Cisco launches new high performance sensor

DQC News Bureau

Bangalore: To address increasing traffic diversity and the growing security
demands placed on enterprise networks, Cisco has announced the availability of
its IPS sensor, the Cisco IPS 4270.

Designed for media-rich and transaction-heavy networking environments, the
appliance addresses the security needs of business communications environment
and the expanding variety of collaborative applications like voice, video and
social networking tools. As high-density traffic loads become increasingly
diverse and complex, more powerful and sophisticated intrusion prevention
capabilities are required. The Cisco IPS 4270 handles these performance demands
by providing greater throughput without compromising pinpoint traffic
inspection. The IPS 4270 offers up to 4-Gbps performance for media-intensive
environments that feature Web-based content and video. For networks with heavy
transaction-based traffic, such as e-commerce, point-of-sale, instant messaging,
and voice over IP, the new appliance provides up to 2 Gbps of throughput and
supports as many as 20,000 transactions per second.

Besides high performance, the Cisco IPS 4270 has several other features that
are suited for data center environments. Because data centers are naturally
complex (every enterprise typically features a unique, customized architecture
to support specific traffic demands), the IPS 4270 appliance is designed to be
both flexible and virtualization-friendly. The appliance enables IT
organizations to “virtualize” both inspection and policy information,
allowing intrusion prevention services to be woven into the overall data center
system.

The IPS 4270 appliance includes redundant, hot-swappable power options and a
scalable interface that accommodates high-density copper and fiber Gigabit
Ethernet ports. It supports thousands of interfaces for virtual local-area
networks (VLANs). It integrates with Cisco's IPS Device Manager for standalone
management. For multi-unit deployments, the Cisco IPS 4270 Sensor integrates
with Cisco Security Manager and Cisco Security MARS (Monitoring Analysis and
Response System) to help ensure collaborative central management across a
network security infrastructure.

Said Mick Scully, VPof product management for Cisco's Security Technology
Group, "The IPS 4270 marks a new chapter in both Cisco and the security
industry's evolution toward making intrusion prevention and traffic inspection
supportive of networks that feature everything from collaborative Web 2.0
applications to continuous high-density transactions. Simply put, the IPS 4270
has the performance to address today's real-world enterprise and data center
requirements."