It's the 25^thanniversary of the filmField of Dreams, the movie about an Iowa farmer who hears a whisper that says, "If you build it, he will come." Given the need for control with context for secure access initiatives, we did build it-and they have come.

After its introduction last year, momentum has continued for the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) partner ecosystem, enabled by Cisco pxGrid, our robust context-sharing platform.

The Cisco ISE partner ecosystem began with an idea to create a group of best-in-class IT infrastructure partners who use the deeper level of contextual data collected by ISE, our security policy management platform for access control and security compliance, enabling IT organizations to have a consistent method of making their IT platforms identity, device and network aware. This enables deeper, broader network and security insight, makes network and security events more actionable and allows for consistent, cross-platform user and device visibility and control.

Cisco pxGrid is a unified framework that enables multi-vendor, cross-platform network system collaboration among IT infrastructure such as security monitoring and detection systems, network policy platforms, identity and access management platforms, and virtually any other IT operations platform.

The ecosystem continues to expand on its integrations with Mobile Device Management and SIEM/Threat Defense partners. The Cisco ISE partner ecosystem with additional pxGrid integrations now provides solutions that encompass:

• Internet of Things (IoT) security for the industrial sector with Bayshore Networks
• Simplified network troubleshooting and forensics with Endace/Emulex
• Identity-powered real-time security monitoring provides faster mitigation of threats via our newest SIEM/TD partner, NetIQ. Existing ecosystem partners Splunk and Lancope are also taking advantage of ISE's ability to provide threat mitigation.
• End-user-friendly "zero-sign-on" and network context enhanced risk-based authentication to sensitive application data with Ping Identity
• Context-based endpoint vulnerability prioritization and mitigation with Tenable

All of these partner solutions, leveraging pxGrid technology, will use the deeper level of contextual data, collected by Cisco ISE, to enhance their ability to address more use cases and undertake their functions more quickly and effectively.

ISE and AnyConnect technology innovations announced this week complement ISE partner ecosystem momentum. For more, please see our post on gaining greater context with control for secure access and mobility or register for the on-demand webcast.

The baseball players inField of Dreamseventually vanished. However, the number of partners in the Cisco ISE partner ecosystem, enabled by pxGrid technology, continues to grow. Please stop by Interop New York 2014 and visit us at Cisco Security Booth#401 to see Cisco ISE and hear about our partner ecosystem, enabled by pxGrid technology in Cisco ISE.