Cisco used its annual Cisco Live event to announce new products and innovations designed to make IT management, security and networking more simplified with the help of artificial intelligence, unified platforms and other enhanced capabilities.
Announced at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, Cisco announced Cisco Networking Cloud for simplified IT management, security service edge solution Cisco Secure Access, a new Secure Firewall 4200, Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cloud Native Application Security, Full-Stack Observability, a generative AI-powered security assistant and a new Webex device.
Cisco Networking Cloud
Cisco announced its vision for the Cisco Networking Cloud: to simplify network management via a single platform experience for seamlessly managing all networking domains.
New innovations include single sign-on, API key exchange/repository, sustainable data center networking solutions and expanded network assurance with Cisco Thousand Eyes.
Cisco says Networking Cloud will “dramatically simplify IT” with a more flexible Cisco Catalyst switch stack, improved visibility into data center power and energy consumption and new AI data center blueprints to improve performance and visibility for network operations.
Security enhancements
Cisco announced several new security tools and enhancements, including a new security service edge solution for hybrid work security, generative AI capabilities and innovations across firewall, multicloud and application security.
The company during its Cisco Live event announced its first generative AI capabilities in the Security Cloud, including an AI-powered Policy Assistant designed to help security and IT administrators describe granular security policies and evaluate how best to implement them across different aspects of their security infrastructure. It will be available later this year.
Cisco also announced a new SOC Assistant, available by the end of the year, to help support SOC analysts and detect and respond to threats faster by contextualizing events across email, web, endpoints and the network to tell the analyst what happened and the impact.
In addition, Cisco announced the Cisco Firewall 4200 Series, featuring AI and ML-based encrypted threat blocking without decryption, complete threat inspection and policy for each individual application and simplified branch routing. Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series appliance will be generally available in September 2023 supporting the 7.4 version of the operating system. The 7.4 OS will be generally available for the rest of the Secure Firewall appliance family in December 2023.
Cisco also announced new capabilities in Panoptica, the company’s cloud-native application security solution including Cloud Security Posture Management, a new attack path engine and an integration with Cisco’s Full Stack Observability portfolio.
Full-Stack Observability
The company also used its Cisco Live event to announce the general availability of its Full-Stack Observability (FSO) platform to give customers the ability to develop and grow an application ecosystem built on an open, extensible architecture, including new use cases in a single consumption model. Additionally, Cisco’s new bi-directional integration between AppDynamics and ThousandEyes drives powerful customer digital experience monitoring and closes observability gaps with rapid actionable recommendations and insights, the company says.
Room Bar Pro
Also at Cisco Live, Cisco announced the Room Bar Pro, a new easy-to-deploy video bar with “significant processing power, more connections, touch screen integration, and all of the advanced AI capabilities built into (Cisco’s) RoomOS platform.”
Cisco says the Room Bar Pro, based on the powerful NVIDIA processor, is optimized for medium workspaces (5-12 seats) of varying shapes. The device also features a dual camera system that reaches further, wider, and frames everyone in the room in ultra-high quality, even when participants are sitting at the ends of the table.
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