Forrester Names Illumio a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2024

Back in 2010, when I was an analyst at Forrester, I recognized how important microsegmentation is for zero trust. I even talked about it in the second report I ever wrote on the topic, Build Security Into Your Network’s DNA: The Zero Trust Network Architecture.  

“New ways of segmenting networks must be created,” I wrote in that research. “Because all future networks need to be segmented by default.”  

It’s exciting to see this technology becoming a key part of making zero-trust architectures work. In fact, I chose to join Illumio because of how much it accelerates the zero trust journey.

So I’m thrilled to share that Illumio has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2024.

Forrester writes in the report, “We’re living in the Golden Age of Microsegmentation.” I couldn’t agree more. And I believe that Illumio is the right company to lead the next evolution in this critical segment.

How Illumio scored in the Forrester Wave report

Forrester gave Illumio the highest scores possible, defined as  superior relative to others in the evaluation, in 16 of the 23 criteria. We believe that’s exceptionally high. The Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) Platform scored highest in criteria such as:

• Flow asset and discovery

• Policy management  

• Visibility

• Host-based enforcement

Illumio also ranked highest in the strategy category, including the following criteria:

• Vision

• Innovation

• Supporting services

• Pricing flexibility and transparency

According to the Forrester report, “Illumio is the original microsegmentation specialist.”

“Where Illumio really shines is letting the operator perform incident response activities like quarantine, mass-quarantine, and live recovery during an active attack,” Forrester wrote. The research firm also noted that Illumio’s UI “is visually informative and the most powerful we evaluated.”

Illumio: The original microsegmentation specialist

It's becoming harder to protect hybrid, multi-cloud environments. The number of threats keeps growing. And many of the traditional security methods used in data centers don’t work well in the cloud. That’s why security teams are turning to a zero-trust strategy, which follows a “never trust, always verify” approach.

Microsegmentation is also known as network microsegmentation, or as we’ve branded it, Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS). It’s one of the main pillars of a zero-trust architecture; you can't achieve zero trust without it.

Illumio's platform is designed for microsegmentation across cloud, data centers, endpoints, and container environments. It's no surprise that companies of all sizes and industries trust us to contain breaches before they spread and cause lasting harm. We have proven time and time again that our ZTS platform can work well in any size environment.

No other platform is as versatile or as scalable. These qualities help us stand out in a highly competitive market.

Our customers agree. As Forrester puts it the, “Reference customers uniformly rave about the policy management and both precanned and customizable scheduled reporting.”  

The firm also notes that “large organizations with mature cybersecurity programs that are on a Zero Trust journey or are bolstering defenses against ransomware should put Illumio at the top of their shortlist.”

Why we believe Illumio is the clear leader in microsegmentation

When it comes down to it, the Illumio ZTS Platform is what I think microsegmentation should be. It's a complete solution that helps organizations build zero-trust security.

We know that microsegmentation can be complicated. But we work to make it as simple as possible. And we believe the new Forrester Wave report shows that we’re reaching this goal.

We stand out from other vendors because we can:

• Enable zero trust and lower cyber risks without disrupting business  

• Quickly identify high-risk areas, contain ransomware in minutes, and help organizations build long-term security

• Protect workloads no matter where they are — in hybrid clouds, multi-clouds, containers, endpoints, or data centers

Learn why Illumio’s platform and strategic vision leads the industry in enabling Zero Trust. Access your copy of the report now.

The Forrester Wave™ is copyrighted by Forrester Research, Inc. Forrester and Forrester Wave™ are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. The Forrester Wave™ is a graphical representation of Forrester’s call on a market and is plotted using a detailed spreadsheet with exposed scores, weightings, and comments. Forrester does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in the Forrester Wave™. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.