Cisco Gear Aims At Security

Facing a serious slowdown in sales of its main network routing and switching products, Cisco Systems last week unleashed a barrage of products in markets that are still showing signs of growth: security, voice over IP, and long-haul 10-Gigabit Ethernet switching.

The security products are aimed at the small-business market. Cisco introduced a firewall for sites with up to 50 employees, an intrusion-detection software product, an acceleration module for virtual private networks, and enhanced security-management products. All will be available next week.

Cisco introduced the IDS Host Sensor, intrusion-detection software that's designed to protect host computers from damage by malicious attacks. If purchased with a Cisco VPN/Security Management Solution software product, the whole package is priced at $8,000; separately, it's $5,000. Agents that work on each host computer are priced at $1,750 for a standard edition and $2,100 for a Web-server edition.

Also new is the VPN Acceleration Module, which can be added to Cisco's 7100 and 7200 routers. It's designed to increase by 60% the speed the routers process IP Security encrypted traffic. A 7200-series router, with the acceleration module included, is priced at $23,000; the acceleration module can be purchased separately for $5,000.

New security-management products include an IDS Host management capability for the CiscoWorks VPN/Security Management Solution and an update of the Cisco Secure Policy Manager.

The PIX 501 firewall is for small offices or home offices and has VPN and intrusion-detection capabilities, in addition to an integrated four-port 10/100-Mbps Ethernet switch. It's priced at $600 for a 10-user version or $1,200 for a 50-user version.

In the area of voice over IP, Cisco launched a new version of its Unity IP telephony product, which now supports as many as 100,000 users per system. Unity 3.0 replaces version 2.46, which supported a maximum of 10,000 users. "We're now ready for very large deployments," says Kevin Chestnut, director and general manager of enterprise communications software at Cisco.

Unity 3.0 also supports 5,000 users on an individual server, compared with 2,500 users per server before. Unity 3.0 is available immediately; prices start at $70 per user for a voice-mail-only system and $145 per user for a system with unified messaging.

The Idaho Department of Labor upgraded to Unity 3.0 from version 2.46 several weeks ago because the earlier version didn't offer unified messaging features, says Duane Lamm, the department's IT resource manager. The agency uses Exchange 2000 as its messaging system, and it upgraded to Unity 3.0 because the new version could be integrated with Exchange 2000 and Microsoft's Active Directory to provide unified messaging to employees. The upgrade cost $49,000, which included an expansion of the system from 300 to 500 employees and the addition of integrated E-mail and voice-mail messaging, Lamm says.

The system can display voice-mail and E-mail messages together in employees' E-mail in-boxes, making it easier to view, play, and redirect voice mails, Lamm says. Employees "find it convenient for voice mails to appear in their E-mail boxes, which they have open all day anyway," he says. "It's also far easier for them to forward messages."

The department has 1,000 employees at 25 locations, but only 500 at four locations are using voice-over-IP phone systems, Lamm says. The remainder are still using older circuit-switched telephone systems, but the agency plans to upgrade all its phone systems to voice over IP. The pace of the migration will depend on the agency's budget levels and on how quickly its older phones wear out, Lamm says.

Cisco also launched long-haul 10-Gigabit Ethernet line cards that can be added to its Catalyst 6500 to extend the cards' switching capabilities to metropolitan area networks. Long-haul 10-Gigabit Ethernet switching systems, while not common, are being used by businesses and service providers that want to connect multiple locations within a metropolitan area, which lets them share high-bandwidth applications, such as distance learning, medical imaging, videoconferencing, CAD/CAM, or data storage.

The first of the 10-Gigabit Ethernet modules, the 10GBase-EX4 Metro 10 Gigabit Ethernet Module for the Catalyst 6500 switches or 7600-series routers, can be used to transmit 10-Gigabit Ethernet traffic on "dark" fiber across distances of 50 kilometers. It will be available by the end of the month for around $80,000.

The second, the 10GBase-LR Optical Interface Module, is also for the Catalyst 6500 switches or 7600-series routers, but will transmit data across distances of only 10 kilometers. The module won't be available until December, and Cisco has yet to set pricing.