This record-breaking event that brought together 21,000 technology enthusiasts, industry leaders, and visionaries was by far my favorite Cisco Live yet. Here’s why.

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Energy, excitement, transformation, and innovation – these are a few words to describe last week’s Cisco Live 2024 in Las Vegas! This record-breaking event that brought together 21,000 technology enthusiasts, industry leaders, and visionaries was by far my favourite Cisco Live yet. Here’s why:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning were everywhere

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) were everywhere – and are driving innovation, automation, and intelligent decision-making across all industries. Many valuable insights, strategies and solutions were shared on how businesses are harnessing the power of technologies like AI, ML, and cloud computing to stay ahead of the curve and navigate the digital landscape. We’re arming our Cisco Partners with everything needed to meet the massive customer AI demand. Partners: check out the Cisco Partner AI opportunity and other partner-exclusive Cisco Live content in the Cisco Partner Launch Experience.

Twenty percent of customer attendees were SMBs

Twenty percent of customer attendees were from the Small/Medium Business (SMB) segment, which had the SMB booth buzzing with opportunity and innovative conversations all week long! Together with our amazing Cisco Partners, we showcased solutions to enable our customers to work from anywhere, protect their assets, build smarter workspaces, and keep everyone within their businesses well connected. We had dozens of “pathway to the possible” use case conversations while demonstrating our solutions live in action!

The opportunity of a lifetime

Two words: ELTON JOHN. It was the opportunity of a lifetime to wrap up the week by witnessing this musical legend perform! Only the magic of Cisco could get Elton John out of retirement to perform for the best customers and partners in the world. A huge thank you to the Cisco planning teams, our valued Cisco partners, and amazing Cisco customers who made this the best Cisco Live ever!

I hope you left Las Vegas feeling inspired and equipped with the knowledge and abilities to drive change, innovate, and embrace the opportunities presented by the digital revolution. I look forward to seeing you at Cisco Live 2025 on June 8-12 in San Diego, California!

Check out more partner-exclusive Cisco Live content in the Cisco Partner Launch Experience!

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

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"}]]  This record-breaking event that brought together 21,000 technology enthusiasts, industry leaders, and visionaries was by far my favorite Cisco Live yet. Here’s why.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

For three years now, we have been sowing seeds of innovation, inclusion, and inspiration to help Black leaders prepare to thrive in the AI era. We are committed to co-innovating with HBCUs to create lasting change, and building an inclusive future for all.

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A future defined by AI, hyper security, and constant change has brought into focus the importance of ensuring subsets of our world’s population aren’t left behind. We need to be diligent in bringing people along and to do this we are pursuing what we at Cisco can meaningfully influence – using our technology, our people, and our networks to help close the digital divide. Every individual has the right to thrive in our increasingly connected world, and four years ago Cisco codified this belief with our Social Justice Beliefs and Our Commitment to Action – our plan to actively dismantle barriers and create opportunities for underrepresented communities around the world.

As part of this, we promised to be bold and deliberate in our support of the Black community and to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) flourish. America’s HBCUs are treasured institutions and cornerstones of educational excellence and cultural heritage in our country. In 2020 we showed our commitment to their future with a $150 million donation over 5 years for STEM education programs and technology modernization.

Co-innovating with HBCUs for lasting change

While Cisco’s is the single largest donation from a corporation in the history of HBCUs, our support is more than financial. We are committed to co-innovating with HBCUs to create lasting change, focusing on four foundational areas:

supporting Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) students
building technological excellence
promoting success before and beyond graduation
advancing information sharing and engagement

Together for three years now, we have been sowing seeds of innovation, inclusion, and inspiration to help Black leaders prepare to thrive in the AI era. To date, Cisco and HBCUs worked side by side with an ecosystem of Partner organizations, each leveraging unique strengths, and all dedicated to driving systemic change. Together, we:

donated $66 million in services and software to HBCUs
completed 46 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) assessments and 30 technology installations at HBCUs
(in doing above) preserved $1.5 billion in HBCU Title IV funding through services and software needed for the required NIST compliance
launched the Cisco Cyber Academy at Denmark Technical Institute, a two-year HBCU located in rural Bamberg County, South Carolina.

As our partnerships with HBCUs and partner organizations mature and strengthen, our impact expands. We are looking forward to sharing an equally significant list of achievements in our fourth year!

Approaching challenges from an ecosystem perspective

More than anything, our work with HBCUs has shown the progress and possibilities we create when we approach challenges from an ecosystem perspective. The interconnectedness of our world means we are all diminished by social injustice, and that we all play a role in building a more just and inclusive future. Bringing together an ecosystem of Cisco Partners has been critical to providing HBCUs the support they need by assessing participating schools’ IT infrastructures, recommending upgrades, and donating services and equipment to ensure schools have the latest cybersecurity technology

An Inspiring Success Story: Denmark Tech’s ecosystem at work

Hearing directly from Denmark Tech President and CEO, Dr. Willie L. Todd Jr. makes what we’re doing even more compelling.

A brighter future is already evident in the Denmark Tech region – one which has historically seen limited jobs and educational opportunities. Dr. Todd focuses on his collaboration with Cisco and connections across our partner ecosystem to make sure the success story continues.

Working with Procellis, a member of the African American Cisco Partner Community (AACPC), Cisco donated equipment and services to upgrade Denmark Tech’s IT infrastructure to ensure they could meet NIST cybersecurity standards.

Cisco also connected Denmark Tech with Fusion Cyber, a company that collaborates with colleges and universities to offer comprehensive online cybersecurity training.

This career-oriented program encompasses certification, mentorship, and job coaching to equip students for careers in cybersecurity. Dr. Todd saw how the program could change the trajectory of his students’ lives and the surrounding communities they serve. He launched the training in 2021 to upskill students for jobs in the cybersecurity field, helping them create generational wealth. To date, the program has graduated 59 students including veterans, women, and other underserved groups, and plans to expand are in the works. Graduates of the program can stay in their community, positively impacting the local economy and bringing a renewed sense of hope and optimism to the region.

