Cisco Targets Virtualized Data Centers With New Security Offerings

Networking giant Cisco Systems today introduced a set of security solutions designed to protect data centers that are shifting to virtualized environments.

Cisco said the newly announced solutions would help security teams 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.

The new offerings include a new operating system for Cisco’s Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) line. The new ASA 9.0 Platform enables high performance, scaling, to the tune of 320 Gbps of firewall and 60 Gbps IPS throughput, and 1 million connections per second and 50 million concurrent connections, the company said.

Features include context-awareness for visibility and control, support for TrustSec security group tags and identity-based firewall capabilities, and multitenant cloud support. Additionally, the ASA software update provides secure remote access capabilities by supporting IPv6 connections with minimal performance impact and Next Generation Encryption capabilities.

On the hardware side, Cisco launched the Cisco ASA 1000V, a firewall built specifically for multi-tenant virtual and cloud environments. According to the company, a single ASA 1000V instance can protect many workloads with different security policies across multiple ESX hosts, helping to reduce deployment complexity and improve scalability in heterogeneous environments.

The company also announced the Cisco IPS 4500 Series, a new intrusion prevention system (IPS) purpose-built built for data centers that, according to Cisco, delivers 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) per rack unit.

Rounding out the infrastructure announcements is the release of Cisco Security Manager 4.3, a solution that provides scalable, centralized management, enabling security administrators to manage a wide range of Cisco security devices, gain visibility across the network deployment, and share information with other network services like compliance systems and advanced security analysis systems.

On the client side, Cisco AnyConnect 3.1, the latest version of the company’s widely deployed VPN client software was released. The new version offers differentiated device access to help enable BYOD deployments, IPv6 capability and latest Next Generation Encryption, including NSA’s Suite B Cryptography.

“For enterprises to confidently seize the business benefits offered by data center virtualization and the cloud, security must be seen as the art of the possible, not as a hindrance,” said Christopher Young, senior vice president and general manager of Security and Government Group, Cisco. “As with the rest of your network, we make consistent security a deployment decision that enables policies to work throughout hybrid environments — physical, virtual and cloud — and enables data center professionals to deliver IT as a service with a high degree of security without impeding network performance.”