What are Cisco DNA Premier Software Subscriptions?
To unlock the many capabilities of Cisco DNA, like automation, assurance, and security, we offer Cisco DNA software subscriptions with your hardware. This software is divided into three tiers that you can choose from: Cisco DNA Essentials, Cisco DNA Advantage, and Cisco DNA Premier. We often say that these tiers follow the good-better-best model, and today we will show you the benefits of Cisco DNA Premier Software Subscriptions for Wireless and Switching.
Cisco DNA Premier for Switching: Features and Benefits
As mentioned earlier, Cisco DNA Software subscriptions for switching are divided into 3 tiers: Essentials, Advantage, and Premier. The cool thing is that the tiers are nested – so at the Premier level, you will receive all the capabilities in Essentials and Advantage. To see the full list of features, check out the switching feature matrix.
So what do I get in Premier that’s not a part of the other tiers? In a nutshell, the premier tier gets you the advanced security bundles you need to drive a full policy-based automation network with SD-Access, as well as comprehensive visibility and security analytics for real-time threat detection. We’ve added two things for switching– more ISE Base/Plus endpoint session licenses and more Stealthwatch flow licenses. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) enables visibility-based segmentation and policy enforcement as part of, but not limited to, your SD-Access solution. The Advantage level tier also has SD-Access capabilities, and is preferred if you already have ISE Base/Plus Licenses in your network. If you don’t have ISE licenses, it will always be a better deal financially for you to choose Premier. In fact, as a part of our recent promotions, we have doubled the number of ISE Base/Plus licenses that we provide with Cisco DNA Premier, making it even more cost-effective than purchasing these licenses a-la-carte. You will also get four times more Stealthwatch licenses. This promotion runs from April 26 through July 25, 2020.
DNA Premier Benefits: Turn the network into a security sensor and enforcer
Stealthwatch is a key element to transform your network into a sensor. Cyberattacks are getting more and more sophisticated so you now need security everywhere. By activating the embedded security capabilities in your network, you can transform your network into a full-blown security monitoring system that gives you broad and deep visibility into your network and everything that connects to it. At the heart of Network-as-a-Sensor is NetFlow, which captures comprehensive network flow data. Stealthwatch then parses and analyzes the collected data. Stealthwatch can help turn the network into an enhanced security sensor by applying behavioral analytics to detect advanced threats in real-time, even if they are encrypted. Stealthwatch is also necessary for the advanced security use case of Encrypted Traffic Analytics, which is the ability to analyze the growing amount of encrypted traffic for threat detection and compliance, without any decryption.
Stealthwatch can also be used to monitor remote access traffic and users. This is increasingly valuable in today’s unprecedented times of mandatory work-from-home policies. With more people working remotely, it’s important to monitor what they’re accessing on your network as well as how much bandwidth they are using.
Watch a technical tutorial of how Stealthwatch works for this use case.
ISE, another solution that’s included in DNA Premier, is a necessary component of the SD-Access solution to automate threat containment and turn your network into your greatest defender. ISE takes dynamic visibility from sensors such as Stealthwatch to make policy enforcement decisions as endpoints request access to network resources. Policy decisions and enforcement are accomplished closest to the resource to complement a zero-trust strategy and to build security directly into the network. With increased visibility from Cisco DNA Center combined with threat intelligence from Stealthwatch, you can take a platform approach to speed up rapid threat containment, remove complexity, save time, and drastically reduce organizational risk.
Cisco DNA Premier for Wireless: Features and Benefits
Like switching, Cisco DNA Software subscriptions for wireless are divided into 3 tiers: Essentials, Advantage, and Premier. Similarly, the tiers are nested – so at the Premier level, you will receive all the capabilities in Essentials and Advantage. To see the full list of features, check out the wireless feature matrix.
In wireless, these are the features that you get that are exclusive to Premier: ISE Base/Plus licenses and Cisco DNA Spaces Extend licenses. Similar to switching, Premier will be the most cost-effective tier if you do not already have ISE licenses in your network. For FY20, we’ve increased the license count in Premier from 15 to 25.
What is Cisco DNA Spaces? It’s a powerful, end-to-end, indoor location services cloud platform that provides you with rich location-based services, including location analytics, business insight, customer experience management, asset tracking, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) management, and cloud APIs. It’s divided into 3 tiers: See, Act, and Extend. To get a list of the features in each tier, view the datasheet. With Cisco DNA Premier, both ‘See’ and ‘Extend’ are included. If you want ‘Act’, it is available at 50% a-la-carte price, only in Premier.
Premier is the answer for the full Cisco DNA Solution
Now you understand why Premier is our best option when it comes to choosing between Cisco DNA Software subscription tiers. It not only provides the best value, with up to 92% savings vs. buying Stealthwatch and ISE a-la-carte, but it also includes features that enable you to deploy Network-as-a-Sensor and Network-as-an-Enforcer solutions. As cyber threats are constantly evolving and getting smarter, security remains a top priority. With Premier you will have access to top-of-the-line Cisco DNA security features.
Watch the new Cisco DNA subscriptions introductory video:
Check out our all our blogs in the Cisco DNA Software series:
- Cisco DNA Software Subscriptions – The Simple Story
- Cisco Enterprise Agreement: Benefits and Exclusive Offers
- Cisco DNA Software Subscriptions for Switching deep dive
- Cisco DNA software for SD-WAN and Routing deep-dive
- Cisco DNA software for Wireless deep-dive
- Activating Cisco DNA software with Cisco DNA Center/vManage
- What’s so “Premier” about Cisco DNA Premier Software Subscriptions for Access? [You are here.]
This is great as customers will need to implement security based solutions from the home office to the campus.