A group of former Cisco engineers and marketers saw something missing in Cisco's software tools and established their own company to address the issue. Pari Networks, founded in April 2005, is led by Kishore Kumar who worked in Cisco's high-end software group. He says he noticed that the time it took for Cisco's tools to support configuration updates was too long to secure network devices adequately from potential threats. "It could take up to six months for our own management tools to catch up with the changes. If there is a security advisory, network change and configuration tools need to support new devices and operating system versions faster," Kumar told Network World's Denise Dubie.

 According to Dubie's story:

Pari's products will help customers stay on top of updates across devices, Kumar says, but the tools also are designed to ease compliance audits. For instance, the company developed its Paritra appliances to include policy, compliance and audit assessment mitigation features. The devices include customizable templates for regulatory-compliance regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and Payment Card Industry standards. Pari competes with such companies such as AlterPoint, Intelliden and Voyence, which EMC recently acquired. Kumar says Pari will differentiate itself from competitors by updating its products more quickly and offering remediation to configuration policy violations.

Which other Cisco engineers with bright ideas have broken (or are breaking) free from Cisco to launch their own companies?

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