Cisco has announced plans to establish a data centre for cloud-delivered security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) to help customers protect their users, infrastructure and investments against threat actors. The announcement is part of Cisco’s continued effort to empower organisations locally and in the region with flexible security services and data protection for devices, remote users and distributed locations.
The new data centre will play a critical role in delivering agile, highly resilient, high-capacity secure access closer to users in KSA. It will support Cisco’s cloud services including its new Secure Service Edge (SSE) solution, Cisco Secure Access. Most organisations rely on a complex web of point products that weren’t designed to support today’s highly distributed environment, and users need to navigate inconsistent access experiences and reauthenticate throughout the day — disrupting productivity. With Cisco Secure Access, decisions about how users connect to the Internet, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and private applications are automated, removing that complexity and helping increase productivity.
The announcement reaffirms Cisco’s commitment to a hybrid architecture to rapidly extend its global reach for customers. In KSA, organisations will experience the benefits of Cisco’s colocated Edge data centre with the scalability of public cloud. The data centre will be carrier-neutral and available on any Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Saudi Arabia. Cisco intends for the data centre to have service availability by mid-2024.
“[This] announcement reconfirms Cisco’s alignment to provide advanced cloud security protection and services to the Saudi community. It builds on Cisco’s long-standing commitment to our customers and reflects our continued support for Digital Transformation, by using the power of technologies to create a secured thriving digital economy in Saudi Arabia,” said Salman Faqeeh, Managing Director of Cisco in Saudi Arabia.
