Cisco Updates Networking, Security and Operations Portfolio

CISCO LIVE AMSTERDAM — Cisco has announced several product updates spanning networking, security and operations. They include new cloud management tools for industrial IoT applications, simplified dashboards to converge IT and OT operations, and network intelligence updates.

The IT giant also announced ThousandEyes OpenTelemetry and a preview of its Full-Stack Observability Platform.

Cisco unveiled them all Tuesday at its first in-person European event in three years — Cisco Live Amsterdam.

Here are the headline updates:

Cisco Full-Stack Observability Platform

Cisco previewed its full-stack observability platform to customers at the event. It said it allows teams to bring together telemetry data from their own context and drive correlated insights across the entire IT estate.

Liz Centoni, EVP, chief strategy officer and GM, application, introduced the platform. She described the platform as “open, API-driven, anchored on open telemetry, and fully extensible.”

Cisco’s Liz Centoni at Cisco Live Amsterdam, 7 Feb.

This is so “partners or customers can ingest the visibility, insights and actions from what we’re building into your business processes and flows. And you can quickly identify what part of the business is impacted,” she said. “You can prioritize based on the business context in terms of what matters most — and return the systems to a healthy state.”

ThousandEyes OpenTelemetry

Cisco noted that organizations are extending their networks to new places. As such, the company now offers ThousandEyes support for OpenTelemetry. This will provide industrial IoT customers with security insights with the new IoT Operations Dashboard.

It is integrating Cisco Cyber Vision with the IoT Operations Dashboard to give IT and OT full visibility into IT and OT devices. Cisco said it is also making it easier to remotely deploy, manage and troubleshoot any connected equipment with IP connectivity with Secure Equipment Access Plus.

Cisco said these, along with the extension of its portfolio of its Catalyst industrial wireless and switching portfolio, provide tooling and data so IT and OT teams can work more efficiently together.

Cisco+ Secure Connect

Cisco said it is extending the benefits of secure private application and internet access to customers leveraging Viptela technology. Its unified SASE solution will “harmonize Cisco SD-WAN fabrics to make SASE easy.”

Cisco also introduced initial findings from the first-ever Cybersecurity Readiness Index. The report focuses on five core pillars of security protection — identity, devices, network, applications, and data. While technology to secure devices is widely adopted, more progress is needed to protect identity, networks, and applications, it found.

Webex on AWS for Partners

Cisco launched Webex Suite Named User (NU) on AWS Marketplace, expanding its catalog of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings available to partners.

“As Cisco continues to access additional routes to market for our products and services, public cloud marketplaces offer tremendous opportunities for our partners and customers,” it wrote in a new blog.

Go more in-depth on this release here.

Training 10 Million People

Finally, Cisco revealed its goal to train 10 million people in digital and cybersecurity skills over the next 10 years, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).