820-605 tricks - Cisco Customer Success Manager (CSM) Updated: 2023

With a nearly $60 billion revenue run rate, growing at 14% and throwing off more than $5 billion in operating cash last quarter, Cisco Systems Inc. has an awesome business.

But customers are vocal about the complexity of Cisco’s portfolio and, if their concerns are not addressed head on, the company risks encountering friction beyond just economic headwinds. We believe Cisco’s challenges are most decidedly not product breadth and depth. Rather, the company’s mandate is to integrate the piece parts of its intricate offerings to create more facile and seamless experiences for customers.

In this Breaking Analysis and ahead of Cisco Live in Las Vegas June 4-8, we dig deeper into Cisco’s business and double-click on three key areas of its portfolio: 1) security; 2) networking; and 3) observability. We have spending data from Enterprise Technology Research and a guest appearance from SiliconANGLE contributor and market watcher Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research.

Stocks of pure-play competitors outperforming Cisco year-to-date

Let’s start by doing some stock market comparisons.

The chart above shows year-to-date comparisons among Cisco, Palo Alto Networks Inc., Arista Networks Inc., Extreme Networks Inc. and the Nasdaq Composite. As you can see, the pure plays, as well as the NAS, are outperforming Cisco by a wide margin. That’s despite Cisco’s double-digit growth last quarter, 65% growth margins and a $200 billion market cap.

The reason is Chief Executive Chuck Robbins set modest expectations for 2024, which, when modeled out relative to Cisco’s longer-term outlook, suggest slowing momentum in the near- to mid-term. In addition, we believe the breadth of Cisco’s portfolio, while a key strength, also creates adoption challenges for the company’s customers.

What follows is a summary of how Kerravala interprets this data.

Kerravala sees this data as a nuanced comparison between Cisco, a behemoth with an impressive cash generation capability, and smaller companies such as Arista and Extreme. Despite acknowledging the somewhat fair comparison, he suggests that Cisco is handicapped because smaller entities may capture the benefits of a market trend more swiftly, Cisco’s broad scope often hampers its ability to do so. But Cisco throws off more operating cash in a quarter than these companies generate in annual revenue.

He used the example of Zoom Video Communications Inc. and RingCentral Inc., noting how Cisco’s performance paled in comparison two years ago, but the tide has turned since then, with the unified communications sector waning, but Cisco thriving in relative terms.

Kerravala believes Cisco’s breadth and stability make it a safe investment bet, but its size prevents it from realizing the rapid growth that smaller, more specialized companies can. The broad spectrum of markets that Cisco operates in implies a reduced likelihood of success across all these fronts simultaneously.

Watch Zeus Kerravala comment on the comparisons between Cisco and the pure plays.

Cisco’s business remains anchored in core networking

The table below represents the contribution of Cisco’s lines of business as reported in its financials. As we said at the top, 14% revenue growth is pretty astounding for a company of Cisco’s size. With tough comps ahead, it’s unlikely Cisco can keep up this pace.

Networking makes up more than half of Cisco’s revenue, but the company is growing its software contribution, which is just under 30% today, and its annual recurring revenue accounts for more than 40% of revenue, which gives the company better visibility on the future. This all helps prop up Cisco’s alluring 65%-plus gross margin model, which unlike many of its large incumbent competitors has held up well over decades. Moreover, Cisco’s shift to a recurring revenue and subscription model has been executed quite well compared with many firms (some much smaller, such as Splunk Inc.), which have struggled with that transition.

To break this down further, examining Cisco’s 10-K provides the following added context:

Secure, Agile Networks comprise core networking, switching, routing, wireless and compute. This includes products such as Catalyst, Nexus, Meraki and Cisco’s software-defined wide-area network products.

Internet for the Future includes optical networking, 5G, in-house silicon and optics solutions. This includes products such as the Cisco 8000, NCS 5500 and ASR 9000 series.

Collaboration includes Webex and call center solutions.

End-to-End Security comprises network security, cloud security, endpoint, threat management and zero-trust solutions.

Optimized Application Experiences includes AppDynamics, ThousandEyes and Intersight.

Here are Kerravala’s thoughts on Cisco’s portfolio, the challenges they face and what’s needed going forward:

Watch Zeus Kerravala unpack Cisco’s vast portfolio and how they can simplify.

Spending data underscores the macroeconomic impact on Cisco’s overall business

The ETR spending data for Cisco, at a high level, shows what virtually all tech companies are facing: a decrease in the percentage of customers that are spending more relative to last year.

