Check Point made an announcement regarding the next version of VSX this morning. Looks like VSX has been renamed to “Virtual Systems” and will support the software blade architecture. This means we will now get full functionality (hopefully) for the Check Point IPS engine. The current release (R67) is still based on the older SmartDefense engine so this is an important update. Virtual Systems will also bring in App Control, URL Filtering, Identity Awareness, and the other blades. This is great news for enterprise environments.
$3,000 USD MSRP for three virtual firewalls seems pretty compelling. Looks like the 4800 appliance is the entry point for Virtual Systems, which is also interesting as the 4800s were just announced July 12th on the partner call. Does this mean that Virtual Systems/VSX is now being promoted for mid-sized environments?