Cisco has launched data center switches with built-in security management, providing another layer of protection for enterprises but at the switch level. For extra security, the switches have two embedded technologies in them, Cisco Hypershield security software and MAD Pensado data processing unity (DPU) which deals with security tasks.
The N9300 Series Smart Switches line by Cisco utilize both networking and security services, which the company says will help data center operators streamline infrastructure and support AI workloads.
Through Cisco’s integration of these security features in its switches, networks can be simpler as it is common for facilities to have to have other security measures, such as firewalls on a separate overlay network.
Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research, stated in a Data Center Knowledge article, “’One of the reasons why network and security devices were deployed separately is because network devices don’t do security well, and security devices don’t do networking well,’ Kerravala told Data Center Knowledge. ‘And so, by building the DPU into the switch, now all of a sudden, you’ve got a network switch that can act like a security device.’”
The company described this new family as an “all-in-one network and security solution”. Murali Gandluru, Cisco’s VP of product management for data center networking discussed how enterprises are not only interested in the solution due to the compliance requirements of network segmentation that certain industries require, but also because they want to make their data center architecture less complex.
Gandluru states, “Complexity is high. You see the span of what they have to manage. In such an environment, it’s absolutely essential to be able to do [security] quickly where it’s happening, instead of sending the traffic all the way to a central firewall.”
He went on mentioning that the first security services that will be available on the N9300 Series Smart Switches will be autonomous segmentation, centralized policy enforcement, and distributed exploit protection. Gandluru notes that there will be future security services launched as well.
