Cisco and Microsoft Team Up for Network Security

Cisco Systems, Inc. (www.cisco.com) and Microsoft Corporation (www.Microsoft.com) announced that the two companies are working to share and integrate their respective security and health assurance technologies. The goal of this collaboration is to deliver solutions that will help their mutual customers better address the increased threat and impact of malicious software.

"This important alliance with Cisco underscores Microsoft's ongoing commitment to creating a more secure computing environment for customers," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation.

Per the collaboration, Cisco and Microsoft will share information about their technologies to help drive an approach to solution-compatibility between Cisco Network Admissions Control (NAC) and Microsoft Network Access Protection (NAP), their respective approaches for providing endpoint security and health -policy compliance when accessing network resources.

"Safer and assured access to the network is a basic requirement if we are to continue our reliance on technology to support business growth. Having a single consistent way of establishing connectivity is as critical to supporting economic growth via technology as TCP/IP was to the success of the Internet," said Chris Byrnes, senior vice president at META Group, a leading provider of IT research, advisory services and strategic consulting.

Security is an important extension of this collaboration and, in this arena, the two companies have already been working together on technology areas such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and wireless security.

"A critical component of building the Cisco Self-Defending Network is industry collaboration," said John Chambers, chief executive officer for Cisco. "Security is not an island. By working with Microsoft, Cisco is again demonstrating its commitment to taking every step possible to provide our customers with the industry's best tools and technologies for network security."

Today's announcement builds on the successful, joint efforts of Cisco and Microsoft in a number of other technology fronts and market segments, including data center architectures, IP telephony, IPv6, home networking/media, and solutions and channel programs for small-medium sized businesses.