Security and the workforce of the future – the risks and rewards of AI

Globalization, digitization, and AI advancements have made our world progressively interconnected. While the benefits of AI are incredible to consider, so are the threats. Cybersecurity is now foundational to a safe and prosperous future for organizations around the world – including HBCUs. The World Economic Forum estimates that 3 – 4 million cybersecurity experts are needed to support the current global economy, but a critical shortage of cybersecurity specialists is creating a gap that puts the world’s digital assets at risk. Denmark Technical College is the 27th HBCU offering Cisco’s Networking Academy curriculum with programs in networking, cybersecurity, Python, and data science – all designed to build job-ready skills so that faculty and staff can both benefit from the AI economy and help protect it.

We continue to challenge ourselves to drive greater social impact knowing that with every person we train, every school we connect, every college we enable, and every community we empower, we are advancing Cisco’s Purpose to power an inclusive future for all – because inclusivity is not just a societal ideal, but a fundamental human right.

“We’ve taken what many might say was a floundering institution, and we’ve turned it into a success story the likes of which this area has never seen.” —Dr. Willie L. Todd Jr., Denmark Technical College President and CEO

"}]]  For three years now, we have been sowing seeds of innovation, inclusion, and inspiration to help Black leaders prepare to thrive in the AI era. We are committed to co-innovating with HBCUs to create lasting change, and building an inclusive future for all.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

Traditional workload security tools often fail to provide metrics tailored to the distinct needs of SecOps, Network Administrators, or CxOs.

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Workload security tools draw the attention of diverse cohorts, united by a mission: fortifying hybrid cloud workloads. In a market filled with disparate tools, Secure Workload offers a tailored reporting solution that revolutionizes how SecOps, Network Administrators, and CxOs interact with their workload security solution.

A New Era of Informed Decision Making

Traditional workload security tools often fail to provide metrics tailored to the distinct needs of SecOps, Network Administrators, or CxOs. These tools fall short due to a lack of development focus on holistic user requirements and an inadequate understanding of the diverse metrics that each of them values.

For example, SecOps teams require detailed insights into Cisco Security Risk scores, workload vulnerabilities, and the effectiveness of security policies. NetOps, on the other hand, requires visibility into agent health and policy compliance, and CxOs need high-level summaries that demonstrate cost savings and ROI. Without these tailored insights, traditional tools fail to offer a comprehensive view of security effectiveness.

The shift towards DevSecOps, AI-driven security, and Cloud Native security has led to cumbersome back-and-forth communication and the need to share information across siloed network, security, and application development functions. In the past couple of years, we have seen a surge in productivity-enhancing feature requests from customers, driven by the challenges of siloed networks and security organizations not sharing information. This lack of integration highlights the critical need for a single pane of glass view that can provide a unified perspective of the organization’s security posture.

By consolidating data from various functions into one comprehensive dashboard, the Reporting Dashboard addresses these challenges facilitating smoother communication, enhanced collaboration, and more effective security management across all teams.

Addresses Challenges Directly

Let’s delve into the specific outcomes that the Reporting Dashboard delivers.

Reporting Dashboard Landing View

Data-driven Insights for CxO and SecOps

The feedback from CxO participants at Secure Workload’s Customer Advisory Board highlights the need for personalized reports that deliver actionable intelligence. The out-of-the-box summary of security, compliance, and evidence-based metrics is invaluable for the CxO. By showcasing the percentage of workloads protected with Secure Workload agent coverage on the license utilization chart and workspace policy coverage, SecOps can demonstrate tangible productivity gains to CxOs. Moreover, by quantifying the time savings in policy maintenance, SecOps, and Network Admins can provide CxOs with actionable analytics that illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of their microsegmentation strategy.

This data-driven approach empowers CxOs to make informed decisions and strategically channel investments to optimize their company’s security posture.

Empower NetOps

NetOps enjoys enhanced visibility with the Reporting Dashboard, which provides a consolidated view of deployed agents and other assets. This allows NetOps to quickly identify and address agent issues, ensuring seamless operation of critical assets.

Policy Compliance is simplified through a single, unified view that highlights workspaces without enforcement and identifies policy discrepancies, and policy sync issues. This streamlined approach aids NetOps in ensuring policy compliance.

Insights from the Cluster Summary enable NetOps to establish retention policies for regulatory compliance and mitigate the risk of unauthorized access, while the Telemetry Summary provides a comprehensive view of telemetry sources and their health status enabling NetOps to swiftly identify and resolve issues.

The effectiveness of the ‘Telemetry Summary’ was validated when a customer shared their feedback –  “I like this quick viewpoint which should help troubleshoot duplicates.”​

Telemetry Summary section highlighting Inventory issues for NetOps

Elevate SecOps Productivity

Prioritizing CVEs alleviates the challenge of CVE prioritization as shown in the image below.
Providing workload summaries with enforcement status, enabling seamless policy enforcement assessment.
CVE Prioritization

Equipped with predefined rules and MITRE TTPs, CSW agents can detect suspicious application behavior with precision. Reporting Dashboard complements these capabilities by providing users with a brand-new intuitive experience.

Ready to experience the power of informed decision-making with Secure Workload Reporting? Whether you’re upgrading to Secure Workload 3.9 or starting fresh, embark on a journey of unparalleled security for your hybrid cloud workloads.

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Security on social!

Cisco Security Social Channels

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Cisco's collaboration with Nutanix redefines hyperconverged infrastructure. Get ahead in this new era with certification from Cisco Black Belt Academy.

