10/21/2008 -- As the ambitions of Cisco Systems Inc. expand, so too does its partner ecosystem. Consider the partnership that it notched two years ago this month with enterprise applications giant SAP AG.

At the time, Cisco and SAP touted a plan to co-develop a new line of governance, risk and compliance (GRC) applications, using Cisco's service-oriented network architecture (SONA) underpinnings to let SAP's GRC software enforce data access or privacy restrictions across the network.

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The Cisco/SAP partnership is bearing fruit. Earlier this month, SAP and Cisco revisited their accord, trumpeting a new Data Privacy composite application that makes it possible for businesses to implement and enforce data privacy policies on an organization-wide basis.

The two partners position their composite application as an alternative to point solutions, which they say can quickly proliferate within an organization -- and which lack the unified management experience that Cisco and SAP claim they're bringing to the table.

"This joint development from Cisco and SAP is unique in the marketplace and strategic for both companies, as our enterprise customers already enjoy positive synergies between SAP business applications and Cisco communications and networking infrastructure," said Bill Ruh, vice president of Advanced Services for Cisco, in a statement.

Fasten your seatbelts, Ruh advised, because there's more to come. "This is the first of several anticipated solutions to combine the business intelligence of the application layer and the transactional intelligence of the network layer, helping our mutual customers manage risk more effectively and achieve continuous compliance, security and operational maturity," he said. --Stephen Swoyer