Cisco Promises More Agile, Predictive Networks

Cisco is promising a network revolution with the addition of smart technology to deliver intent-based networking.

Speaking at Cisco Live, the company intends to do this with the addition of mathematical modelling and contextual insights to reduce the time that IT personnel spend troubleshooting.

Indeed, it seeks to remove the manual processes for network management and instead make the network continuously verify that it is operating as intended.

The development comes as Cisco continues to build upon its “intent-based” networking initiative in response to a world dealing with trends as public and private clouds, IoT and mobility, which is driving demand for a new way of addressing networks by making them more scalable, less complex and more secure.

New Functionality

And Cisco is hoping to “create a network that anticipates operational issues, stops security threats in their tracks, and continues to learn, adapt and protect.”

To this end, Cisco has now announced assurance innovations across its intent-based networking portfolio. Essentially these software innovations represent an advance in mathematical modeling and contextual insights.

For example, in the data centre the Cisco Network Assurance Engine uses continuous verification of the entire network to help keep business running as intended, even as the network changes dynamically.

Cisco DNA Center Assurance has also been tweaked for campus and branch networks, in an effort to provide new level of insight and visibility to reduce the time and money IT spends troubleshooting across wired and wireless environments.

Meanwhile the new Cisco Meraki Wireless Health for distributed IT operations should help reduce mean time to resolve wireless issues with rich analytics and insights.

Critical Infrastructure

“The network has never been more critical to business success,” said David Goeckeler, executive VP, Networking and Security Business at Cisco. “We’re reinventing the network from the ground up to deliver a secure and intelligent platform for digital business.

“Today, we are taking another major step toward that ambitious goal with intent-based networking innovations designed to deliver contextual insights and assurance that will help transform IT from reactive to proactive,” said Goeckeler.

Cisco says it currently has nearly 200 customers are in early field trails with the new assurance technologies, and more than 1,100 customers have deployed the recently announced Catalyst 9000 Series switches.

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