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The digital landscape witnessed a significant milestone on August 28, 2023, when Cisco and Nutanix unveiled a global strategic partnership that promises to be a game-changer in the realm of hybrid multi-cloud computing. This alliance is set to fast-track and streamline the hybrid multi-cloud expedition for customers, all while redefining the core principles of data center modernization. With the integration of Nutanix’s premier software platform and Cisco’s cutting-edge server portfolio, this collaboration has produced what is arguably the industry’s most robust and comprehensive hyperconverged infrastructure solution to date.

When Cisco announced the End-of-Life for Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform (HXDP) on September 12, 2023; it left our customers and partners equally overwhelmed. So, when Cisco proposed that the Nutanix Software, running on Cisco’s Hardware will be a direct replacement of HyperFlex; we at Cisco Black Belt Academy made sure that our partners get prompt guidance on the new solution with thorough details on its enhanced HCI capabilities topped with a direction on transitioning or migrating from HyperFlex to Cisco’s HCI Solution with Nutanix.

The ”Chronicle” of Nutanix on Cisco Black Belt Academy

The Nutanix Stage 1 & 2 tracks on Cisco Black Belt Academy are launched for both Presales and Deployment roles. These tracks cover:

1. Cisco’s Hyperconverged Strategy

Explains how the partnership of Cisco and Nutanix is forged on their combined edge on application, data and infrastructure management.

2. Introduction to the Hyper Converged Infrastructure

Makes our partners acquainted with Next Generation HCI, Benefits of HCI, Sustained innovations and HCI Vendor Landscape.

3. Solution Overview

Details Cisco Compute Hyperconverged solution with Nutanix and covers it’s cloud infrastructure, broad Data Services portfolio, Nutanix Cloud Manager, Nutanix Unified Storage and Prism, the Cloud Management interface.

4. Architecture Deep Dive

Elucidates why Nutanix Architecture is different from other HCI solutions; Shows how Cisco servers, storage, networking, and SaaS operations are combined with the Nutanix Cloud Platform; explains how the controller VM’s are working to get a high performance structure; introduces resiliency and functioning of the storage layer.

5. Configuration & Deployment

In-depth demonstrations and techniques surrounding Nutanix Deployment, covering:

Initial Configurations/Guide to getting started
Deploying the Nutanix Foundation installer VM to a VMware ESX 7 cluster.
Deploying a Nutanix cluster on UCS servers managed by UCS Manager and adding those hosts to vCenter.
Expanding a Nutanix cluster with a node that has been previously provisioned.
Deploying Prism Central from Prism Element and registering the cluster with the newly created Prism Central.
Updating the UCS Server Firmware with Nutanix Life Cycle Manager (LCM) without disrupting overall cluster operations.

6. Migration from HyperFlex

Learn the various options to migrate existing HyperFlex platforms to the new Nutanix Platform. Gain an understanding of how Migrations of virtual machines between clusters of VMware ESXi servers is most easily accomplished via “shared nothing” vMotion. In addition, learn about the a free software tool called Move that Nutanix offers, which acts as an intermediary agent and coordinator to move VMs between two systems.

7. Sizing Cisco HCI with Nutanix

Discusses the Cisco HCI with Nutanix sizing based on:

Output files from RVTools and Nutanix Collector tools
Existing HyperFlex and Nutanix Bill Of Materials (BOM)
VM-based and Capacity-based sizing of the Cisco HCI with Nutanix using Nutanix Sizer tool.

8. Winning with Nutanix

Acquire a knowledge of Nutanix differentiators in the market, Insights on the competitive environment and edge over VMware, HPE & Lenovo whilst covering the ways to successfully navigate CI and HCI customer conversations.

9. Dcloud/Capture the Flag (CTF)

Hands on demo with access to a simple Nutanix deployment on Cisco UCS, with Cisco Intersight, Nutanix Prism Element, Nutanix AHV, Prism Central and Cisco UCS Manager. The Capture the Flag (CTF) missions provide a gamified way of understanding what the new Cisco & Nutanix Partnership brings to the table.

Where to learn more?

With the modern business challenges and the ever-changing Market Dynamics, applications have become the center for every customer and these applications are growing at a fast pace. IT teams are required to deploy these applications faster and that too with a cloud operating model in place. Hence, it becomes vital to learn and understand how the partnership of Cisco and Nutanix can help deliver the infrastructure and applications globally while using the best-in-class cloud operating models, that too with added resiliency and flexibility. The curriculum of “Cisco HCI solution with Nutanix” on Cisco Black Belt Academy, can instill confidence to handle customer conversations and perform a successful PoC/PoV as a Presales SE or navigate thorough deployments of the Nutanix Solution as a field engineer while migrating from the older HyperFlex base.

So, start today and get certified! Visit our

Global Strategic Partners Black Belt Academy

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

Cisco Partners Facebook  |  @CiscoPartners X/Twitter  |  Cisco Partners LinkedIn

"}]]  Cisco's collaboration with Nutanix redefines hyperconverged infrastructure. Get ahead in this new era with certification from Cisco Black Belt Academy.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

This year, integrated security and AI took center stage.  This is not surprising as it represents some of the largest growth opportunities over the next 24 months and what is top of mind for many of our customers.

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I look forward to Cisco Live every year, and last week’s event in Las Vegas did not disappoint.

This year, integrated security and AI took center stage.  This is not surprising as it represents some of the largest growth opportunities over the next 24 months and what is top of mind for many of our customers. But the level of innovation and excitement around the opportunities that Cisco + Splunk will unlock to optimize your entire digital footprint and harness the power of AI will be a game-changer for partner-managed services. Together, we can redefine what is possible for our customers and deliver transformative outcomes, leveraging the power of Cisco’s platforms, and innovative managed-ready tools and solutions.

