Cisco unveils next-gen intrusion prevention system

Cisco on Tuesday introduced its highest-performing intrusion prevention system, which is designed for media-rich and transaction-heavy networking environments..

The Cisco IPS 4270 offers up to 4Gbits per second performance for Web-based content and video. For e-commerce, point-of-sale, instant messaging, and Internet telephony, the new appliance provides up to 2Gbits per second of throughput and supports as many as 20,000 transactions per second.

In general, Cisco's IPS devices help IT teams detect security vulnerabilities and exploits, and apply corporate policies for preventing threats from entering the network. Competitors in the market include Check Point and TippingPoint

Other features of the IPS 4270 include the ability to run inspection and policy data in a virtualized environment, which makes it possible to weave intrusion prevention services into the overall data center system, Cisco said. The appliance also has redundant, hot-swappable power options and a scalable interface that accommodates high-density copper and fiber Gigabit Ethernet ports.