As long time security industry participants, the team at Green Rocket Security has enjoyed watching the evolution of the RSA Conference through the years – into this year’s edition, which undoubtedly is the largest incarnation in its history.

It’s easy to find oneself becoming overwhelmed while being here.  Sifting through the onslaught of content and messages to find the solutions or information you seek can be numbing.

One tool that we find useful to understand and evaluate all the technologies on display at RSA is Gartner’s Hype Cycle methodology.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the methodology – Gartner has a clever graphic they use to plot companies and products in a given technology category.  The Hype Cycle depicts the relative position of the companies and their products through time – moving from inflated expectations, through disillusionment and finally on to practical productivity.

For us at Green Rocket Security, we believe in providing pragmatic solutions to well-documented security problems. By nature we avoid hype, and instead look to develop and market practical and affordable technologies that deliver measurable improvements in security for all of our customers.

As technologists, we are by nature attracted to the new and exciting technical breakthroughs in our industry.  However, many years of experience in security have taught us that harvesting the benefits of innovation requires patience.  It takes time for technology providers, government, and users to gain a clear understanding of the benefits and challenges of deploying and using these technologies in production. From this understanding comes best practices and methodologies which allow for wide use and adoption.

Gartner’s Hype Cycle is an effective way to evaluate security market segments and help customers evaluate risk and reward when making purchase decisions in a category.  Our industry works best when it delivers clear and concise solutions to the growing array of threats facing all of us.  Tools like the Hype Cycle help improve our understanding of the industry and allow us to move forward in deploying solutions with greater confidence – which is a good thing indeed.