Cisco Systems (CSCO) is taking the fight against enterprise security threats a level deeper with the ASA with FirePOWER Services, an appliance-based next-generation firewall (NGFW) designed to give customers additional insight into their virtual environments and protect their networks.

The new solution combines Cisco’s Advanced Security Appliance (ASA) 5500 Series firewall with application control, along with the next-generation intrusion prevention systems (NGIPS) and advanced malware protection from Sourcefire for integrated threat defense before, during and after an attack, according to the company.

Soldfire announced that it would support both Cisco Systems and VMware (VMW) in its converged storage platform during VMworld.

Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services is the company’s first adaptive, threat-focused NGFW that focuses on providing multi-layered protection and threat insight, according to Cisco. Unlike other NGFW solutions, Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services focuses on giving administrators more visibility into their networks to detect threats through a platform-based approach.

“In today’s climate of industrialized hacking and sophisticated cybercrime, we’ve entered an era in which legacy NGFW solutions are not enough to thwart attackers,” said Christopher Young, senior vice president of Cisco’s Security business group, in a statement. “Now more than ever, organizations need to be able to implement dynamic controls to manage the pace of change of their environments and address security incidents.”

While many NGFWs work on application control to prevent attacks, Cisco ASA with FirePOWER delivers full contextual awareness of users, mobile devices, client-side apps and more, according to the company. The platform-based solution combines firewall, application control, NGIPS capability and advanced breach detection.

Partners can use the technology in their security conversations with customers, both new and old, to offer specialized services and upgrade opportunities for current ASA and IPS users, according to the company. The Security Ignite Promotion rewards Cisco and Sourcefire partners with additional discounts to drive new business and increase profits.

“These products present a great opportunity for our partners,” said Al Jacobellis, director of Global Partner Strategy and Security Solutions at Cisco, in an interview with The VAR Guy. “They address new customer and existing customer needs in the midmarket and the enterprise and they present new opportunities for our partners as well as [additional] offers to their existing install base.”

Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services is available for the ASA 5500-X Series and ASA 5585-X Series firewall products with a bundled FirePOWER Services license, while FirePOWER Services for Cisco ASA is also available for existing products.