IBM, Cisco Collaborate On Security

The partnership is expected to make systems, applications and networks from the companies available to their channel partners. The collaboration is scheduled to formally launch next month.

Chris O'Connor, director of IBM security strategy, said the partnership will hinge on four key integration points and involve products from IBM's Tivoli unit as well. The effort will be an attempt to address what both companies perceive as a widespread issue within businesses: ineffective and inefficient security resulting from heterogeneous security solutions and services, he said.

"The real problem with customers is that they're dealing with vendors who tackle one point of security at a time," O'Connor said. "The [goal] is to bring network security together in a single focus to offer an end-to-end picture."

The first key integration point of the partnership will focus on IBM's identity management blueprint and integrate Tivoli's Identity Manager product with Cisco's Secure Access Control Server, O'Connor said. With the integrated ID system, customers could provision users into a system, application or network from a single console. Such a manual system also stands to reduce the time it takes to provision new users from 90 days to 14 days, saving huge costs across the board, he added.

Dave King, director of business development for Cisco's VPN and security business unit, said another integration area will be client access. To protect all end points from security intrusions, Cisco will offer the Cisco Security Agent as a preload option for IBM eServer xSeries products and IBM ThinkPad notebooks.

"Out of the box, these machines will be protected from compromise by the Security Agent technology," King said. "It's another bit of teamwork that just makes sense."

A third integration effort will incorporate IBM into Cisco's Network Admission Control (NAC) program, a policy-based system that checks security credentials before allowing users and devices onto a network. The NAC program will evaluate machines on a case-by-case basis and extend Cisco's capabilities to provide effective remediation strategies for non-compliant end points, King said.

The fourth area of integration will be including IBM Global Services in Cisco implementations. Plans call for IGS to provide services to help assess a customer's combined IBM and Cisco IT infrastructure. King and O'Connor said they expect this component of the partnership to result in major cross-channel enablement down the road.

"This is stage one of the relationship [between Cisco and IBM] on security," O'Connor said. "In this age of larger enterprises, where vendors are looking to make primary vendor decisions, we think that partnerships like this can provide integrated vision and value to everyone involved."