Networking firm Cisco has introduced a new set of security applications to protect data centres against the threats while moving towards more consolidated and virtualised environments.
The new security applications are designed to enforce end-to-end security for high-capacity data centres and mobile workforces,the company said.
Cisco’s new set of security applications include: the new software release for Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewall, virtualised ASA for multitenant environments, a data-centre-grade intrusion prevention system (IPS), and new improvements to the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client.
The ASA 9.0 delivers data-centre-calibre performance, scaling to 320 Gbps of firewall and 60 Gbps IPS throughput, and 1 million connections per second and 50 million concurrent connections.
It delivers pay-as-you-grow scale as application and VM traffic increases, eliminating, provides context-awareness for next-generation visibility and control and supports TrustSec security group tags and identity-based firewall capabilities.
Release 9.0 integrates with Cisco Cloud Web security to enable deep content scanning without impacting ASA performance. It also supports IPv6 connections with minimal performance impact and Next Generation Encryption capabilities.
Cisco ASA 1000V, the mainstream ASA technology is optimised for virtual and cloud environments and it offers the current physical ASA in a VM to provide flexibility and efficient use of resources.
A single ASA 1000V instance can protect many workloads with different security policies across multiple ESX hosts.
ASA 1000V, which is built on Cisco Nexus1000V Series switch, protects the tenant edge and enables secure segmentation for consistent security across physical, virtual and public/private cloud environments using a firewall.
Cisco IPS 4500 Series is a new intrusion prevention system (IPS) built for data centres that delivers a performance density of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) per rack unit, for ultra-efficient application protection in the data centre.
The IPS protects critical data centre resources in a compact 2RU form factor, enables easy insertion of IPS into a wide range of networks, ensures interoperability with existing network elements, drives effective mitigation decisions via a context-aware IPS implementation that incorporates network reputation and builds on a widely deployed IPS technology.
Cisco Security Manager 4.3 provides centralised management from which administrators can manage a wide range of Cisco security devices, gain visibility across the network deployment and share information with other essential network services.
In addition, the Security Manager 4.3 manages a diverse Cisco security environment, monitors health and performance of Cisco ASA and IPS devices, enables API-based access for Cisco Security Manager policy configuration data and simplifies, streamlines image upgrades for individual or groups of ASA firewalls.
Cisco AnyConnect 3.1enables secure remote access to network resources, offers differentiated device access to help enable BYOD deployments, IPv6 capability and Next Generation Encryption.
