Cisco Live US: An Exclusive Recap from Inside the Mind of a Cisco Champion
Cisco Live US 2018 has come and just like the Thanos snap, POOF! It’s gone. Dust.
Just like the international Cisco Live event series, this summer camp for geeks was jam packed with four days filled with sessions, keynotes, demos, hands-on labs, workshops, vendor booths, sponsored events and over 25,000 of your closest friends. Four days may seem like a lot, but it goes by very fast — especially since more options are added each year to fill your schedule.
Overall, it’s a great week to absorb as much information as possible, learn new technologies, and most of all socialize and build your own network (see what I did there?).
Earlier this year I attended Cisco Live Europe in Barcelona (you can read my thoughts about that here) and had a great time learning about the newest trends, insights and technical announcements. While Cisco didn’t announce as many new products and services at Cisco Live US this year, it didn’t disappoint! And despite the heat, humidity and buckets of rain each day in Orlando, Florida, we were hooked on the ‘Imagine Intuitive’ message.
What is Imagine Intuitive?
Imagine Intuitive was the buzz phrase all week at Cisco Live, it was plastered everywhere around the convention.
So, what is it? How does it work? What does it entail?
Per Cisco, it’s redefining and introducing a new network for today and tomorrow’s world. There’s no solid explanation, but it encompasses and melds both hardware and software products together. Cisco is driving the power of intent, context and intuition across the entirety of its portfolio. This new network will have the capability to connect millions of devices together, identify if they are trusted or not instantly. The new network is a fully integrated, single system that is both intelligent and highly secure. How is this possible? Well that leads us right into my key highlights from Cisco Live 2018.
Key Highlights from Cisco Live 2018
As mentioned, there weren’t any shocking announcements during the keynote sessions this year. The keynote speakers mostly elaborated on what had already been announced months before. A few big takeaways however were cloud security, intent-based networking, education learning, and DevNet.
Cisco Hybrid Cloud Platform for Google Cloud
Cisco Hybrid Cloud Platform for Google Cloud took center stage during the keynote. Cisco’s partnership with Google Cloud was announced months ago, but this time CEO Chuck Robbins elaborated a little more as to what Google Cloud and Cisco has been doing together. The need for a more integrated data center with cloud security was heavily stressed and a more secure platform is needed in order to offer a multi-cloud environment for organizations.
Hybrid cloud offering will help modernize the developer environment with a growth in productivity improvement by the tenfold. Engineers will be able to take a more incremental approach to developing, while security teams will benefit from a single, consistent model across all their company’s apps. Companies will soon be able to connect to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services such as Google Kubernetes Engine, BigQuery, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud SQL, Spanner, Cloud Storage, and Pub/Sub through their own Cisco on-premise environment. Cisco Hybrid Cloud Platform will enable customers to run and move applications between Cisco-powered datacenters and the Google Cloud Platform seamlessly, powered by Kubernetes and Istio.
Intent-based Networking
Intent-based networking is such a vague and broad term yet, Cisco classifies it as “Powered by Intent, Informed by Context”. It’s not a particular device or piece of hardware — it’s a thought process. it’s starting with an idea of how you drive the network throughout your business. The network is the backbone to a business, to user experience, to securing the digital environment.
Cisco is using DNA Center as the pivotal platform to drive intent-based networking. Cisco DNA Center is a complete software-based network automation and assurance solution. It’s the dashboard for control and management of intent-based networking solution. Cisco DNA Center encompasses four main features: Management, Automation, Analytics, and Security. It’s an open platform for innovation that enables engineers and developers to build new applications and create key network integrations to make businesses run better and be more agile. Cisco DNA Center contains APIs, Adapters and SDKs which allows the platform to integrate with third-party software to collect and analyze more data; software like ServiceNow and InfoBlox, to name a couple. DNA Center is a scalable foundation platform that will introduce new opportunities and evolve into the new modernization of tomorrow.
DevNet
Lastly, the final highlight I’d like to focus on is DevNet. I touched on this briefly in my previous blog but didn’t fully explain it. DevNet is Cisco’s Developer Program, it’s a program where developers come to sharpen their skills, or where new developers are born. DevNet has become more of a community for myself, it’s where I can teach myself about the new world of coding and APIs. The beginning of my career began with CLI, and now 15 years later I’ve found myself learning more and more about APIs. One can say that I’m on the path of becoming a Developer along with being an Engineer.
Over the last five years, DevNet has evolved into the focal point of what intent-based networking is becoming. DevNet teaches you about coding, API integrations, using SDKs, creating bots, etc. giving you all the tools needed to enhance and automate your network. Cisco Live really focused on DevNet this year. The DevNet Zone was bigger than last time and constantly crowded with attendees either learning about DevNet and/or advancing their knowledge. Hardcore engineers are breaking out of their shell to check out developing and I was amazed to see and have conversations at Cisco Live with attendees who were excited to learn more about it.
Final Thoughts
I leave you with this final note – embrace new technologies and step out of your comfort zone. If you don’t keep moving forward, you’ll get left behind.
Until next time… Cuevas Out!