Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Cisco's security lineup aims to support IT consumerization

By | March 2, 2010, 8:00am PST

Summary: Cisco Systems will roll out a “borderless security” architecture and a set of products to go along with it at the RSA security confab in San Francisco.

Cisco Systems will roll out a “borderless security” architecture and a set of products to go along with it at the RSA security confab in San Francisco.

The goal: Enterprises have been skeptical about the consumerization of IT and mobile workers with their own devices. The biggest reason: Security.

Kevin Kennedy, Cisco’s product marketing manager, outlined the borderless security push arguing that the old architecture of “mobile brick walls” doesn’t work. Kennedy said the general idea is to combine the features of virtual private networks and mobile security so a company can secure everything from the cloud to the data center to end devices.

Among the key parts:

Those products will launch in the first week of April and throughout the second quarter. Cisco is looking to combine products like its AnyConnect remote access software with its IronPort security appliances. Other items from Cisco will include Web application controls, software as a service (SaaS) single sign-ons,

Cisco’s positioning is likely to be mirrored at other security vendors in various forms looking to secure the network and cloud applications.

“Things like SaaS and mobility are good for business but they are a security risk and the enterprise lacks control or visibility,” said Kennedy. “Security has to enable the consumerization of IT not just say no to it.”

Cisco will push an architecture that turns the equation into something like this:

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Cisco's security lineup aims to support IT consumerization
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End User Perspective
marionspd 2nd Mar 2010
From an end user perspective of Cisco's RSA technology, anything that adds to the complexity should be thrown out. It takes too long to connect, adds another layer of passwords, security ID's and adds a physical token (that is not cheap) that you have to keep with you at all times. Trying to use this from my Blackberry is frustrating. I'm no longer able to use my Linux home boxes to connect to work (the sys admins don't believe it is necessary to spend the time to get the technology working properly with Linux). Honestly, it feels like we are trying to implement Pentagon level security when something much simpler should be used. I completely understand where Cisco is going with this and applaud their work but the level of effort to get to the resources through this tool is making this an IT world only tool that no one else will use.
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The diagrams look the same to me... I think that in the
second diagram they just moved the clouds to be in the
center of all of the traffic instead of on one side of it
and added some Cisco brand terminology to the top...
Maybe it's just THAT simple but knowing Cisco I doubt
simplicity has anything to do with it.
0 Votes
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RE: Cisco's security lineup aims to support IT consumerization
dfwekrwe44-24353611083890172929229494159280 Updated - 4th Nov
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