Networking giant Cisco launched “Umbrella”, a secure internet gateway (SIG), to address the new enterprise security challenges of today’s mobile, cloud-era.
Umbrella provides safe access to the internet anywhere users go, even when they are off the virtual private network (VPN).
An increasingly mobile workforce conducts business via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. The unprecedented growth of SaaS apps looks set to continue with Gartner predicting that SaaS usage will increase 70 percent by 2018.
As a result, organizations are struggling to protect themselves in this new working paradigm. Most rely heavily on VPN usage.
But according to IDG, 82 percent of mobile workers admit that they don’t always use the VPN. Others depend on on-premise secure web gateway solutions and an array of associated agents, creating complexity and latency. Today’s challenges call for a new approach to security.
Cisco promises that Umbrella will provide first line of defense to protect employees both on and off the corporate network.
Umbrella stops current and emergent threats over all ports and protocols for the most comprehensive coverage. It blocks access to malicious domains, URLs, IPs, and files before a connection is ever established or a file downloaded.
Cisco also announced that it is expanding its Unified Computing System (UCS) Solutions portfolio by offering Microsoft Azure Stack on Cisco UCS via an integrated, validated system.
This will enable organizations to deliver Microsoft Azure services from their on-premises data center.
The joint Cisco and Microsoft solution provides the tools for enterprises to grow and modernize their applications in a highly flexible and scalable hybrid cloud environment.
Key benefits of Azure Stack on Cisco UCS include:
#accelerated growth and innovation for enterprise customers and service providers
#builds on fabric-based UCS architecture featuring high-performance networking
#simplified management and control
#increased confidence and trust in the IT environment supported by Cisco and Microsoft
