[JackSlateur]

Load balancer, firewalls and everything else you need for managing a data center or compagny are virtual machines

It has been years since those features are best served via a general-purpose CPU

Those appliances are nothing but a rebranded servers with some more-or-less interesting software

[SkipperCat]

True, but a lot of companies want to source it all from a single vendor so they can talk to one entity when dealing with configuration/integration issues. Its not how I roll but it is how a lot of big companies operate.