4/6/2010 -- Experts say Cisco's revamped Catalyst 3560/3750-X Series and 2960-S Series switches bring some much-needed hardware muscle to a borderless networks strategy that -- from a customer perspective -- is still something of a mixed bag.

Putting aside their borderless bona-fides, Cisco's Catalyst refresh also shores up its position in the bread-and-butter enterprise switching segment.

After all, the "borderless" aspect of Cisco's Catalyst refresh consists of support for a trio of technologies that (aside from their notional applicability in next-gen borderless network configurations) address existing customer needs: TrustSec (Cisco's implementation of 802.1AE), EnergyWise (its proposed energy management architecture) and Medianet (its rich media vision).

"Even if customers do not understand or agree with Cisco's vision, the refreshed product lines put Cisco in a good position in the enterprise campus market," notes Steven Schuchart, an analyst with consultancy Current Analysis.

It's been a busy quarter for Cisco on the borderless front. At last month's RSA Conference, Cisco announced its Secure Borderless Network (SBN) initiative. SBN amounts to a Cisco-centric reconceptualization of the networking security model. It focuses on four distinct aspects: endpoints (fixed or mobile), the network edge, context- and location-aware policy enforcement and the enterprise datacenter.

As the first "proof point" in its SBN push, Cisco announced AnyConnect Secure Mobility, a new umbrella offering designed to facilitate interoperability between and among the AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client, Cisco's IronPort Web security appliances and Adaptive Security Appliance firewall devices.

Cisco is both delivering new switching hardware to support its Borderless Networks vision and upping the ante for competitors. "[Cisco's] overall Borderless Networks strategy needs the products to support the services. This … serve[s] not only to debut the new products, but also to highlight the overall strategy of Borderless Networks with actual technology," he comments. "The new Catalyst 3560/3750-X products have the latest green features and an innovative powering scheme called StackPower. These new products, along with the new Catalyst 2960-S, all impact competitors, which will need to respond." --By Stephen Swoyer