Networking
Cisco raises self-defending network’s power
Cisco announced collaboration among several products and services in its security portfolio.
The collective enhancements involve Cisco’s Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Cisco Security Agent(CSA), Cisco Security Mitigation Analysis and Response System (CS-MARS), Cisco Security Manager (CSM) and Cisco’s Secure Sockets Layer virtual private network.
Cisco’s enhanced security portfolio includes Cisco IPS 6.0, CSA 5.2, CS-MARS 4.3, and CSM 3.1 – four products that combine to coordinate visibility, network-wide protection and dynamic threat mitigation.
IPS 6.0 also features adaptive “day zero” anomaly detection and behavioural analysis that identify worms and other malicious activity by searching for suspect network traffic patterns, and it integrates with third-party scanners to enrich threat analysis used to take protective actions. Other adaptive features include the ability to adjust “risk ratings” based on attack relevance and to deploy automated event and action filters that correspond to specific operating systems. The enhanced security collaboration also extends to quality of service (QoS) and wireless controls in CSA 5.2.
In addition to its advances in collaborative threat-control, Cisco announced a wave of SSL VPN enhancements to the software that drives its Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) series of products, which offer integrated firewall, IPS, anti-malware, and VPN functionality. ASA’s SSL VPN updates include:
- Clientless VPN with enhanced portal design
- Cisco’s next-generation “AnyConnect” VPN client
- Cisco AnyConnect Mobile VPN client
- Optimized network access for voice over IP (VoIP) and other latency-sensitive traffic.
- Ability to create “smart tunnels”
- Embedded Certificate Authority (CA) and additional user credential options.
- Direct mapping of Windows Active Directory membership to VPN access
- Intuitive management via ASA’s Adaptive Security Device Manager, CSM 3.1.
Cisco has introduced additional capabilities to its Security Services portfolio, including a Security Centre portal, Cisco Security IntelliShield Alert Manager Service and Cisco IPS Signature Management Service.
Security
Novell previews security and identity management solutions
Novell announced that it is previewing enhancements to its flagship security and identity management solutions, SentinelTM 6 and Identity Manager 3.5, at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.
Sentinel 6 focuses on capabilities in correlation, incident management workflow and its data connectivity framework. With Sentinel 6, Novell is extending its localized language support to nine with the addition of Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified and Japanese, and adding platform support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Solaris 10 and Oracle 10.
Novell Identity Manager 3.5 features additional support for role management to ensure separation of duties. Novell Identity Manager 3.5 also features advanced integration with Novell’s access management solutions, Novell Access Manager and SecureLogin, so that users are simultaneously provisioned a user account and single sign-on to target systems.
Availability
Sentinel 6 and Novell Identity Manager 3.5 will be generally available in the first half of this year and are being previewed at the RSA Security Conference in Novell’s booth #1937. Attendees at Novell’s BrainShare conference in March will have the opportunity to participate in detailed technical sessions and receive hands-on training related to these releases. For more information, please contact your Novell account representative or authorized partner.
Data Management
Conceptual Speech Technologies launches SpeechVibe 1.0
Conceptual Speech Technologies, LLC announces the release of SpeechVibe 1.0. SpeechVibe can perform every operation on the Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP operating system that used to require keyboard or mouse interactions, but this time by the exclusive use of voice. SpeechVibe enables interactions through speech, including drag-and-drop operations, from any point on the desktop to another and dictation into any application that accepts text input.
SpeechVibe 1.0 has a user-friendly interface and comes with voice recognition technology from Microsoft Corporation. SpeechVibe has a robust Wizard to guide users towards a productive use of this speech recognition technology. With SpeechVibe, users can surf the Web and send e-mails by speech.
To browse Webpages and send e-mails, SpeechVibe automatically reads the browser’s favorites and the user’s address book. And with its dictation feature, SpeechVibe enables speakers to dictate anywhere within the Windows operating system which accepts typing.
A free trial version of SpeechVibe 1.0 is available at: http://www.speechvibe.com/morehtml/trialdownloadentrance.asp
OSIsoft releases high-availability version of PI platform
OSIsoft Inc. announced the release of a high availability (HA) PI system. Current OSIsoft customers can easily upgrade from PI to PI HA.
Features:
- PI server replication Redundant PI servers including a primary and one or more secondary servers, together referred to as a “collective”.
- All interfaces will write time-series data directly to members of the collective, buffering data temporarily for those unable to receive it for a period of time and assuring that time-series data stored in each archive is an exact duplicate of the others.
- Changes to the PI interface design to accommodate HA include the ability to have a pair of PI interface nodes connected to a PI server or to the collective. If the primary interface node fails to deliver data to the PI servers, it will fail-over to the secondary PI interface to run in “hot” standby mode. PI interfaces can now be started without a connection to the PI server.