April 19, 2011
Since introducing its Borderless Networks strategy roughly 18 months ago, Cisco Systems has been rolling out additional and updated features to further the company’s vision of offering an “anyone, anywhere, on any device at any time” experience for end users. Its latest round includes intelligence to assign security policies to individual devices and manage both their networks and their network services simultaneously. Read on for the details.
The latest addition to the Borderless Networks portfolio includes Identity Services Engine, which enables organizations to efficiently define and manage organization-wide security policies. The technology is the central policy engine for Cisco’s TrustSec solution, and offers – among other features – enforcement of a context-aware access security policy. In other words, Joe worker sitting in the local coffee shop won’t be able to get the same access to the network that he would were he sitting in his office because the network will know he’s not in his office but in a public setting.
What’s more, the engine can distinguish between personal devices and company-owned and issued devices, locking down access to certain information based on the device trying to access it. Plus, information that does run over the network is automatically encrypted.
“This technology enables companies to specify powerful policies around users’ devices and applications that are enforced by the switches, routers on the network and even the devices themselves,” said Maciej Kranz, vice president of Borderless Networks at Cisco. “We’re classifying users, identifying and classifying devices and using location-based policies – it simplifies the Borderless Networks strategy, and that’s why customers are so excited about it. From a partner perspective, this is a great opportunity to present Borderless Networks and sell it from an architectural perspective.”
A second addition to the portfolio – Cisco Prime for Enterprise – helps partners further that architectural sales strategy. Cisco Prime for Enterprise enables IT departments to manage their networks and network services from one dashboard, providing a workflow-oriented user experience to simplify network management and realize the associated benefits of central management.