In the evolving landscape of technology, businesses are navigating through an increasingly complex environment. With a surge in hybrid work, increasing focus on digital experiences, rapid migration to the cloud, and the pervasive influence of IoT, the list of factors contributing to this complexity is ever-growing. As operations in networking, data centers, cloud, and security converge, the need for uninterrupted connections for users, devices, and applications has become a paramount expectation.
At the heart of this intricate web lies the essential concept of secure connections—a universal expectation for everyone, to everything, from everywhere. In the following three-part blog series, we delve into how businesses are leveraging Cisco solutions to simplify operations through a platform approach. This approach converges key capabilities, such as artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automation, common policy, data, and APIs, onto unified platforms, thereby easing IT management.
In this first installation, our focus is on the cloud operating model and how Cisco platforms, including Meraki, Intersight, and Catalyst WAN, deliver the crucial capabilities needed for a smooth transition to this model.
The future of streamlined, secure, and efficient IT operations management
Cisco Networking Cloud represents our vision of a unified platform designed to provide a more streamlined, secure, and reliable IT experience. It encapsulates all the key principles that support the cloud operating model.
At their core, solutions that simplify operations are about taking a platform approach. This method converges and automates network and data center infrastructure management, as well as provider connectivity, ultimately delivering simplified operations in line with Cisco Networking Cloud. In essence, the cloud operating model is a set of guiding principles for effective IT operations management.
Through converged platforms, Cisco significantly untangles the knot of management tools, providing an integrated system of hardware, software, policy, APIs, and data that support common policy, AI-driven automation, improved security, and end-to-end assurance. This unified approach overcomes the operational disconnect often caused by an overload of management tools. It makes enterprise and industrial network management, provider connectivity, and data center infrastructure management easier and more efficient.
Simplifying policy management and enhancing security
Because non-compliant configurations can account for a majority of security breaches, driving a common policy across the entire platform for consistent compliance is imperative. And Cisco platforms simplify policy definition and activation, enabling you to define a policy once and propagate it across the platform, easing the burden of configuration and confirmation. The result? Greater consistency of experience, reduced management overhead, and fewer potential security breaches because of out-of-compliance configurations.
Many use cases can benefit from this unified platform approach, including cloud-managed networking and IoT networking. Transitioning to cloud-managed networking is simpler with the Meraki platform. It offers network management for top-tier Cisco Catalyst switches and Wi-Fi 6 access points through a single, cloud-based platform. The solution is easy to maintain and regularly updated with fresh innovations.
Cisco Meraki and Catalyst platforms streamline traffic management, ensuring policy consistency and simplified management with a single platform. The platform enhances IT capabilities and products such as Identity Services Engine (ISE), and offers extra management features through APIs and partners. Meraki supports indoor IoT monitoring, while Catalyst caters to warehouse and outdoor IoT devices with industrial switches.
Stay tuned as we navigate the complexities of the technological landscape together, simplifying operations with the help of Cisco solutions.
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