The candlestick chart above shows the granularity of Net Score, ETR’s proprietary spending metric that measures customer spending patterns. Of the 1,700 information technology decision makers in the most recent ETR survey, more than 1,000 are Cisco customers – so we have a nice sample. The lime green is the percentage of those customers adding Cisco new, the forest green represents those spending 6% or more relative to last year, the gray is flat spend, the pink is spending down 6% or worse and the bright red is churn. Subtract red from green and you get Net Score, which is the blue line.

You can see the steadily declining trajectory because of the gray and the reds increasing. The brown line is the pervasiveness in the overall data set, which has actually held up well. Cisco has a massive installed base and it is stable, although more customers are leaving than are being added within this survey. Remember, this survey doesn’t measure spending amount, only the percentage of customers in each bucket.

We asked Kerravala if this accurately reflects his view of the market and is the deceleration a function of economic headwinds, complexity or both? What follows is a list of his key takeaways:

• The competitive dynamics in the networking industry have significantly shifted, with Cisco now facing more formidable rivals such as Arista, Fortinet Inc., VMware Inc. and Extreme Networks.
• The entry of cloud companies and Aruba into the networking market introduces additional competitive pressures.
• These industry changes necessitate sharper sales execution from Cisco, as it can no longer rely on competitors’ missteps to retain its advantage.
• In light of this more complex competitive landscape, Cisco’s strategy must evolve to distinguish itself effectively and maintain its leading position.

I do think a lot of what you’re looking at there is more credible vendors are in market and that has forced sharper sales execution than it did before. In the old days, Cisco could just show up and be assured that its competitors would mis-execute. That luxury is no longer in play.

Watch Zeus Kerravala comment on Cisco’s spending momentum data in the ETR survey and the changing nature of the competitive dynamics.

Cisco’s center of gravity starts with core networking

Let’s drill into the segment data, starting with networks.

The chart above shows Net Score or spending velocity on the vertical axis and pervasiveness in the data set on the horizontal axis. The red dotted line at 40% indicates a highly elevated Net Score. We’ve highlighted Cisco overall and Meraki, a company Cisco bought in 2012 to help better control network devices.

As is evident, Cisco stands out as the clear leader here in both presence (X axis) with very respectable customer spending velocity on its products (Y axis). In fact, we saw earlier a 29% year-on-year revenue growth figure from last quarter in networking. That is amazing for such a large business. As Cisco works through its backlog, it creates uncertainty in the forecasts, but underlying demand for Cisco’s networking products is sound.

As well, you can see a number of other companies here, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.’s Aruba, Arista, VMware with NSX and a number of others, including Cloudflare Inc., which all are hovering near the elevated 40% line.

Kerravala laid out his thoughts as follows:

He is somewhat critical of Cisco’s approach to its Meraki and Catalyst product lines, not on the merit of their features and value but on the lines between them. He asserts that customers should not have to choose between them. He suggests a unified hardware line that offers customers the flexibility to manage it either through Meraki or the command-line interface, or CLI. Currently, a switch from Meraki to Catalyst necessitates a complete hardware overhaul, a problem that could be resolved by a common set of hardware compatible with both management methods.

Further, Kerravala notes that Cisco’s potential to integrate data center, campus and Wi-Fi certifications to Improve the user experience has yet to be fully realized. While some integration has occurred at the campus level, the data center side remains separate. He concludes that networks should deliver applications and experiences as a single, unified entity instead of being sold as separate silos, an approach that contributes to unnecessary complexity.

His key analysis points include:

• He believes Cisco should offer a unified hardware line for customers, which could be managed either through Meraki or CLI, mitigating the need for a hardware overhaul when switching between the two.
• By integrating data center, campus, and Wi-Fi certifications, Cisco could enhance the overall user experience.
• The current siloed approach to network products adds unnecessary complexity, which, while non-trivial, will be addressed by treating the network as a single, unified entity focused on delivering applications and experiences.

Watch Zeus break down the Cisco’s networking challenges and thoughts on how it can simplify.

Security is perhaps Cisco’s best upside opportunity

Let’s shift gears and look into the all-important and exceedingly crowded security sector.

Above we show the ETR spending data in the security market – same dimensions – Net Score on Y and Pervasion on the X. Microsoft Corp. is in the upper right and skews the data, but you can see Cisco has a major presence. As do Palo Alto Networks and Splunk. All credible on the vertical axis.

