Cisco 'Primes' Its Borderless Networks Portfolio: Page 3 of 3

Andreas Antonopoulos, senior VP and founding partner, Nemertes Research, says, "These types of solutions will protect against advanced multivector security threats better than point solutions. However, for an enterprise to deploy end-to-end security, it will need one of two things: open standards around TrustSec and ISE so they can interoperate with other vendor devices and a network made up of Cisco devices end-to-end with no other vendors."

That is the fundamental conundrum in security--it has to be end-to-end to be effective, otherwise it is vulnerable to attacks against the weakest link, he says. "In any enterprise that has more than a handful of network devices, a single-vendor network is impossible. So, this security vision only works if it is open and allows multivendor interoperability."

Nemertes' Robin Gareiss, executive VP and senior founding partner, adds that one of the keys for Cisco will be to provide these options as managed or cloud-based services, particularly Cisco Prime for Enterprise. "There is significant demand now, particularly among SMBs, to buy such capabilities as a service because they lack the staff or expertise to handle such functions internally."

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