IBM TLS will serve Cisco's Secure Firewall platform, an important component of its Hybrid Mesh Firewall system. Cisco's Secure Firewall handles deep packet inspection, intrusion prevention, malware and threat detection, and zero-trust segmentation. Cisco's Hybrid Mesh Firewall technology features a distributed security architecture and zero-trust security framework that are integrated into the network for segmentation, AI application protection, and advanced threat protection in different environments.

Recently, Cisco added a mesh policy engine that allows customers to define an intent-based policy that can be enforced between Cisco and third-party firewalls. The policy engine is implemented on Cisco's secure cloud control management platform.

With the expanded Cisco partnership, IBM TLS can now support the lifecycle of these Cisco firewalls, whether physical, cloud or virtual, by planning, designing, purchasing, installing, offloading and supporting them, helping customers optimize their core or AI infrastructure, as Atul Dhall, vice president of product management and global solution design for TLS, said.

Dhall wrote in a blog: "As organizations move workloads to the cloud, virtual firewalls can provide scalable and flexible protection, in addition to seamlessly integrating with cloud-native tools, providing enhanced visibility and helping simplify the management of complex hybrid or multi-cloud infrastructures." By emphasizing virtual firewall capabilities, enterprises can strengthen their network security defenses and respond to intrusion risks in an ever-changing threat environment. "

This is not the first time IBM's TLS team has worked with Cisco. In 2024, TLS adds support for Cisco software-defined networking and SD-WAN packages and launches the IBM Network Health Check for Cisco networking service. The service promises to optimize infrastructure, reduce time spent on hardware support, and provide insights into what needs attention in your network infrastructure.

In addition to working with Cisco, TLS also works with Juniper, F5, Fortinet, Checkpoint and Palo Alto. TLS competes with a variety of vendors in the services space, including HPE and Cognizant, among others.