The leaders in presence are below the 40% line, but that’s expected for such large companies. The squiggly line represents Cisco’s path over the past 10 quarters. There is no debate that the company is very strong in security, but we believe it needs to do a better job consolidating the piece parts and simplifying customer outcomes.

Note that Cisco doesn’t have the spending velocity of the pure plays such as CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., Okta Inc., Zscaler Inc., CyberArk Software Ltd. and SailPoint Technologies Inc. — or even Cloudflare – but its Net Score is respectable. Cisco also just purchased Armorblox Inc., which uses artificial intelligence to reduce email and other risks.

In many ways we think Cisco could be a leader in the security supercloud, bridging on-premises, multiple clouds and edge security experiences.

The following summarizes Keravala’s thoughts:

Kerravala claims Cisco has succeeded in cybersecurity despite itself but has a great opportunity if it can address some of the stovepipe challenges.

The emerging observability opportunity

Let’s now dig into observability, which is sort of the confluence of log analytics, application performance management, monitoring and related fields. Cisco has a major stake in this business through its acquisitions of AppDynamics and ThousandEyes.

Before we look at the spending data, here’s what one customer said in an ETR roundtable about this topic:

This is a head of engineering… a customer who says I’m sticking with AppD. This person references the value of the ThousandEyes acquisition along with AppD and security. The application-centricity is an attractive dynamic to this Cisco shop. SecureX is Cisco’s integrated security play, which admittedly needs more and better integration. But basically in the second quote this person calls out the attractiveness and value of a single platform. If you’re a Cisco shop. And if not it’s a “free game” – perhaps implying a free-for-all of complexity.

AppD perhaps presents the biggest opportunity for Cisco since they’ve acquired it. I really expect AppDynamics to become the tip-of-the-arrow sale for Cisco… and I would like to see AppD become a lead sales tool across Cisco’s portfolio. I think it must (and will) happen -Zeus Kerravala

Watch Kerravala’s commentary on Cisco’s observability play with ThousandEyes & AppD.

Comparing key observability players’ spending profiles

Let’s get into the ETR data. ETR doesn’t have a full-stack observability category, but through this next view below we’re able to bring in various companies that are hovering around the space to see their relative positions.

It’s a similar chart above where we show Net Score against pervasiveness in the data. And we’ve plotted Splunk, Datadog Inc., Elastic N.V., Grafana Labs, Dynatrace Inc. and New Relic Inc.. You can see AppDynamics, which Cisco bought in 2017 for almost $4 billion. And it introduced Intersight shortly thereafter as a visualization and orchestration tool. But there were still holes in the portfolio as the market moved to full-stack observability, so Cisco bought ThousandEyes during the COVID pandemic for about $1 billion. Then it sort of strung them together with an overlay, but the story is not over.

Cisco has an opportunity to really take these pieces and integrate them across the portfolio in a potentially game-changing way. At least in the manner that one customer described earlier – especially for Cisco shops.

Kerravala’s primary argument is that the industry needs to to deliver on the vision of full-stack observability. Cisco has an opportunity to lead by streamlining its many panes-of-glass solutions into a unified, intuitive dashboard. The diverse range of visibility tools it currently offers could be more effectively utilized if they were integrated into one comprehensive system, with AppD serving as the principal lens. Operational specifics could then be accessed through drill-down features, allowing for a more organized and efficient user experience. This could be game-changing for Cisco.

Kerravala’s key takeaways on observability:

• Cisco must make good on its promise of full-stack observability.
• The current multitude of Cisco’s single-pane-of-glass solutions should be streamlined into a unified dashboard.
• AppD should be the main view, with the ability to drill down into the other specific tools.
• He recognizes that Cisco already has all the necessary components; the challenge lies in integrating them into a cohesive system.

Kerravala comments on Cisco’s many panes of glass.

What to watch at Cisco Live 2023

Kerravala just published a “Know before you go” post on SiliconANGLE, outlining his thoughts on what to expect at Cisco Live. Let’s review that and what we’ll be looking for next week.

Whither AI for Cisco?

A key question is how Cisco will handle AI. These days, brands run the risk AI washing, but if you bury the AI lede, you look less relevant. In our view, Cisco at the very least has to use AI to make Cisco infrastructure run better and more secure through automation and better management.