In addition to having great discussions with partners and customers at the event, there were four key takeaways from the event:

Cisco is enabling even more managed Security and observability solutions for MSPs and MSSPs, setting a new standard in service delivery and client satisfaction in achieving their digital resiliency goals
The future of MSPs is being unlocked through AI innovation, heralding a new era of intelligent, predictive service models
More customers are shifting towards managed services to scale their business
Partner momentum is accelerating

Expanding Opportunity to Enable Digital Resiliency with Managed Services

Cisco’s commitment to empowering MSPs and MSSPs was evident with a growing set of robust managed security and observability solutions. With the introduction of new integrations, a set of comprehensive Day2 Operational Guides make delivering managed firewall and managed Meraki services easier than ever, and expanded Buying Program options, we are equipping partners with a suite of resources designed to elevate service delivery. Highlights include the MSEA flexible buying program options for new security bundles, secure connectivity options with Meraki, and emerging offers like OT security and Secure Access, the potential for growth is boundless. Our MSP workshop on managed security and network transformation explored new areas of opportunity for delivering managed services to support organizations’ digital resilience with Cisco and Splunk.

AI Innovation: The Key to Unlocking a New Era for MSPs

AI-enabled MSPs are the future and Cisco technology and solutions are enabling providers to transform their operations and create new revenue streams. And now, with Splunk, Cisco captures more data at scale than anyone in the industry to fuel insights across devices, applications, security, networks, and the internet. We are excited to work with you to unlock opportunities to reshape your operations and transform customer experiences.

If you were in Las Vegas, I hope you had the opportunity to check out our standing room only sessions in the AI hub theater.

The teams demonstrated Cisco’s vision for incorporating AI into MSP offerings and new MSP bot options powered by GPT-4, to enhance service delivery.

We are seeing expanded growth in the Americas with MS, are you ready?

At the heart of our mission is the strategic alignment of our Managed Services partners to capture growth within the Americas region. In the Americas, there is an $82B product opportunity for managed services, and when coupled with service revenues, that represents a $159B opportunity for MSPs by 2027.  Opportunities are growing across the IT landscape, across all major architectures and segments.   A recent Cisco-sponsored survey indicated that 88% of organizations expect managed service spending to grow 10%+ in the next 12 -18 months

Are you an MSP focused on SMB? Managed services opportunities in this segment are growing 1.6 times faster than other segments. The new Cisco Powered SMB specialization, a targeted initiative aimed at accelerating growth opportunities in the SMB sector. This move demonstrates Cisco’s investment in enabling partners to tailor their cross-architecture offerings to the unique needs and dynamics of small and medium-sized businesses.  This cross-architectural specialization drives the outcomes that SMBs are seeking from Managed Service Providers and aligns to global campaigns and programs including Cisco SMB Experiences

Celebrating Partner Success: New Managed Service Launches and Collaborations

In addition to having an opportunity to speak with many customers and partners last week in Las Vegas, I am also delighted to share some exciting partner announcements from Cisco Live:

AT&T and Cisco announced a simpler digital buying experience for P5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) for Businesses using Cisco’s newest FWA devices. This will enable operational efficiency and seamless access to advanced 5GFWA capabilities for distributed campus and branch offices with services based on Cisco Meraki MG52 and MG52E Cellular gateways
Tech Mahindra announced new managed Cisco Firewall Modernization offerings with AI-powered unified policy management across on-premises and cloud environments.
T-Mobile is teaming up with Cisco to enhance its Connected Workplace offering by making the MG52 and MG52E available as part of its fully managed, end-to-end 5G FWA solution

These are just a few examples of the innovative managed services that partners are implementing in their businesses.

Want to learn more?

There has never been a better time for our partners to deliver incredible value to customers! To learn more about how we can help make you more successful, explore our Partner Managed Service Resources on Sales Connect and check our our infographic on Americas Managed Services Route to Market Opportunity.

Check out our Partner Managed Service Resources!

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

Cisco Partners Facebook  |  @CiscoPartners X/Twitter  |  Cisco Partners LinkedIn

"}]]  This year, integrated security and AI took center stage.  This is not surprising as it represents some of the largest growth opportunities over the next 24 months and what is top of mind for many of our customers.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

See how Cisco DevNet provides the resources and community automation engineers need to leveraging AI when building smarter, more efficient solutions.

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At Cisco Live in Las Vegas, the DevNet Zone was abuzz with activity, focusing on the rapidly evolving landscape for automation engineering. This year’s event highlighted innovative strategies and tools that are driving the industry’s shift towards AI adoption. Cisco’s commitment to empowering engineers through the stack was evident, with AI being positioned as a key pillar of future development. As automation engineers, you have a pivotal role in leveraging AI to create smarter, more efficient solutions. Cisco DevNet is here to support your journey, providing the resources and community you need to succeed.

AI is complex, but with DevNet, it doesn’t have to be daunting. DevNet AI resources aim to help bring clarity to AI integration, making it accessible for engineers at all levels. Meanwhile, programmability in general remains a crucial focus. DevNet continues to enable IT organizations, building on our existing foundations in automation and programmability, and now extending into AI. Whether it’s through our advanced AI-powered tools or our supportive community, we’re dedicated to helping you harness AI’s full potential. As you continue to innovate, DevNet will be by your side, offering the knowledge and tools to keep you at the forefront of the industry.

Top takeaways from the DevNet Zone at Cisco Live

AI is transforming application development and automation with new possibilities
AI is reshaping how we approach writing software, offering new possibilities and efficiencies. At Cisco Live, we explored AI’s potential to transform your projects with insights into AI-powered programmability, predictive AI, and generative AI.
Automation and programmability enable extensibility across domains
Cisco provides the APIs necessary for extensibility in security, networking, data center, and collaboration, enabling organizations to build multi-domain solutions tailored to their business needs.
Technology is advancing sustainable energy management
Sustainability is a key concern as our use of technology grows. At Cisco Live, our audience learned innovative approaches to energy management through automation and programmability.

