3Com is expanding its Secure Network Fabric initiative with offerings
designed to help large enterprises migrate to more virtualized data centers.
The new offerings, announced Feb. 22, bring more centralized
policy management to enterprise data center security and networking operations,
paving the way for greater network security in virtualized environments,
according to 3Com officials.
Businesses are looking for ways to make their data center
operations more efficient, according to Ron Sege, president and chief operating
officer of 3Com.
"Although the deployment of virtual networks provides
organizations with the ability to design an efficient data center that is
easier to manage and more cost-effective, the business benefits could be
negated by increased security exposure and the new complexities of today's
evolving threat landscape," Sege said in a statement.
3Com first introduced its Secure
Network Fabric strategy in August 2009 as a way of helping businesses take
advantage of new data center technologies, such as virtualization, while
minimizing security risks. The initiative involves both 3Com's H3C networking
products and its TippingPoint network security business.
3Com currently is in the process of being bought for $2.7
billion by Hewlett-Packard, which is using the smaller company to build up the
capabilities of HP's ProCurve networking business.
During a news conference held Feb. 17 to announce HP's
quarterly earnings, HP President and CEO
Mark Hurd said the deal was moving along as scheduled and was expected to close
in the second quarter. The European Commission approved
the 3Com deal Feb. 12.
Among the new offerings are three TippingPoint products,
including the TippingPoint Secure Virtualization Framework. This framework enables
businesses to pass virtual machine traffic through a TippingPoint Intrusion
Prevention System Platform, bringing TippingPoint's security capabilities to
virtualized environments.
TippingPoint 1500S is a SSL
(Secure Sockets Layer) appliance that decrypts and inspects Web traffic without
impinging on network or application performance, and keeps encrypted attacks
away from virtual and physical Web servers and applications.
TippingPoint ThreatLinq 2.0 enables businesses to create filter
profiles that are customized for their own networks. Enterprises also can
correlate new threats with the latest Digital Vaccine filters and create policies
for their TippingPoint IPS platforms based
on new threats.
3Com also introduced the H3C S9500E core switching platform for
enterprise data centers. Company officials touted the product's scalability,
performance and energy efficiency. The platform also makes it easier for
businesses to run their virtualized services on the network, 3Com said.
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