Cisco delivers simpler, smarter networks

Today’s business environment is predictably unpredictable. Organisations depend on digital experiences to keep their workforces productive and ensure they are exceeding expectations for customers and partners. To build business agility and resilience, IT teams require unified solutions that bridge an organisation’s technologies, locations, teams and devices.

The challenge is that IT environments have grown overwhelmingly complex, and user expectations are higher than ever. The connections that businesses rely on have multiplied in number and diversity. This has resulted in a network and overall IT experience that is more fragmented, less secure and increasingly difficult to scale. To address the growing complexity, says Cisco, it is delivering a more unified IT experience through cloud-based, intelligent platforms.

At the Cisco Live networking and security event in Las Vegas this week, Cisco unveiled new cloud management capabilities that provide a unified experience across the Cisco Meraki, Cisco Catalyst and Cisco Nexus portfolios and a new Cisco ThousandEyes product to forecast and optimise WAN performance. These innovations highlight Cisco’s strategy to provide customers with the agility, resiliency, and productivity that businesses need to thrive in the face of unpredictability, through the power of cloud-managed platforms.

“Our customers choose to run their businesses on Cisco technology because we sit at the intersection of networking, security and cloud,” said Todd Nightingale, Cisco executive vice president and general manager of enterprise networking and cloud. “We believe the network is the foundation for the modern enterprise and must deliver agility through simplicity. Cisco is addressing our customers’ most important concern, which is managing complexity through smart, data-driven platforms that power a digital business.”

Cisco announced a number of advances in its networking platforms to help customers transition toward more cloud-based operating models:

With Cloud Management for Cisco Catalyst, customers can monitor select Catalyst Switches and manage new Catalyst Wireless devices through the Meraki dashboard, bringing increased visibility and flexibility to the customer experience. Campus and branch networking customers can simplify their IT operations by combining cloud management with networking hardware.

Cisco Nexus Cloud, a cloud-managed platform delivered as-a-service, provides a simple way to deploy, manage and operate cloud networking. Powered by Cisco Intersight for switching and multi-cloud management, Cisco Nexus Cloud extends the ability to manage across public cloud, private cloud and edge computing environments of any size or scale.

Cisco ThousandEyes WAN Insights promises to be the industry’s leading internet and cloud intelligence platform by enabling predictive networking. It empowers enterprise IT to move from reactive to preventative-based networking, improving operational efficiency and assurance of application experience. WAN Insights proactively alerts IT teams to issues before they happen and harm user experience, offering policy recommendations and path optimisation guidance.

The industry’s first phone for hybrid work – the Cisco Video Phone 8875 – maximises productivity and reduces meeting fatigue when “hot-desking” is becoming the new normal in the workplace. Advancements to Webex Calling, part of the Webex Suite, improve work flexibility, reliability, and audio. Integration of ThousandEyes into Webex Control Hub provides better experiences for Webex Suite users by empowering IT admins to proactively monitor app performance issues. Salesforce and Oracle Eloqua are now integrated into Webex Webinars to provide flexible workflows for enhanced productivity.

Cisco has launched AppDynamics Cloud, an “observability platform” for modern applications which are based on increasingly complex, distributed architectures and services. 

Chuck Robbins, Cisco chair and CEO said: “Through the challenges and unpredictability of the past few years, I believe we’ve seen the true power of technology. Digital transformation remains core to every business as we navigate this complex world alongside our incredible customers and partners.”