Cisco Empowered Branch system offers unified comms, security and collaboration

Legions of Cisco shops could be tempted by new branch office systems and upgrades designed to give network performance normally only found in firms' headquarters.

The Cisco Empowered Branch launch will focus on unified communications, security and collaboration, said Cisco's European technology marketing manager Philip Hausner.

Cisco has launched the integrated services router (ISR) 1861 for better branch office unified comms and a new Catalyst 2960 switch, running LAN Lite IOS firmware.

For firms deploying Unity Express, Unity and legacy voicemail systems, Cisco has launched a new Unified Messaging Gateway. This lets firms combine multiple instances of hardware running in different branch office locations and scale it into a single virtual system for better interoperability, said Hausner. The gateway can also transfer location information through 999 calls to the emergency services.

For firms wishing to deploy branch office network admission control (NAC), Cisco has launched an ISR module with an onboard NAC policy server. There is also wireless LAN controller firmware support for its recently launched 802.11n wireless systems, and new intrusion prevention and wide area application services modules specifically for branches.