DO look at platform and device coverage. These products generally support all the major firewall vendors and some others, as well as major network devices, so you should be covered. Take both present and future needs into account. For example, you may run a single platform across the organization now, but future acquisitions may run on other vendors' infrastructures. These tools should be able to help whether you plan to migrate onto a single platform or continue to manage several while still realizing the efficiencies they promise. See if the vendor has a software development kit that can allow it to integrate with unsupported platforms.
The link for this article located at Network World is no longer available.