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Xage Security is listed among the vendors researched in Forrester’s The Microsegmentation Solutions Landscape, Q1 2026, authored by James Plouffe and published on March 2, 2026. The report examines the value organizations can expect from microsegmentation solutions and describes a selection of vendors in the market. For security teams comparing options, the report provides a framework for considering their priority environments and use cases and evaluating vendors accordingly.
What you’ll learn
- Factors organizations may consider when evaluating microsegmentation solutions
- How granular policies can reduce unnecessary communication paths
- How Xage describes its identity-based microsegmentation approach
- Questions to ask vendors about supported environments, discovery, enforcement, lifecycle management, and integrations
How is the microsegmentation market evolving?
Microsegmentation applies granular access controls between workloads, devices, users, and other assets. Organizations commonly use it to support Zero Trust strategies, restrict unnecessary communication, improve visibility, and limit lateral movement after an attacker gains access.
As infrastructure spans data centers, cloud workloads, operational technology, IoT devices, and other distributed environments, organizations may need to assess whether a solution can apply and maintain consistent policies across their priority use cases.
Deployment can be challenging in hybrid environments containing dynamic cloud workloads, legacy infrastructure, and devices that cannot support software agents. Buyers should therefore examine supported environments, enforcement methods, operational requirements, and potential disruption.
How Xage approaches identity-based microsegmentation
Xage takes a fundamentally different approach to microsegmentation by tying policy to identity rather than IP addresses or network location. The Xage Fabric Platform provides a unified policy and enforcement layer across users, machines, applications, workloads, and AI agents, enabling organizations to control which identities can communicate with specific resources and what actions they can perform.
Unlike approaches that require network redesign or agents on protected assets, Xage deploys as an agentless overlay across existing infrastructure. This enables organizations to extend microsegmentation across data centers, cloud and hybrid environments, AI systems, and operational technology (OT), including legacy devices that cannot support agents.
What makes Xage different?
- Identity-based enforcement: Policies follow verified identities rather than network locations, enabling consistent least-privilege controls as users, workloads, and AI agents move across environments.
- Agentless deployment: Protects assets without installing software on them or rearchitecting existing networks, simplifying deployment across modern and legacy infrastructure.
- Pre-emptive Security: Eliminates reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning opportunities by hiding assets from unauthorized users, AI agents, and systems.
- Distributed, resilient enforcement: Maintains local policy enforcement across remote, disconnected, and air-gapped environments without relying on continuous cloud connectivity.
- Unified access and asset protection: Combines identity-based microsegmentation with secure remote access and Extended Privileged Access Management (XPAM), including just-in-time and just-enough access, credential management, and session monitoring.
Xage Asset Protection extends microsegmentation capabilities to business applications, workloads, cloud services, AI systems, industrial assets, and other digital assets. Organizations can apply consistent Zero Trust controls across their environments while reducing reliance on complex VLANs, ACLs, and firewall rules.
How microsegmentation helps limit cyber risk
Forrester describes microsegmentation as both a preventive and a corrective control. Beyond blocking unnecessary communication paths, it helps you contain compromised assets during incident response.
Forrester highlights four considerations for evaluating solutions: supported environments, discovery and classification, policy enforcement and lifecycle management, and integrations. Which ones matter most depends on whether your priority is cloud workloads, data centers, IoT devices, exposure reporting, breach containment, or OT segmentation.
Final thoughts
The right microsegmentation solution depends on the environments you need to protect. For most organizations, that list now includes business applications, cloud workloads, AI systems, and operational assets, often managed by different teams with different tools. Look for a policy model that follows identity across all of them, so you can limit lateral movement without redesigning the network.
Key takeaways
- Identity-based policies stay accurate as workloads move, scale, or change addresses, so one set of rules can cover data centers, cloud services, and distributed sites.
- Most organizations need to segment a mix of data center applications, cloud workloads, AI systems, and assets that cannot run agents, so test solutions across all of them.
- Xage applies identity-based microsegmentation through the Xage Fabric Platform, with one policy model for users, machines, applications, workloads, and AI agents.
See identity-based microsegmentation in your environment. Talk with a Xage expert about protecting your critical applications, workloads, and assets
Frequently asked questions
What is identity-based microsegmentation?
Identity-based microsegmentation authorizes communication based on the verified identity of the user, machine, application, workload, or AI agent involved, rather than on IP addresses or network location. Because policy follows identity, it stays accurate as workloads move, scale, or change addresses, and you can apply the same rules across data centers, cloud services, and distributed sites.
How does microsegmentation help stop lateral movement?
Microsegmentation allows only the communication paths each workload, device, or identity needs and blocks everything else by default. If an attacker compromises one asset, they cannot use it to freely reach other systems. That limits the blast radius of a breach and gives security teams time to detect and contain the intrusion.
Can microsegmentation protect systems that cannot run software agents?
Yes, with an agentless approach. Instead of installing software on each asset, agentless microsegmentation enforces policy in the network path or through an overlay, so legacy OT equipment, IoT devices, and other systems that cannot host agents can still be segmented. Xage deploys as an agentless overlay across existing infrastructure, extending identity-based controls to these assets without network redesign.
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. This report is part of a broader collection of Forrester resources, including interactive models, frameworks, tools, data, and access to analyst guidance. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .
