Kyndryl Debuts Security Edge Services with Cisco

Kyndryl, the IT infrastructure services company that spun off of IBM more than two years ago, has unveiled two new security edge services developed jointly with Cisco as part of their ongoing partnership.

The new security edge services are:

Kyndryl and Cisco have co-invested and collaborated on a development process to build scalable security offerings. The new security edge services, combined with Kyndryl and Cisco’s available SD-WAN services, allow enterprises to build a foundation to transition into a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture. Kyndryl then delivers these services and solutions to help customers meet their business needs in areas of application modernization, resilient networks and secure infrastructure with zero trust network and hybrid work.

New Security Edge Services Needed

Michelle Weston, Kyndryl’s vice president of global offerings for security and resiliency, said modern security challenges are always evolving.

Kyndryl's Michelle Weston

“While it takes many capabilities and resources to protect users, data and networks, it can take a single cyber incident to create business disruption — a single bad actor, a natural disaster, a mistake by an employee,” she said. “These Kyndryl SSE services come at a time when cyber incidents are costing businesses significant losses of data/money and enterprises will need to prioritize resiliency and broaden their approach to include operational resilience as they navigate a complex and intensifying threat landscape.”

And with the ever-growing cybersecurity skills shortage coupled with multiple security products, Kyndryl can help close the skills gap, and take the complexity off the customer with these new services, Weston said.

“Our security and resiliency experts work with customers to create a cyber resilience strategy to anticipate, protect, withstand and recover in the event of an incident,” she said.

As a service provider, Kyndryl has a “steadfast” customer focus, Weston said. This focus drives its teams to identify capabilities with new and existing Kyndryl partners and strategic alliances to create timely, forward-thinking services devoted to customer success.

More to Come from Kyndryl-Cisco Partnership

“This is just the beginning of our partnership,” Weston said. “Cisco is making strategic investments in security and wants to partner with Kyndryl because of our expertise in services and the ability to manage complex IT systems and consolidate. We have an opportunity to do more together. Our new security edge services can be standalone, or combined with Kyndryl and Cisco’s available SD-WAN services. This combination enables enterprises to build a solid foundation to transition into a SASE architecture.” 

“Our partnership with Kyndryl has demonstrated the added value Cisco and Kyndryl bring to our shared customers,” said Brian Feeney, Cisco’s vice president of global security partner sales. “With Cisco’s technology and Kyndryl’s cybersecurity services, we are able to provide our customers with an exceptional user experience and protected access from any device to anywhere.”