Cisco Systems is offering new e-mail and Web security services that attempt to make cloud computing more secure. The services are part of Cisco's larger Secure Borderless Network architecture. In a separate announcement, Verizon and Novell say they are partnering on a identity management solution for cloud environments.
Cisco Systems, Verizon Business and Novell are unveiling offerings designed
to make cloud computing more secure.
Cisco on April 28 announced security services based around e-mail
and the Internet that are part of the company's cloud protection push and its
Secure Borderless Network architecture, which aims to give users secure access
to their corporate resources at any time, from anywhere and on any device.
Cisco's IronPort Email Data Loss Prevention and Encryption, and
ScanSafe Web Intelligence Reporting, are designed to work with the company's
other Web security solutions to give businesses greater flexibility in their
security offerings while streamlining management requirements, improving
visibility and reducing costs.
For their part, Verizon and Novell are collaborating to create
an on-demand identity and access management service called Secure Access
Services from Verizon. The service, announced April 28, is designed to enable
enterprises to decide and manage who gets access to cloud-based resources.
The identity-as-a-server solution is the first of several joint
offerings planned by Verizon and Novell, according to the companies.
Studies continue to show that businesses are likely to continue
moving toward a cloud computing environment, but issues such as security and
access control continue to be key concerns.
Officials from all three vendors say the new services will give
businesses a greater sense of ease as they map out their cloud computing
strategies.
"The cloud is a critical component of Cisco's
architectural approach, including its Secure Borderless Network
architecture," Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager of Cisco's
Security Technology business unit, said in a statement. "Securing the
cloud is highly challenging. But it is one of the top challenges that the
industry must rise to meet as enterprises increasingly demand the flexibility,
accessibility and ease of management that cloud-based applications offer for
their mobile and distributed workforces."
Cisco's ScanSafe Web Intelligence Reporting platform is the
result of the vendor's purchase of ScanSafe in December 2009. It's designed to
give users a better idea of how their Internet resources are being used. The
goal is to ensure that business-critical workloads are not being hindered by
non-business-related traffic.
The platform can report on user-level data and information on
Web communications activities within seconds, and offers more than 80
predefined reports.
The IronPort e-mail protection solution is designed to protect
outbound e-mail in the cloud, according to Cisco officials. Enterprises that
don't want to manage their e-mail can turn to this service, which also provides
hosted mailboxes, while keeping control of e-mail policies. It also offers the
option of integrated encryption.
These are the latest in Cisco's growing portfolio of cloud
security offerings. Officials said the company operates more than 30 data
centers around the world, and the security offerings handle large amounts of
activity on a daily basis, including 2.8 billion reputation look-ups, 2.5
billion Web requests and the detection of more than 250 billion spam messages.
The Secure Access Services from Verizon and Novell are designed
to enable enterprises to move away from the cost and complexity of using
traditional premises-based identity and access management software for securing
their applications.
The new services offer centralized management of Web access to
applications and networks, as well as identity federation and Web single
sign-on.
"Security and identity management are critical to
accelerating cloud computing adoption and by teaming with Verizon we can
deliver these important solutions," Novell CEO
Ron Hovsepian said in a statement.
Verizon is bringing the security expertise, infrastructure,
management capabilities and portal to the service. Novell is providing the
identity and security software.
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