Cisco Unveils IronPort Email Security Service

PRESS RELEASE

SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 3, 2009 - Cisco today announced new managed, hosted and hybrid hosted e-mail security services that provide the industry's most versatile set of e-mail protection offerings. As businesses demand greater agility and flexibility in how they collaborate, the Cisco' IronPort' Email Security services are aimed at providing them with complete choice and control over where their e-mail security is deployed and managed, whether it be on premise, off-site, in the cloud or a combination of the three.

Facts/Highlights:

Spam is the weapon of choice for many criminal networks. Findings from the 2008 Cisco Annual Security Report revealed that spam accounts for nearly 200 billion messages a day, approximately 90 percent of the world's e-mail traffic. Today's announcement features security offerings to help businesses in light of these trends.

Cisco IronPort Hosted Email Security, Hybrid Hosted Email Security and Managed Email Security services provide businesses with the ability to choose the e-mail security solution that meets their unique needs. These services enable high levels of e-mail protection, with exclusive preventive and reactive technologies, including spam protection, data-loss prevention, virus defense, e-mail authentication and powerful reporting tools for customized security services.

Cisco IronPort Hosted Email Security Solution

Protection is delivered via a dedicated e-mail infrastructure hosted in a network of Cisco data centers.

Unlike other hosted e-mail security solutions, the Cisco IronPort offering has no shared infrastructure. This provides organizations with the highest uptime while maximizing protection of sensitive data from contamination risks.

The cloud-based model supports corporate green initiatives by reducing the corporate data center's energy and physical footprint, reducing power, cooling and operational expenses.

Customers retain control of hosted devices with co-managed device access and can access real-time reports and modify configurations without service ticket response delays.

Capacity assurance provides scalable protection enabling for future growth of spam volume.

Cisco IronPort Hybrid Hosted Email Security Solution

The benefits of on-premise and cloud-based solutions are combined, as control of inbound traffic is enabled in the cloud, and outbound controls, such as data-loss prevention and encryption, can be handled on a customer's premise.

Organizations can take advantage of the efficiencies of the cloud but maintain physical control of on-premise equipment for handling sensitive data.

With a common management interface spanning both the hosted and on-premise equipment, the hybrid solution delivers unified centralized reporting, message tracking and quarantine.

All future capacity requirements for hosted and on-premise infrastructure is included in each year's annual service fee.

Cisco IronPort Managed Email Security Service

A state-of-the-art service is staffed by Cisco e-mail security experts who remotely manage and monitor customers' e-mail infrastructure.

The service provides the high level of data security inherent in on-site e-mail security appliances while taking advantage of the flexibility to delegate some or all management and maintenance responsibilities, allowing information technology staff members to focus on other strategic initiatives.

Companies can eliminate ongoing training and avoid additional spending on dedicated hardware for managing rising spam volumes.

Capital expenses on hardware are reduced with a simplified per-user, per-year pricing model that can be included in the operational expense budget.

Customer support is available 24x7 through security operations centers staffed by Cisco e-mail security experts.

Pricing and Service Availability: Cisco IronPort Email Security services will be available in April through resellers authorized to sell Cisco IronPort e-mail security services. Pricing is variable on the type of service implemented.

Supporting Quotes:

Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager, Security Technology business unit, Cisco

"Customers want choice, and because every IT department is unique, offering an e-mail security solution that is hosted, managed or on-premise gives businesses the flexibility and world-class security needed in today's threat environment. No matter what offering our customers choose, the hallmarks of Cisco IronPort technology remain: ease of use, performance and innovative technology. We're offering these benefits in any form factor and in any service to fit customers' unique needs."

Richard Rothschild, senior IT director, TiVo (Cisco IronPort Customer)

"Monitoring e-mail is just one task in an ever-growing a list of IT issues we confront on a daily basis. The Cisco IronPort Managed Email Security service combines the best of the traditional outsourced hosted model while keeping the appliances on my network. This provides us maximum control while freeing us to focus on higher-order network concerns. Indeed, Cisco's security experts are now a part of our team, helping us maintain control over our business-critical data and e-mail infrastructure. We are very pleased with the service."

Brett Rushton, vice president, Insight Networking (Cisco IronPort Channel Partner)

"We are very excited about the new email security services from Cisco IronPort. Cisco IronPort is already one of our leading partners in the email appliance space and this expansion represents an opportunity to bring a broader set of solutions to our clients. Given the current economic environment, our client's are proactively looking for ways to deploy enhanced capabilities in the most cost effective manner. Cisco IronPort's portfolio of email services gives them the flexibility they need to meet their specific business requirements."

Supporting Resources:

Cisco IronPort Hosted, Hybrid Hosted, and Managed Email Security Services: http://www.ironport.com/products/email_security_services.html

SenderBase' worldwide spam volumes: http://www.senderbase.org/home/detail_spam_volume

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Technorati Tags: Cisco, IronPort, hosted email security, hybrid hosted email security, managed services, spam, virus, malware, software-as-a-service, SaaS, network security, enterprise email, enterprise security, messaging, security appliance.

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