Access Innovations for a New Era of Intent-Based Networking

Our customers have come to rely on Cisco’s ability to deliver infrastructure built to last, even while growing and changing to meet the next generation of business demands. The innovations we announced today at Partner Connection Week are specifically focused on both expanding the capacity and extending the reach and visibility of the network as you look to meet the demands of today with an eye on what is to come in the future.

Expanding Capacity

We are dramatically expanding enterprise networking capacity delivering a number of industry firsts with Cisco Catalyst® 9000 switches – the fastest ramping product introduction in Cisco’s history. With support of both high density 1G, 2.5G and 5G for enterprise access with mGig, 25G and 40G uplinks to high density 25G, 40G, and 100G enterprise core, customers can now more than double network capacity without time-intensive and disruptive upgrades of their current enterprise cable infrastructure. This is a life-line to customers who need to extend the value of their investment at a critical time of growth.

Until recently, campus upgrades have typically been from 1G to 10G to 40G. Following technology and pricing trends in data center switching and leveraging the availability NBASE-T technology that doubles the throughput of Cat5e/6 cabling, as well as new SFP28 and QSFP28 optics technology that offers a better cost curve and reduced cabling along with longer reach, future network capacity upgrades are expected to dramatically shift to a 5G to 25G to 100G upgrade path. In fact, recent Dell’Oro estimates suggest that 25G/100G port shipments will all but replace 10G/40G port shipments by 2021. While demand drives the need, it is the compelling economics of 25GE and a core layer with 100GE that will drive deployment. Optics prices have dramatically dropped, with 25G at essentially the same price as 10G and 100G at the price of 40G. Using four lanes of 25GE, 100GE backbone platforms require lesser cabling and reduced space requirements and cost savings. Backward compatibility provides additional options to ease the transition while extending the value of your current assets.

Read more on how the new Catalyst 9000 switches are enabling higher speed transitions with investment protection.

Extending Reach

This week we are also announcing the extension of intent-based networking solutions for IoT to help customers gain greater visibility, scale and secure the onboarding diverse IoT devices and provide intelligent analytics to improve business operations management. Extended the revolutionary Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) software for automated access configuration and management from the campus to the extended enterprise like distribution centers, warehouses, manufacturing plants, and outdoor environments like roadways and oil rigs. IT can now easily scale the policies across the non-carpeted spaces through a single fabric with no additional management overhead while still providing OT the managed individual endpoints. OT no longer needs to manage across a multitude of networks they cover today, and IT can manage OT environments with confidence.

Only Cisco enables intent-based networking end-to-end – at scale. With the networking connecting all thing digital, Cisco is uniquely positioned to allow you to leverage the network to unlock time-relevant information and free up staff time for other critical business tasks.

It continues to be a delight for me to introduce new capabilities and scale for networking and to watch the evolution of intent-based networking as we create the future of networking together!

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For broader view on what we are announcing with intent-based networking for IoT, read Scott Harrell’s blog.

Read more on the most comprehensive high speed, high density campus backbone portfolio.

For more details about Catalyst 9500 Series switches, refer to the latest datasheet or cisco.com/go/catalyst.

For more details on SD-Access Extensions for IoT, visit the Cisco Extended Enterprise page.