Inside the action at the DevNet Zone

Technical Classroom Sessions

The DevNet Zone at Cisco Live focused on the latest advancements in AI, network programmability and more. Attendees had the chance to dive into AI-focused sessions, including our session “GenAI Impact on DevOps and Application Development: A Technical Perspective”. This session provided actionable guidance on integrating AI innovations into everyday DevOps workflows, and detailed specific Cisco solutions available to help facilitate this integration. The DevNet Zone was packed edge-to-edge with an impressive overflow into the aisles for a session on YANG Data modeling in the NSO Playground and process network automation.

The Sandbox Arcade

Attendees also experienced the fun of our new Sandbox Arcade, where they were able to learn about our Sandbox offerings and how to assemble API calls via retro style arcade games, providing a fun engaging way to practice coding skills. Although our arcade games were exclusive to Cisco Live attendees, DevNet Sandboxes are open to all. You can run your code on live infrastructure with our available Sandboxes to develop and test Cisco APIs, SDKs, and more.

Workshops

Hands-on learning experiences were delivered in instructor led workshops, where many sessions had waitlists of 100+. These high demand sessions included topics on building your first GenAI Assistant, automating network tasks, using ThousandEyes API integrations for network insights, and Meraki MX security. Hands-on learning doesn’t stop on site at Cisco Live. Explore DevNet’s online Learning Labs to keep building your skills on programmability, GenAI, and more.

Share Your Experience

Our Share Your Experience program provided attendees with a unique opportunity to share valuable feedback and input on our solutions, APIs, and resources. This input is extremely valuable in impacting our future offerings, helping us to continuously improve and evolve.

Key announcements and session highlights

Cisco Live 2024 was packed with new announcements, sharing updates on our AI strategy and solutions, as well as new innovations in security, networking, and observability. Here’s the breakdown of what was most exciting and impactful for those of us in networking, development and operations.

The first keynote kicked off strong, where Cisco announced a $1 billion investment to expand and develop secure and reliable AI solutions. These investments will further help to enable customer AI readiness, compute infrastructure, foundational models, model development, and training.

New partnerships from these investments include:

Mistral AI specializes in generative artificial intelligence and develops new GenAI models for businesses, combining scientific excellence, an open approach and a responsible vision of technology.
Scale AI provides a data-centric, end-to-end platform providing training and validation for AI applications.
Cohere provides security-focused frontier large language models (LLMs) and industry-leading Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) capabilities tailored to meet the needs of enterprises.

Solutions and advancements to explore

Nvidia and Cisco’s partnership will deliver a streamlined solution for deploying generative AI applications, with Cisco Nexus HyperFabric AI clusters simplifying infrastructure setup. Exclusive cloud management tools will offer effortless deployment and monitoring across data centers and edge sites.
Cisco Networking Cloud introduces a unified management platform for seamless on-prem and cloud operations, featuring SSO, API management, sustainable networking, and enhanced Digital Experience Assurance with ThousandEyes, simplifying IT with advanced AI and energy insights.
XDR with Meraki MX integrate together to enable direct telemetry analysis and correlation, enhancing visibility for Meraki admins and offering immediate threat response capabilities within the Meraki dashboard.
Hypershield support for AMD Pensando DPUs and Intel IPUs delivers an AI-driven, distributed security architecture that spans from cloud to data centers to the edge, optimizing performance and energy efficiency.
Motific, a new SaaS product for rapid and trusted delivery of GenAI applications, announced availability for free trial usage for all customers, and production usage for a limited set of customers, with a targeted general availability date of July 31, 2024. Additionally, a new collaboration with Mistral AI – a leading large language model provider – promises to enhance GenAI assistants with leading LLM capabilities.
Splunk introduced Log Observer for Cisco AppDynamics, an integration that enables users to deliver faster troubleshooting across on-prem and hybrid environments. A new AI assistant was also announced for AppDynamics that will enable users to tap into insightful guidance to make informed decisions.
New Cisco AI Certifications are being released, enabling teams build needed skills to design modern AI/ML compute and networks.

Cisco Live 2024 was an incredible event filled with learning, innovation, and community engagement. Whether you attended or followed virtually, we hope these takeaways inspire you to continue exploring AI, sustainability, and programmability in your projects.

Stay connected with DevNet beyond Cisco Live

Don’t miss out on skill building opportunities, even if you couldn’t attend in-person. Continue to grow with our developer community and keep the Cisco Live spirit alive all year long:

Explore our technical resources: Keep up with the evolving AI landscape and evolve your skills with our AI hub. Explore learning labs, sample code, and sandboxes to enhance your skills and apply your knowledge in real-world scenarios across Cisco’s solutions. Start exploring all DevNet content here >.
Join the community: Connect with peers and subject matter experts on your favorite technology topics by joining DevNet Creators in Webex. Share knowledge, ask questions, and collaborate on projects. Get access >
Stay connected: Subscribe to our newsletter and follow @CiscoDevNet on LinkedIn, X, and Facebook for the latest updates, resources, and opportunities to connect with the DevNet community. Watch DevNet experts on our YouTube channel share exclusive insights, tutorials, and updates.

"}]]  See how Cisco DevNet provides the resources and community automation engineers need to leveraging AI when building smarter, more efficient solutions.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

Cisco engineers often face the challenge of setting up a Security Operations Center in two days at global events. Aditya Sankar explains the process with our “SOC in a Box” in this blog.

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Ever had to stand up a Security Operations Center (SOC) in two days? This is the monumental challenge faced by Cisco engineers at various events and conferences around the globe throughout the year. You may ask, “How is it possible to deploy a full-fledged SOC with just two days of preparation?” The key to being able to make the nearly impossible happen is our custom “SOC in a Box”. It’s essentially a roadshow case, racked with the required hardware for a SOC, that can be packed and shipped to any location. In this blog, I’ll go through the phases of preparing the kit from ideation in San Jose to implementation at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Phase 1: Dusting off the cobwebs

Arriving at the Cisco campus in San Jose, California, and walking into the lab on Monday morning one week before RSAC was so nostalgic. It reminded me of my days as a TAC (Cisco Support team) engineer doing customer “recreates” (recreate issues reported by customers) in the lab. What a sight to behold, a multi-story office building entirely dedicated to lab space!

