Cisco & Rackspace continue 20-year security partnership in advanced security

Cisco and Rackspace are coming together to deliver security for multicloud environments as part of a long-standing partnership spanning more than 20 years.

According to the companies organisations are using multicloud to improve efficiency, scalability and growth – more than 50% move workloads to the cloud because it provides better data security; 48% because of scalability; and 46% because of ease of use.

However adversaries are weaponising cloud services and putting dynamic cloud workloads at risks.

"The cloud is the future of IT for all businesses, but for many companies, the journey to the cloud can be a challenge," comments Rackspace's chief security officer Brian Kelly.

"One of the biggest hurdles and concerns for these companies is security – customers want to know that their data is protected with the most up-to-date and innovative technologies, even as their cloud needs evolve.

The two companies devised a strategy that allows Rackspace customers to protect hosted environments by offering Cisco's advanced security solutions.

Rackspace continues to pilot Cisco's solutions. Its latest initiative involved the deployment and testing for Cisco's firewalls.

 "One of the biggest hurdles and concerns for these companies is security – customers want to know that their data is protected with the most up-to-date and innovative technologies, even as their cloud needs evolve," Cisco explains.

Rackspace's chief information security officer David Neuman adds that his company is committed to customers' digital transformation journeys and it is evolving to solve IT challenges.

 "The value of a partner that understands what a global market is looking for in different customer verticals is extremely important to us. We depend on partners like Cisco to help us understand not only what we're doing today, but what's on the horizon and we can collaborate to deliver next-generation capabilities," Neuman explains.

The two companies launched Cisco Firepower, which they say stops more threats, provides more insight, detects earlier, acts faster and reduces complexity for security functions.

"Today's attacks are multivector. Customers need to have multiple layers of defense to combat sophisticated attacks, and Cisco brings an integrated architectural advantage to the market, comments Cisco's security business group senior VP David Ulevitch.

"Cisco is committed to helping protect and secure our longtime partner Rackspace and its customers' cloud environments," Ulevitch continues.

Rackspace currently deploys more than 22,000 Cisco firewalls to date.

"Through our close collaboration with Cisco in threat protection, we are committed to helping secure our clients' evolving and expanding journey to the cloud," Kelly concludes.