IBM today introduced new functionality across its security product portfolio to help clients simplify their security infrastructure and slash security costs. These new features are designed to help organizations reap more benefits from their security investments, which is increasingly vital for IT organizations to meet new demands.

Information Technology (IT) organizations have neither the time nor money to manage multitudes of disparate security point solutions, each intended to protect against a specific threat. This problem is compounded as organizations transition from physical to virtual IT environments, which introduces a multitude of new security and compliance risks. IBM Internet Security Systems radically reduces the cost and complexity of security and compliance by delivering products that are inherently designed to work together as an extensible platform, all managed through a single heterogeneous management console. The new product enhancements from IBM ISS are designed to continue this strategy of "strategic security simplification." Highlights of these major upgrades include:

IBM Proventia Network Virtual Intrusion Prevention System (VIPS) Appliance - a first-of-a-kind virtual appliance, the VIPS enables clients to maximize their existing hardware investments by deploying virtual appliances on underutilized hardware resources. This product marks the first product roll-out from PHANTOM, a breakthrough research initiative from IBM X-Force and IBM Research, to offer businesses a holistic approach to secure virtualized server environments. The Phantom initiative also includes virtual appliances for Proventia Enterprise Scanner and Proventia Multi-Function Security in addition to our virtual Proventia Server solution with true defense in-depth introspection security protection. The software based VIPS appliance runs under VMWare, which allows flexible deployments and on-demand security services at the click of a button. It also allows customers to accelerate their adoption of virtual data centers by addressing securing and compliance requirements. Finally, Proventia Network Virtual IPS provides a total-cost-of-ownership savings over time, because clients do not need to buy new hardware when they want to upgrade or expand their intrusion-prevention capabilities.

IBM Proventia Network Security Controller (NSC) - a security management appliance that enables protection for high speed networks and helps clients preserve their investment in the Proventia product family portfolio as they upgrade their network fabric from 1 gigabit per second to 10 gigabits per second. The NSC allows clients with existing Proventia appliances to connect those appliances to 10G networks and "team" appliances together to fully inspect traffic at line speed. The NSC also includes full active bypass functionality to eliminate the need for a dedicated bypass on the network and another device on the network that must be managed.

IBM Proventia Network Enterprise Scanner - Enterprise Scanner safeguards enterprises from malicious attacks by identifying and prioritizing risks associated with network vulnerabilities while enabling protection activities and comprehensive reporting. Enterprise Scanner now supports multiple ports, enabling it to scale without the need for additional appliances. This feature drives efficiencies and helps reduce costs because clients can scan multiple networks from a single appliance. Also, because the appliance now can scan an organization's IT infrastructure faster, clients can begin remediation tasks immediately further mitigating risk by leveraging advanced ticketing and profile functionality. This helps drive efficiencies and helps reduce costs because clients can scan multiple networks from a single appliance.