When we finally found our gear, the case looked dusty… like it hadn’t been touched in a year (because it hadn’t). Really the case just needed a little tender loving care. We started with a drawing of what we wanted to build: In the depiction the internet cloud is actually the Moscone Center network and is not managed/secured by RSA

Most of this phase involved cleaning out the case, removing any unnecessary hardware, securing the remaining hardware with proper rackmounts and screws, and adding zip ties for power cable management.

Next, we needed to reimage the UCS C220 M5 and install the ESXi 8.0, a robust, bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto your physical server. Here is where the hurdles begin! After creating a bootable USB thumb drive, we faced an issue with the server not recognizing the drive. Shout out to Robert Harris for setting up CIMC and using the browser based KVM to upload the ISO file.

With the server sorted, it was time to move on to the switch. After a “write erase” of the config, we noticed the switch only had two 10G interfaces, another hurdle as we needed a minimum of four 10G interfaces. After lunch, we made a quick stop at the Cisco “repot depot” storefront in Building 9 to pick up a “nm-4-10g” network module for the Catalyst 3850. After a bit of networking Layer 1 troubleshooting, we realized the switch was not recognizing the network module. We also tried to reimage the switch from rommon and install the latest software but that didn’t resolve the issue either. Shout out to Matt Vander Horst, who helped us clear this hurdle by looking up the spec sheet and discovering that the 24 port Catalyst 3850 does not support the 4x10G network module and that we would need a 48 port Catalyst 3850.

With the switch on pause, we moved on to the Cisco Firepower 4125 Firewall. In the RSAC SOC, we typically like to run the latest and greatest software releases so we can showcase the new features and put our Cisco security tools to the test in a complex, real-world environment. This firewall needed an FXOS upgrade to run FTD 7.4.1. Although FXOS 2.14 installed successfully, we came to the next hurdle when we noticed a fault with one of disks in the chassis. Dinkar Sharma helped us with the disk fault but, even after opening a TAC case and getting support from Ravi Kiran Nagaraja, the issue persisted. Shout out to Justin Murphy and Shannon Wellington for delivering an 800 GB SSD drive from their lab on short notice as our last-ditch effort. With the new disk installed we crossed our fingers but to no avail. Again, the same error regarding a failure to format the disk which indicates an issue with the chassis itself.

At this point, our “SOC in a Box” could have been a failure. The shipping deadline was approaching fast, and we didn’t have the necessary switch or a working Firewall. Talk about a major hurdle!

Phase 2: Beg, borrow, and steal (not really, because we asked nicely)

After a simple exchange on Webex teams, Zohreh Kehzri came to the rescue with a 48 port Catalyst 3850 with eight 10G ports! We walked over to building 17 (getting our steps in around the San Jose campus) to pick up the 3850 and, one more reimage later, we had a functioning switch, finally getting us over this hurdle. After the struggles of phase 1, we were glad to take a quick win. With the new switch racked in the case, it was time to drop our homegrown unit off for shipping before we headed over to the Security Summit. Here is what our “SOC in a Box” looked like right before we shipped it.

At the Security Summit, I spotted Eric Kostlan, the resident firewall guru. Knowing that we were in desperate need of a hardware firewall, I went back to the “beg, borrow, and steal” approach, asking Erik if he could help. In not-so-shocking fashion, he checked his lab environment and sourced a spare firewall. After hearing of the issues we faced with the other chassis, he even made the extra effort to ensure FXOS 2.14 was installed successfully and the security engine came up healthy, getting us over one more hurdle.

Once the sessions at the Security Summit were over around 6:30 pm, we went to Eric’s lab and borrowed the firewall out of his racks before heading to dinner. The next day, I hoisted the new FTD 4115 into an Uber XL and headed to San Francisco to get ready for the conference. (A network engineer’s dream to Uber a firewall from city to city!)

Now that we have acquired all the components of the puzzle, it’s time to put the pieces together.

Phase 3: Power it up, wire it up

On Saturday morning, May 4, Moscone Center in San Francisco was buzzing with conference preparation. It’s truly mindboggling to see the show floor transform from bare concrete to a completed showcase in 48 hours. I picked up my badge and wheeled the case over to the South Expo. Here is what the case looked like next to the 10G fiber drop before any set up was started.

This phase is mostly powering up the hardware and wiring it with internet access, management access, and the SPAN (Switched Port Analyzer is a dedicated port on a switch that takes a mirrored copy of network traffic from within the switch to be sent to a destination) from Moscone Network Operations Center. Shout out to Ryan Maclennan for working with the on-site technicians to ensure Layer 1 on the 10G SPAN was working correctly. The 24 port Catalyst 3850 was used for the SOC management network, a subnet provided by the Moscone Center. After re-IP-addressing the management interfaces of all our devices, the basis of the network was online.

In these situations, it is imperative to be flexible. Since we were uncertain on how to change the IP addresses of the Cisco Telemetry Broker (CTB) manager and CTB broker node, we quickly pivoted the Observable Network Appliance (ONA), which would accomplish the same goal of converting the SPAN to IPFIX (Internet Protocol Flow Information Export) to pump up to Cisco XDR.

Additionally, we finished the Firewall logical device installation and connected the SPAN to a passive interface and completed the rest of the basic configuration from the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC). Next, we installed Splunk Enterprise Security (ES) on an Ubuntu machine and configured the Splunk Technical Add-ons (TAs) for Cisco XDR integration, eStreamer log ingestion, and Firewall dashboarding. Shout out to Seyed Khadem-Djahaghi for the custom dark mode dashboard he created in the Splunk console.

