Cisco delivers new security solutions to defend fast-evolving data centers

MUMBAI: Cisco today introduced a set of security solutions designed to fortify data centers against the threats they face in moving toward more consolidated and virtualized environments, while also enabling businesses to take advantage of new cloud-based models. Collectively, the offerings extend data center and security professionals' power to enforce end-to-end security for high-capacity data centers and mobile workforces.

The offerings include new highly scalable software for the world's most widely deployed firewall, the Cisco® Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) line; virtualized ASA for multitenant environments; a data-center-grade intrusion prevention system (IPS); and new improvements to the Cisco AnyConnect® Secure Mobility Client to meet the stringent requirements of a more mobile and productive workforce.

The virtualization and cloud mega trend is forcing profound shifts within data centers, affecting everything from IT services to business models to architectures. If addressed properly, these trends offer business benefits such as reduced capital investments, new revenue growth and the greater efficiency, agility and scalability demanded by globalization.

With this announcement, Cisco is helping security to keep pace with the demands of changing high-performance virtual and cloud environments, as well as the demands of increased complexity, compliance and employees bringing their own devices to work, among other trends.

Operating under the principle that security must be integrated across the network to ensure protection of unified data centers, Cisco believes network policies must be unified across physical and virtual worlds, intra-virtual machine communication should be secured, and access to applications by wired and mobile clients must be protected.

This security approach has become imperative as customers look to make the migration to cloud and a more flexible device-agnostic corporate culture. Cisco's latest product developments support such an approach.