Intrusion Prevention Systems or IPS’s for short make some pretty big claims when it comes to protecting your network. Problem is, how do you know for sure if the hype translates to real world security? Personally, I have been retained several times for IPS evaluations by clients, and once by a vendor. This was done in order to verify that the IPS actually performed the way it was supposed to. A good idea really to insist upon a third party evaluation of a product such as an IPS. This will ensure that the big dollars you spend on them are not wasted.