Here is what our custom “SOC in the Box” looked like wired up and fully operational, connected to the Moscone NOC and NetWitness Platform. We have room for NetWitness appliances and their 140TB of storage for those network packets.

Phase 4 – Big time on the big screens

With our “SOC in a Box” operational and all our tools online, it was time for the finishing touches of putting up the pretty dashboards on the big. On Sunday afternoon, we were able to login to the Cisco Security tools and showcase them on the “SOC Dashboard” on public display between North and South Expo. At this point, it felt like we had successfully finished the race and cleared all the hurdles. Here’s what it looked like before the show opened; Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, Cisco XDR, Splunk ES, and FMC were on the big screens.

We had a lot of visitors during show hours examining the SOC Dashboard.

On Tuesday morning when we came into the SOC, we ran into that unexpected final hurdle – the Splunk was down! After checking on the command line interface, we found that the disk was full – the 2TB we had originally allocated had been used. Luckily, we had a spare UCS C240 M4 with 18TB of storage in our “SOC in a Box”, we borrowed a VGA monitor and USB keyboard from the RSA A/V team so we could spin up the server on the fly and allocate more storage to Splunk ES. Hurdle cleared, and we coasted to a successful finish.

Selfie with Cisco Engineering SVP, Shaila Shankar

During our SOC tours, we explained to the conference attendees (including our very own Engineering SVP, Shaila Shankar) how we are using our tools for threat hunting and incident response! (Above is one of many selfies I have taken with Shaila.)

Components Used:

Switch: Catalyst 3850 (24 port)
Switch: Catalyst 3850 with 10G SFP+ (48 port)
Firewall: Secure Firewall 4115
Server: UCS C220 M5
Server: UCS C240 M4

In the topology shown above, the purple box encompasses our on-premises “SOC in a Box” infrastructure. Starting in the bottom right, the Umbrella Virtual appliances are deployed within the Moscone Network Operations Center. By assigning the virtual appliances as the DNS servers in the DHCP scope all DNS queries on the network are visible to Cisco Umbrella – User Protection Suite.

Next, the SPAN of all conference network traffic is plugged into the Catalyst 3850, which is essentially being used as a SPAN replicator. From the switch, the SPAN traffic is sent to a Secure Firewall 4115 in Intrusion Detection mode for deep packet inspection, an On-premises network appliance (ONA) to get IPFIX (Internet Protocol Flow Information Export) data to XDR, and to NetWitness, where the full pcap (packet capture) is stored.

Firewall Management Center (FMC) uses eStreamer to send detection and connection data to Splunk and NetWitness. Files are sent to Malware Analytics from both FMC and Netwitness. Cisco XDR integrates with Umbrella, Secure Firewall, Malware Analytics, NetWitness, Splunk, and numerous threat intel sources for threat hunting and incident response.

A new addition to our SOC this year was Cisco Secure Access. By deploying the resource connector in our ESXi, the on-premises gear is accessible from anywhere provided proper authentication has taken place. Our custom “SOC in a Box” was one of the highlights of the SOC tours and generated quite a bit of excitement around Cisco Security!

So long RSAC 2024!! We’ll be back again next year!

To learn more:

Watch EXPOSURE: The 5th Annual RSAC SOC Report (on demand)
Read the Read the RSAC 2023 SOC Findings Report and watch the session
Look out for the RSAC 2024 SOC Findings Report coming summer 2024

Thanks to:

Robert Harris
Matt Vander Horst
Dinkar Sharma
Eric Kostlan
Ryan Maclennan
Seyed Khadem-Djahaghi
The RSA Conference staff
The Moscone Network Operations Center
And the entire Cisco and NetWitness RSAC SOC team members

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Security on social!

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"}]]  Cisco engineers often face the challenge of setting up a Security Operations Center in two days at global events. Aditya Sankar explains the process with our “SOC in a Box” in this blog.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

According to AppOmni’s 2023 State of SaaS Security report, 79% of organizations reported a SaaS security incident during the preceding 12-month period. As enterprises incrementally store and process more sensitive data in SaaS applications, it is no surprise that the security of these applications has come into greater focus. Security Service Edge (SSE) solutions with […]

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According to AppOmni’s 2023 State of SaaS Security report, 79% of organizations reported a SaaS security incident during the preceding 12-month period. As enterprises incrementally store and process more sensitive data in SaaS applications, it is no surprise that the security of these applications has come into greater focus. Security Service Edge (SSE) solutions with Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) are a common way to securely connect the hybrid workforce to cloud applications.

Changes in the workplace, employee preferences, external users, and customer services have made remote access to cloud applications outside the corporate network or VPN commonplace. Simultaneously, changes in SaaS usage and data with access by both human and machine identities, new compliance requirements, and cloud-to-cloud connectivity between SaaS applications have created new risks that security teams need to address.

This article describes how Cisco and AppOmni have teamed to extend zero trust principles to secure SaaS applications and data with a closed loop zero trust architecture.

Introducing Zero Trust Posture Management

The myriad SaaS applications used by today’s organizations are procured, configured, and managed by multiple departmental owners or business units with little or no visibility to security teams. Nearly all SaaS breaches involve some violation of implicit trust models — for example, a user in a sales operation role can grant Salesforce access to guest users; a test user is able to create new users and grant them new privileges. These scenarios are all too common with how SaaS applications and users are set up.

Zero-trust architectures are built by granting explicit trust that is continuously assessed based on identity and contextual risks. If such zero-trust principles can be extended to SaaS applications, policies would be designed, maintained, and monitored such that SaaS identities would never be implicitly trusted and always verified regardless of the location of the user. This zero-trust model for SaaS needs to be implemented using the just-in-time context of the application, data access, users, behavior, and events. It should be able to work together with the ZTNA controls to give security teams better mechanisms to prevent, detect, and react to attackers at the application level. These capabilities are collectively called Zero Trust Posture Management (ZTPM) for SaaS applications.

