Info security should ride on unified networking

The IT industry is at the crossroads with the future of networking at a critical juncture. According to Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president and general manager, security technology group, Cisco Systems, the industry can either continue building specialised individual products or it can create unified networking systems.

The unified networking systems will enable organisations to increase productivity, reduce costs and gain cost advantage.

In a seminar organised by Frost and Sullivan on 'Emerging paradigms on information security', she said that system based approach to networking security is the need of the hour. "There is no other network capability more in demand than this," she asserted.

Until this point, network operators have had to rely on patches (a piece of code added to software in order to fix a bug as a temporary correction between two releases) and point products for their security defences but these options have not been able to provide a perfect antidote to the disruptive breed of networking threats.

In response to the current threats and the increasing need for more robust security, Cisco is developing an integrated, systemwide network defences that enhances the effectiveness and value of the traditional point product offerings. This is a comprehensive approach to a secure network in an integrated, multi layered protection system.

"Cisco believes that such an approach is by far the most effective way to defend networks, applications and data from current and future threats," said Ullal.

The networkwide system security will help organisations and individuals use internet protocol based communications to their full potential for increasing productivity and reducing operational costs.