Here’s a summary of key points from our conversation with Zeus on what to expect from Cisco Live in terms of AI:

• We don’t expect Cisco to brand itself as an AI company like Nvidia Corp. or even IBM Corp.’s attempts to do so. Instead, AI will remain an integral part of their overall toolkit used to build their products.
• AI has been part of Cisco’s portfolio for a while. It underpins products such as intent-based networking and Encrypted Traffic Analytics, which uses AI to detect malware in encrypted traffic.
• The company’s collaboration portfolio is also AI-rich, but it is considered more of an operational tool rather than a product that’s sold separately.
• AI might be highlighted more during keynotes due to current hype, but it’s not the company’s primary focus.
• The use of AI, such as a ChatGPT-like interface, could be beneficial for Cisco’s operations, like using Webex to find information or for network operations to identify areas in need of upgrades. This would essentially make their portfolio more user-friendly.
• Natural language processing can simplify interfaces, relieving the load from high-level engineers and delegating tasks to tier one or two support.

The security opportunity calls for Cisco

We’ll be watching the security space closely. We believe it’s a mandate that Cisco integrate its vast portfolio across on-prem, all the major clouds and out to the edge. Palo Alto Networks has the leg up on consolidation in our opinion, but Cisco has such a major presence that it can do very well in this area, coming at the problem its strength in networking.

Here’s a summary of what we think Cisco needs to do in security and what we’ll hear at Cisco Live:

• Security is important because it offers the most substantial growth potential for Cisco, as it is a single-digit player in a market projected to be worth $75 billion-plus.
• Even a slight increase in market share, such as reaching 10%, would greatly boost Cisco’s revenue.
• The long-term vision is to have Cisco’s security share match its network share, and to have Cisco network and Cisco security working together for improved risk identification and resolution.
• We hope to see more integration of Cisco’s cloud security products to create a more unified and user-friendly experience.
• The security industry often makes the user the integration point, which can lead to confusion and inefficiency. This needs to be addressed by the industry at large and Cisco has an opportunity to attack this problem.
• Cisco is in a unique position to make security more user-friendly and seamless because it owns the network and can embed a lot of security features into it.
• We anticipate hearing more about Cisco’s progress on its vision for security and expect to see more of the product roadmap at the upcoming event.

Can Cisco be the supercloud network?

Core networking is always a the forefront of Cisco Live. I keep coming back to the supercloud concept – a singular experience across clouds in a cloud-native fashion. Can Cisco bridge the legacy world of apps and infrastructure with cloud-native?

• Cisco is not going to become a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services Inc., but it has the potential to be an abstraction layer that enables the concept of a “supercloud.”
• A network supercloud would allow customers to use multiple cloud providers, edge locations, and private data centers seamlessly as one logical cloud.
• Traditional cloud providers will not enable this, as their tools are specific to their platforms. Cisco, however, can provide network transport, security and optimization that transcend individual cloud platforms.
• Cisco can become the bridge between physical clouds and create a logical supercloud thanks to its work with cloud providers, telcos and tools such as ThousandEyes and AppDynamics.
• This process begins with networking, hoping to see more progress with the Meraki/Catalyst integration at the upcoming show. We are also looking for advancements in consolidating different versions of Wi-Fi and other disparate parts of Cisco’s networking story.

Collaboration: Hybrid work is still a big thing

What about collaboration? That business went from rocket ship to rapid deceleration post-pandemic, but hybrid work isn’t going away and it brings real challenges. Is this a game of integrating with your security portfolio to reduce risk? Or creating better and more simplified user experiences? We know that Jeetu Patel wants to make Webex 10 times better than any other platform.

• We believe Cisco’s primary challenge in the collaboration market is Microsoft Teams. Despite having a poorer user experience compared with competitors, Teams is widely adopted thanks to its inclusion in Microsoft licensing plans.
• Teams, however, can prove costly when additional features such as voice and security are added.
• Cisco has accepted the coexistence with Teams, allowing its devices to run Teams natively. This could be beneficial as companies are likely to use more than one collaboration vendor.
• We believe Cisco’s WebEx, loaded with extensive features, can offer a better experience for specific departments and expand its presence within organizations gradually.
• A suggested strategy for Cisco is to manage other collaboration platforms through the WebEx console, offering better management for those platforms and then gradually introducing their own solutions.
• In the context of observability, the application-centric view is crucial. Prioritizing network upgrades and security deployments based on their impact on application performance can provide quantifiable business metrics.
• Cisco’s AppDynamics offers a unique perspective into application performance that other infrastructure vendors may lack. This tool could be instrumental in making such decisions.

