Cisco Systems and Micosoft today announced that they were both working toegether to share and intergrate their security and health assurance technologies. The idea is simple, intergrating solutions from both companies will create a good defense against the increased threat and impact of malicious software.
Per the alliance, 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. The companies will then work toward interoperability efforts between the NAC and NAP architectures, as these solutions evolve and are delivered to customers. This coordinated approach will allow customers to integrate the embedded security capabilities of Cisco"s network infrastructure with those of Microsoft"s Windows, enabling them to choose components yet implement a single, coordinated solution.
The two companies also announced that they"re working towards driving industry standards in the network admissions and access control arenas to help promote broad market adoption.
The announcement is expected to affect Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and wireless security mainly.