Cisco and IBM to collaborate on security
Cisco and IBM to collaborate on security
Cisco and IBM have joined forces on data networking security to provide enterprises with more comprehensive, easier to manage protection against network threats.
The pair are seeking to address what has become a problem for many businesses – that of the existence of a hotchpotch of security products and service within an organisation resulting in less effective security.
Cisco and IBM claim that traditional methods, involving cobbling together stand-alone products, are proving inadequate to address the growing threats facing today's businesses, and as such, are creating integrated security products, tools and support for both the network infrastructure and its connected servers, PCs, and applications. By combining their individual expertise and products, Cisco and IBM aim to make network security easier to manage and more comprehensive in its protection.
Richard Palmer, vice president of Cisco's VPN and Security business unit, said the agreement will help corporations and other organisations protect their networks.
"The economics of security are ripe for a collaborative effort like this. Corporations are demanding better security at lower costs, and the skills and security products of our two companies are extremely complementary. Cisco is a leader in firewall, intrusion detection and other IP-based network security protections. IBM is an expert in security administration software and services. Together, we cover the entire IT infrastructure. More importantly, we cover most of the key areas that need protection against manual or automated hacker attacks."
Arvind Krishna, IBM's vice president of Tivoli Security Products, added: "Security is a problem people have been solving one piece at a time, but that approach is proving unviable. Vendors have been producing good firewall or intrusion detection or virus products, but none of these tools alone solves all security problems. Each helps, certainly, but today's IT infrastructure is becoming more complex, with many more points of attack. And managing user identities in this challenging environment is a very time-consuming, costly process. But user identities are critical for enforcing effective security policies.
"As people are learning, security must be comprehensive, system-wide and integrated. But such integrated security requires a broad range of expertise, not just in networks, which Cisco certainly has, but also in the elements connected to a network, including servers, PCs, applications, and their users. That's where IBM's expertise comes in. So to create more integrated security management, we are developing products that span the network infrastructure and the "end-points"—PCs, servers and their applications."
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