Cisco unveils new cloud tools

At the Cisco Live conference in Amsterdam this week, Cisco announced innovations in cloud-managed networking to help customers simplify their IT operations. The services include powerful new cloud management tools for industrial IoT applications, simplified dashboards to converge IT and OT operations, and flexible network intelligence to see and secure all industrial assets.

“The most effective way to manage growing complexity and provide more insight into business operations is through reliable connectivity and complete visibility across an organisation’s operations and assets,” said Vikas Butaney, Cisco SVP and GM for SD-WAN, cloud connectivity, and industrial IoT networking. 

“A strong partnership between all technology teams – security, networking and operations – is essential. With these innovations, we’re excited to equip organisations with the tools needed for a unified, cloud-delivered approach that brings the power of the enterprise IT network to scale and secure the industrial edge.”

Cisco provided the following information on the new services and tools:

Simplified IT/OT for Industrial Networks

Organisations are extending their networks to new places. They need to connect core enterprise operations to industrial spaces, spanning utility grids, manufacturing facilities and transportation networks. They are also prioritising sustainability and resiliency in their operations, driving the need for greater visibility across their environments. The distributed nature of these operations makes these networks complex to manage, and as these industries digitise their assets, the cybersecurity attack surface grows.

Cisco is introducing cloud services in its IoT Operations Dashboard to increase industrial asset visibility and securely manage assets from anywhere:

• Cisco Cyber Vision is now integrated with Cisco IoT Operations Dashboard to grant IT and operations teams full visibility into IT and OT devices to manage threats across the organisation, providing a unified security posture across the entire network.

• Secure Equipment Access Plus makes it easier for IT and OT teams to remotely deploy, manage and troubleshoot connected equipment. This service now provides access to any connected equipment with IP connectivity, so operations teams can run native applications on their workstations to access remote assets more easily.  These innovations, along with Cisco’s extension of its Catalyst industrial wireless and switching portfolio, provide more common tooling and data so IT and OT teams can work more efficiently together to reduce downtime of critical infrastructure, drive greater business productivity and efficiencies, and enhance overall safety and security.

ThousandEyes for OpenTelemetry Simplifies IT Data Intelligence

Having the relevant data at the right time is necessary to optimise users’ digital experiences, but data may not always be easy to collect and correlate. To help customers tackle this challenge, CiscoThousandEyes now supports OpenTelemetry, the open-source framework and industry standard thatpartners, customers, and providers rely on to generate, collect, process and export cloud-native and distributed telemetry data.

As the first network visibility solution to support OpenTelemetry, ThousandEyes is making it possible for customers to interconnect cloud and internet intelligence across a wide range of solutions for unmatched data correlation and insight. With ThousandEyes for OpenTelemetry, Cisco is enabling true end-to-end correlated insights across disparate domains, from user to application, for optimal digital experiences.

Unified SASE Solutions for all Cisco SD-WAN customers

To simplify network security and policy management, Cisco’s unified SASE solution, Cisco+ SecureConnect, now supports integration into Cisco SD-WAN fabrics using Viptela technology. Cisco SD-WANcustomers now have access to fast, secure private applications and internet access, enabling them to deliver a secure experience to their employees anywhere.

This unified solution converges networking and security to provide customers with a single platform and streamlined operational model that simplifies and scales the visibility, management and control over a hybrid work environment. This converged operating model also provides IT teams with enhanced visibility and control over the network, making the experience easy for them to manage.