Cisco Introduces Innovative SSE Technology to Latest Kyndryl Offerings
Kyndryl’s latest suite of managed services integrates Cisco’s cutting-edge Secure Access platform, featuring revolutionary zero-trust network access, fortified web gateway, and firewall as a service.
In a stride towards bolstering enterprise connectivity across cloud, private, and SaaS-based edge resources, Cisco and infrastructure solutions provider Kyndryl have unveiled two groundbreaking services.
The first offering, Kyndryl Consult Security Services Edge (SSE) coupled with Cisco Secure Access, empowers clients to architect and deploy SSE ecosystems while establishing robust security policies. The second service presents a fully managed, cloud-based SSE deployment by Kyndryl leveraging Cisco’s state-of-the-art technology, aptly named Kyndryl Managed SSE with Cisco Secure Access.
These pioneering services leverage Cisco’s SSE platform, Secure Access, encompassing a spectrum of security features including zero-trust network access (ZTNA), a fortified web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), firewall as a service (FWaaS), DNS security, remote browser isolation (RBI), among other cutting-edge capabilities. The platform is engineered to fortify any application across diverse ports and protocols, optimizing performance while ensuring continuous verification and trust allocation via a unified cloud-managed interface, as per the vendor. Cisco underscores that user authentication occurs within a secure, encrypted tunnel, enabling users to exclusively access authorized applications and services.
Gartner delineates SSE services as encompassing access control, threat mitigation, data fortification, security surveillance, and adherence to acceptable usage policies, enforced through network-based and API-driven integrations (effectively SASE minus SD-WAN, according to the analyst firm). Typically cloud-centric, SSE may encompass on-premises or agent-centric components.
Michelle Weston, Kyndryl’s Vice President of Global Offerings for Security and Resiliency, remarked, “Our collaboration with Cisco empowers Kyndryl to equip customers with anticipatory security measures, leveraging tailored tools and capabilities aligned with Kyndryl’s cyber resilience framework.”
These SSE services mark an expansion of the existing partnership between Cisco and Kyndryl. Last August, Kyndryl augmented its cyber resilience portfolio with Cisco’s Security Cloud platform, incorporating features such as Cisco’s Duo access control, extended detection and response functionalities, and Multicloud Defense, which streamlines security policy orchestration across public and private clouds.
Operating as an overlay atop infrastructure spanning a client’s cloud services, including Azure, AWS, GCP, and private data-center clouds, Security Cloud safeguards core applications. It boasts a unified dashboard, adaptable trust policies, and open APIs fostering third-party integration. By harnessing data correlation alongside artificial intelligence and machine learning, Cisco Security Cloud swiftly identifies and neutralizes threats across organizational tiers.
In 2022, Cisco and Kyndryl debuted their inaugural partnership, focused on assisting enterprise clients in deploying various connectivity solutions encompassing software-defined networking (SDN), WAN, and private 5G.
Palo Alto Networks also stands as a Kyndryl partner, offering an array of managed security services, including SD-WAN and SASE, integrating Palo Alto’s leading-edge security technologies.