All of the big launches and announcements from Cisco Live
From Cisco Plus to paswordless security, CRN runs through all the big headlines from Cisco’s digital conference
Cisco Live kicked off yesterday with the vendor launching a swathe of new improvements and additions aas well as introducing a new as-a-service offering across its portfolio.
CRN runs through all the key announcements from Cisco during the digital event.
Launch of ‘Cisco Plus' as-a-service offering
Cisco will begin offering its datacentre portfolio through a consumption-based model later this year as it launches its as-a-service offering across selected countries.
The US vendor has launched Cisco Plus, which will make its networking, security, compute, storage, applications and observability products available through an as-a-service model.
The move will enable simpler consumption and use of Cisco's portfolio through easy-to-consume unified subscriptions, Cisco claims.
Some aspects of Cisco Plus will available to partners in the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the US in mid-2021, Cisco claims.
The initial launch will be Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud which encompasses its entire datacentre compute, networking and storage portfolio as well as third-party storage and software.
The Cisco Plus offering will be expanded later in 2021 to include a self-service portal built on Cisco CX Cloud which will allow customers and partners to consume and track usage of Cisco as-a-service products. The portal will also include a marketplace offering a catalogue of Cisco and partner services.
Cisco integrates ThousandEyes acquisition with switches and AppDynamics
Cisco acquired ThousandEyes during 2020 in a deal worth a reported $1bn. The network intelligence start-up would add deeper visibility into Cisco's network infrastructure to improve performance across all networks, Cisco's SVP of enterprise networking and cloud Todd Nightingale said at the time.
Now Cisco is integrating ThousandEyes' internet and cloud intelligence with its own Catalyst 9000 range of switches as well as its application performance management product AppDynamics.
Cisco's DNA Advantage and Premier customers will be able to run the ThousandEyes agent natively on their Catalyst 9300 and 9400 switches as of early April and receive its internet and cloud intelligence capabilities at no extra cost.
Meanwhile, ThousandEyes has also been integrated into AppDynamics Dash Studio which Cisco claims will enable customers to quickly isoate and resolve issues across their digital delivery ecosystem.
Joint ThousandEyes and App Dyanmics customers will be able to view network and internet metrics within AppDynamics Dash Studio as of the beginning of April without needing to purchase additional licenses.
Cisco launches passwordless authentication
Cisco has also launched new passwordless authentication by Duo Security which it claims will enable users to securely log into cloud applications with security keys or biomentrics built into modern laptops and smartphones such as Apple FaceID, TouchID and Windows Hello.
The passwordless feature will help reduce the risk of password-related threats and vulnerabilities such as phishing or stolen or sweak passwords and reduce the administrative burden of managing passwords and conducting password resets.
Expanded SASE offering
All the core components of Cisco's secure access service edge (SASE) offering can now be purchased as a single offer including through a unified subscription service.
The move means that SASE components including networking, remote access, cloud security, zero trust network access and observability can be purchased as a single subscription service.
Cisco also announced new additions to its SecureX platform that it claims will reduce dwell time and automate tasks that detect and remediate threats. Cisco claims the improvements have reduced the time to detect threats by 95 per cent and time to remediate by 85 per cent.