Connectivity

Exploring Cisco’s latest tech announcements and outlook for 2024

We attended Cisco Live 2024 held in Amsterdam, from February 5th to February 9th. Throughout the five-day event, we enjoyed keynotes from Oliver Tusik, Cisco’s President for Europe, as well as announcements from Cisco’s technology leaders.

At their premier technology event, Cisco revealed significant progress in digitalisation and artificial intelligence across their entire product line-up. Oliver Tusik, emphasised “it is clear that technology is key… without technology, we wouldn’t be able to manage the challenges we’re facing all around the world.” Within this article, we delve into Cisco’s latest announcements including:

Ongoing commitment to AI
Security cloud
Observability and digital security monitoring
Sustainable technology

Jawaid Iqbal, VCG’s Principal Architect, shares his experience at Cisco Live –

‘At VCG we recognise the value of technologies and the value they deliver for our customers, so it was great to see some of the greatest and latest technologies at Cisco Live including ThoasandEyes, FSO and SD-WAN. Some of the other key highlights were application centric infrastructure (ACI) 6.0, SecureX , SD-WAN integration with other applications, and open AI.’

Here are the key announcements from Cisco Live EMEA in Amsterdam, “Cisco’s best portfolio ever” says Tusik:

1. Commitment to AI and a powerful partnership

Artificial intelligence serves as a catalyst for technology innovation, by providing new capabilities, improving existing processes, and enabling development of cutting-edge applications. Tusik states “we have the infrastructure to power AI, the portfolio optimised to secure it… and the expertise to help our customers get the outcomes they need – in a way that no one else can.” Cisco are already harnessing AI within their product portfolio, and extending their ongoing commitment to enhance their AI strategy to support businesses.

With Cisco’s recent AI readiness index highlighting 95% of businesses have an AI strategy, but only 14% are ready for integration, Cisco are on a mission to help the deployment of AI. They have announced their partnership with NVIDIA, with an aim of helping enterprises deploy and manage secure AI infrastructure.

This partnership will enable the computing power enterprises need to succeed in the AI era. Learn more about Cisco and NVIDIA Integrated Data Center Solutions.

2. Groundbreaking innovations within the Cisco Security Cloud

Cisco pioneers a unique approach that combines identity, networking, and security. Cisco Security Cloud, an AI-driven, cross-domain security platform brings together user, cloud protection, and breach protection suites with new AI capabilities and identity intelligence features:

From July 2024, Cisco will introduce identity intelligence, a powerful identity graph that leverages AI- driven behavioural analytics.
Cisco’s AI-powered security assistance aids customers in making informed decisions, enhancing tool capabilities, and automating intricate tasks.
Cisco has announced full integration between its robust networking cloud capabilities and Cisco’s Secure Access via ThousandEyes. Secure access also now integrates Catalyst SD-WAN.
Their Meraki dashboard now offers the ability to view and manage Meraki Catalyst wireless devices.

3. Observability and digital security monitoring

Some of Cisco’s latest advancements build upon their existing platform capabilities, including Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM), with real time monitoring (RUM), and Session Replay for cloud native applications. Cisco is delivering a unified experience across its observability portfolio, with new capabilities across Cisco AppDynamics and the Cisco Observability Platform.

We have excellent news for business… Cisco have announced their observability platform offers a new natural language interface for troubleshooting, and providing customers with enhanced productivity, visibility, insights, and actions.

In addition, they have also introduced:

New Cisco AIOps for Cisco Full-Stack Observability for actionable insights, that improve IT operations.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Observability.
A series of new partner modules on the Cisco Observability Platform, such as Aporia, CloudFabrix, Komodor, Perform IT and SoftServe. Find more information and updates here.

4. Sustainable technology and utilising Cisco hardware and solutions to enhance your ESG practice.

With Cisco’s commitment to help businesses in achieving their sustainability goals, they have announced carbon emission insights in the Webex Control Hub. This empowers businesses to:

Estimate energy usage and related carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions, from Cisco collaboration devices.
Track progress towards sustainability, by using the tools emission reporting function to track trends.
Optimise and reduce energy consumption, by using office hour functions.

Along with achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, this new capability forms their larger sustainability commitment. This goal is in line with Cisco’s circular economy goal, that by 2025, Circular Design Principles will be incorporated into 100% of new Cisco products and packaging.

Start your IT transformation journey with us

Our attendance at Cisco Live provided valuable insights, networking opportunities, and further exposure to cutting-edge technologies.

With our accredited partnership with Cisco and experienced technical architects, we are positioned to offer an end-to-end IT infrastructure, helping you to future-proof your networking and connectivity infrastructure, whilst lower operating costs.