM and CIEM capabilities, and broad coverage guest OS security
Network security capabilities and multicloud support are ahead of others evaluated
Reference customers said agentless guest OS security/workload protection has broad integration with every compute service they are using

Cons:

Vendor's delivery model lags others evaluated
Microsoft's support for native container runtime and orchestration security trails its competitors
Solution is only on par with others evaluated for hypervisor security

Alibaba - Strong Performers

Pros:

Launched Cloud Security Center 2.0 to help clients reduce their attack surface
WAF updates allow for cloud platform integration and API security
Partner management and ecosystem are superior to others evaluated
Has a large IPNS presence across its data centers
Powerful container runtime and orchestration security offering

Cons:

IPNS vision and commercial model are behind others evaluated
IPNS lags others evaluated in the areas of CSPM/CIEM and storage and data security
Has a lower number of customers who have deployed CSPM than others
Reference customers said that CSPM lacks sufficient customization capabilities

Huawei - Contenders

Pros:

Has been investing in building a trustworthy cloud platform that offers security, privacy, resilience, and compliance
Made investments in guest OS security
IPNS staffing and delivery models are superior to others evaluated
Offers effective guest OS security capabilities
Reference customers said that agent-based guest OS protections are easy to configure and do not affect normal workload functionality

Cons:

IPNS vision, R&D spend as a proportion of IPNS revenues, planned enhancements, innovation, and partner revenue contribution fall behind others
Lags others evaluated in admin IAM, CSPM/CIEM, hypervisor security, container security, and network security

IBM - Contenders

Pros:

Has made significant progress in unified, multicloud, hold-your-own-key (HYOK) management and orchestration
Improved Cloud Security Compliance Center based on 2020 Spanugo acquisition
IPNS partner management is superior to others evaluated
Offers an extensive set of security certifications for its data centers
Multicloud support is superior

Cons:

Vendor lags in IPNS execution roadmap, planned enhancements, development, and support staffing
Lags others evaluated on native services in the areas of admin IAM, CSPM and CIEM, hypervisor security, and network security
Does not currently offer guest OS security
IBM provided a single reference customer, and Forrester was unable to reach them for this evaluation

Tencent - Contenders

Pros:

Has been investing in improving vulnerability defenses with Host security providing runtime application self-protection (RASP) with vulnerability defense to protect against zero-day vulnerabilities
Offers strong CSPM/CIEM capabilities, including storage and network configuration drift detection
Reference customers said that CSPM meets their expectations and that they use it to collect and alert on configuration changes to Tencent's cloud virtual machine, cloud load balancer, and cloud object storage configuration data

Cons:

Lags other vendors evaluated in terms of market approach, planned enhancements, bench depth of developers, support and preserve, revenue contribution of its partner ecosystem, and delivery and commercial models
Lags others evaluated in admin IAM, hypervisor security, and guest OS security

Oracle - Challengers

Pros:

Has made investments in threat intelligence, Cloud Guard machine learning threat detection, and IAM
Shines compared to others evaluated in market approach
Provides a broad array of security certifications and on-par administrative IAM features

Cons:

Oracle's IPNS vision, IPNS R&D spend as a proportion of IPNS revenue, supporting products and services, partner IPNS revenue contribution, and commercial model lag others evaluated
IPNS lags others evaluated in CSPM/CIEM, hypervisor security, guest OS security, container security, storage and data security, and network security
Today, there is no multicloud support
Forrester was unable to reach reference customers Oracle provided for this evaluation

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

A: Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

A: Leaders in the Forrester Wave demonstrate superior current offering capabilities and strategy execution. In the IPNS market, Leaders offer strong administrative IAM, hypervisor security, guest OS security, container security, network security capabilities, and have made significant strategic investments. They demonstrate strong vision for market development, innovation ahead of competitors, robust go-to-market approaches based on customer requirements, and strong execution roadmaps. Leaders typically have superior supporting products and services, strong partner ecosystems, and advanced delivery and commercial models.

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

A: https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Infrastructure-As-A-Service Platform Native Security in 2023

Infrastructure-As-A-Service Platform Native Security Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

Reference