New Cisco Switch, Router Offerings Aim at Collaboration, Security

Cisco Systems is unveiling new switches and routers aimed at helping businesses large and small improve their collaboration capabilities and productivity.

Cisco officials said the new offerings, announced May 27, individually address particular switching and routing needs. However, they work together to help businesses take greater advantage of their networking capabilities. In addition, several of the enhancements are designed to help businesses reduce power consumption.

The 880 VDSL2, 890 Series and 1861 integrated services routers are designed to help small businesses with their broadband and 802.11g wireless deployments.

Cisco’s 3G Wireless WAN offers greater bandwidth and better performance and management for network outages or disaster recovery through its support of HSPA (high-speed packet access). Unified communications enhancements include Unified SIP Proxy to cut UC deployment costs, improved voice security, new mobility and video offerings on the company’s Unified Communications Manager Express, and new time card management capabilities via the Cisco Unity Express.

On the green IT side, the company’s EthernetSwitch modules support Cisco’s EnergyWise services for better LAN energy utilization, and Cisco offers its Smart Call Home and EnergyWise services for its Catalyst 4500 Series switches.

Cisco also is rolling out the Supervisor 6l-E and Line Card for the 4500 Series, which officials say improve rich-media collaboration and energy efficiency. Enhancements to the Catalyst 6500 Series switches include the VSS (virtual switching system) and service module integration to enable users to deploy a firewall, a network analyst module and wireless service modules for greater scalability and reliability.

In addition, Singlewire Software’s new InformaCast offering, introduced as part of the Cisco Application Extension Platform, enables users to simultaneously send an audio stream or text message to multiple IP phones, Cisco Atlas IP speakers or Cisco Desktop Notification System.

Marie Hattar, vice president of network systems and security at Cisco, said the company’s offerings are keeping up with the evolving ways of businesses.

“As our customers become more mobile, collaborative and sophisticated in the way they do business, the role of Cisco’s networking solution increases,” Hattar said in a statement.