6/26/2007 -- Cisco Systems Inc. last week closed its acquisition of the former IronPort Systems Inc. with a bang, touting a new Self-Defending Network vision that incorporates protection into its core routing and switching portfolio, as well as applications and content.

One upshot of the IronPort acquisition is that Cisco can now provide Wide Traffic Inspection complete with integrated network and content analysis across major application protocols and endpoints.

Not bad for $830 million. Cisco announced its intention to acquire IronPort more than five months ago, in early January. IronPort is powered in part by SenderBase, an e-mail and Web database that collects information from more than 100,000 Internet service providers, universities and private corporations. It works by measuring parameters for active e-mail and Web servers on the Internet.

Cisco officials position the now-complete IronPort acquisition as a coup for the company's Self-Defending aspirations.

"The addition of IronPort represents the next chapter in the evolution of the Self-Defending Network, and it accelerates Cisco's growth opportunities. Most important, it dramatically extends the solutions we can provide our customers as security threats and demands evolve," said Richard Palmer, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security Technology Group, in a statement.

IronPort is best known for its e-mail appliances, Cisco officials acknowledge, but that company has recently branched out into Web security appliances, too.

"Our e-mail products are better because we have a Web product and vice versa. Merging this technology into Cisco's Self-Defending Network portfolio creates even more powerful solutions for the marketplace," said former IronPort CEO Scott Weiss, who now heads Cisco's IronPort Business Unit. --Stephen Swoyer