Cisco Boosts Policy Management

By Greg McNevin

November 2, 2007: In a bid to add standards-based policy management to network services, Cisco has announced that it has acquired Securent and its policy management software.

According to Cisco, Securent’s solution is a scalable, distributed policy platform that enables enterprises to administer, enforce, and audit access to data, communications, and applications in heterogeneous IT application environments.

The addition of Securent’s software to Cisco’s arsenal will enable its customers to protect application data regardless of vendor, platform, or operating system. However, it will also enable organisations to retain access to the content workers and their collaborative communities need to be productive according to Cisco. “As enterprises shift to service-oriented architectures and adopt technologies such as Unified Communications and Web 2.0 based collaboration, there is a rising need for control over access to distributed enterprise resources,” says Don Proctor, senior vice president, Cisco's Collaboration Software Group.

“Securent's software offers enterprises a single point of control to define and manage entitlements across applications and data. This capability is well aligned with Cisco's Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA), enabling policy decisions to be delivered as a network service across multiple applications, platforms, and delivery models.”

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