Cisco Secure Access and AppOmni SaaS Security Platform

Cisco Secure Access provides a robust, cloud-delivered SSE solution that is grounded in zero trust and delivers protected access from any user to any application. Cisco Secure Access simplifies IT operations through a single, cloud-managed console, unified client, centralized policy creation, and aggregated reporting. Extensive security capabilities are converged in one solution (ZTNA, secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, firewall as a service, DNS-layer security, remote browser isolation, and more) to mitigate risk by applying zero trust principles and to enforce granular security policies.

As a complement to Cisco’s zero trust access approach, AppOmni has implemented ZTPM principles to fill a critical void in traditional zero trust implementations by securing the application layer regardless of access location with unparalleled visibility into configurations, security postures, SaaS identities (human and machine), and user behaviors within SaaS applications. It ensures that the principles of zero trust are embedded deeply within the applications that manage and process vital business data.

Closed-Loop Zero Trust Implementation with Cisco and AppOmni

How ZTPM Complements ZTNA

While Cisco Secure Access provides seamless and managed access to internal and external applications based on identity and device posture, AppOmni extends this security through the application layer.

Cisco Secure Access delivers:

Secure access to all applications including those involving non-standard protocols as well as those based on multi-channel and client-to-client architectures
A single unified management console across all security modules
Comprehensive ‘best-of-breed’ security capabilities, consistent rulesets, and entails a minimal learning curve
Resilient cloud-native architecture with extensive end-user count scalability, efficient single-pass processing for faster responses
Automatic load distribution and rebalancing of traffic fosters better performance

AppOmni ZTPM capabilities include:

Visibility into data access configuration and least privilege within SaaS applications
Security coverage for all SaaS identities (human and machine) i.e. external users, anonymous/ guest-users, and third party or cloud-to-cloud applications
Application and identity-aware threat detection to monitor user behavior of internal and external users
Continuous security of application posture, configuration drift, and critical application components of SaaS applications
Identify and mitigate misconfigurations such as side-loaded accounts or misconfigured Single Sign On (SSO) that may allow bypassing of ZTNA controls and protect your users from password attacks and account compromise

Continuous visibility into app configurations and activities enables a critical feedback loop in a zero-trust architecture. This approach uses a user’s permissions, data access entitlements, and behaviors to dynamically adjust security measures or to terminate access based on suspicious activities.

Additionally, AppOmni enhances the integrity of the ZTNA capabilities provided by Cisco Secure Access by identifying potential application misconfigurations that could lead to bypassing ZTNA controls. By implementing zero trust principles across their applications, customers can detect unmanaged accounts, inadequate IP restrictions, and other security vulnerabilities. Such proactive identification helps user and access settings from undermining ZTNA protections, thereby safeguarding users and data against phishing and other attacks.

Next Steps

Customers interested in extending zero trust to their SaaS applications can contact AppOmni or Cisco to explore the joint solution and get a demo.

Blog post contributors

Chandra Sekar, Chief Marketing Officer, AppOmni
Vivek Kumar, Senior Director of Software Alliances, AppOmni

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Security on social!

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"}]]  According to AppOmni’s 2023 State of SaaS Security report, 79% of organizations reported a SaaS security incident during the preceding 12-month period. As enterprises incrementally store and process more sensitive data in SaaS applications, it is no surprise that the security of these applications has come into greater focus. Security Service Edge (SSE) solutions with  Read More Cisco Blogs 

With Cisco's Child Bonding Policy and supportive culture, Program Manager Wallid S. was there with and for his family for the birth of his fourth child.

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With baby number four on the way, my family and I were ecstatic about the upcoming addition to our squad. But as the day appeared to be nearing, reality started to set in for my wife and me. Between busy schedules with school pickups and drop-offs for our three other kids, after-school activities, meals, and homework assistance … How would we manage this?

That is when I found out about Cisco’s Child Bonding Leave, supported by Sedgwick. I was lucky enough that a coworker had gone through this process right before I did, so he caught me up on what was available and how to apply. There are different options for birthing parents, non-birthing parents, and even adoptive parents. It was amazing because all the setup was done prior to delivery, and then as soon as the baby was born, I just emailed Sedgwick, and they got everything rolling within Cisco and with my manager — the process was seamless.

For the next three months, we settled into our new family dynamic. I was able to fully take over the care of our three older kids and their busy schedules so that my wife could do her best to provide for the baby. Our two oldest were pretty self-sufficient, but this was a big transition for our four-year-old, so it was really critical for me to be there for her and have that connection.

Seeing it firsthand, I know new mothers are superheroes. They take on so much when they are beyond exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, getting sporadic sleep throughout the night, caring for the new baby, and recovering from giving birth, so being able to care for my spouse and building a bond with our newborn during this time was gratifying beyond belief. Building emotional connections with my other children was extremely meaningful, too. I can confidently say — as I didn’t have this same benefit when my other three children were born — I would have missed all of these blissful moments with a full work schedule. Having this time off, I was able to have a clear mind and be attentive emotionally to my family during a life-changing moment without the stress of work, deadlines, and meetings.

As my leave came to an end, we had set the foundation for me to return to work — a transition made easier with my always supportive leader and team and Cisco’s flexible hybrid work, which allowed me to work from home. After having ample time to focus on my family, it felt like the perfect time for me to return, and mentally, I was ready to take it on.

Work is important, no doubt, but where we work is even more important. The values shared at Cisco, plus the support and humanity that are present throughout our policies and benefits, and the people who rally around and care for us make this an outstanding place to work. I’m proud to show up for a company that shows up for me.

Explore the benefits and perks designed to support our people and their loved ones.

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"}]]  With Cisco's Child Bonding Policy and supportive culture, Program Manager Wallid S. was there with and for his family for the birth of his fourth child.  Read More Cisco Blogs