Application centricity is the opportunity in full-stack observability

Cisco we think has an opportunity to make some moves in full-stack observability, but the linchpin as Kerravala wrote on SiliconANGLE is the application-centric view of the world. The two main takeaways from our conversation on observability include:

• The application-centric view is crucial. Prioritizing network upgrades and security deployments based on their impact on application performance can provide quantifiable business metrics.
• Cisco’s AppDynamics offers a unique perspective into application performance that other infrastructure vendors may lack. This tool could be instrumental in making such decisions.

Every large tech company has to address ESG

And finally we asked Kerravala if he has ever been to a Cisco Live where Chuck Robbins hasn’t done his part to address environmental, social and governance issues? Here’s a summary of what we discussed:

• Cisco has a corporate goal to positively impact a billion lives by 2025. It’s making significant progress toward this goal through a variety of programs. It’s part of the Global Citizen group, and it conducts contests and provide financial support to entrepreneurs aiming to make the world a better place.
• Cisco’s products also help with sustainability. They are embedded with features such as EnergyWise, which shuts off the network when it is not in use and turns it back on when it is needed.
• Cisco’s custom application-specific integrated circuits are optimized for specific network functions, leading to lower power consumption.
• The company offers Power over Ethernet features to further support sustainability.
• At events such as Cisco Live, it has highlighted these sustainability features, and we expect to see more of this in the future.

We didn’t talk much about edge, but it’s a significant part of the future and we anticipate hearing more about it in the future.

Here’s the full conversation about what to expect at Cisco Live

Finally, theCUBE will be at Cisco Live in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay. We’re on the expo floor across from the Net Vet Lounge, which is Booth 1427. We have a small space so we’re doing the pop-up CUBE and we’d love to see you. By all means please stop by and say hello.

Keep in touch

Many thanks to Zeus Kerravala for stopping by the studio to share his knowledge. Thanks to Alex Myerson and Ken Shifman on production, podcasts and media workflows for Breaking Analysis. Special thanks to Kristen Martin and Cheryl Knight, who help us keep our community informed and get the word out, and to Rob Hof, our editor in chief at SiliconANGLE.

Remember we publish each week on Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. These episodes are all available as podcasts wherever you listen.

Email david.vellante@siliconangle.com, DM @dvellante on Twitter and comment on our LinkedIn posts.

Also, check out this ETR Tutorial we created, which explains the spending methodology in more detail. Note: ETR is a separate company from Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. If you would like to cite or republish any of the company’s data, or inquire about its services, please contact ETR at legal@etr.ai.

Here’s the full video analysis:

All statements made regarding companies or securities are strictly beliefs, points of view and opinions held by SiliconANGLE Media, Enterprise Technology Research, other guests on theCUBE and guest writers. Such statements are not recommendations by these individuals to buy, sell or hold any security. The content presented does not constitute investment advice and should not be used as the basis for any investment decision. You and only you are responsible for your investment decisions.

Disclosure: Many of the companies cited in Breaking Analysis are sponsors of theCUBE and/or clients of Wikibon. None of these firms or other companies have any editorial control over or advanced viewing of what’s published in Breaking Analysis.

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Prominent cyber threats like malware and ransomware continue to jeopardize the security of companies around the world. Businesses that previously did not use Cisco security products are now relying on it. The threat landscape has changed significantly, and businesses of all sizes need help. As many businesses are realizing their vulnerabilities, Cisco's Cybersecurity Distinguished Engineer, Mike Storm, is documenting real-life Cisco customer success stories using Cisco Security. By working as a team with their Cisco Partners and Resellers, Cisco customers are able to finally experience a completely integrated security solution that helps protect their network, endpoints, cloud, internet, and email from cyberattacks. Whether it's a small medical office with HIPPA compliance data requirements, a large organization protecting lots of personal data or even a high visibility business with a strong reputation to uphold, Cisco is always on the scene - keeping businesses safe across the globe, one customer at a time. The Cisco IT Security Makeover series documents the before, during and after real-life experiences of a Cisco IT Security Makeover, showcasing the customer problem before, the installation and proof of value during and the positive business outcomes afterwards. With this three-phase walk-through of the makeover, Storm uses his intellect and wit to illustrate the transformation Cisco Security provides to our clients' security posture and peace of mind. In addition, Storm exemplifies the face-to-face, two-way conversation that allows for Cisco to create business specific solutions. Seasons 1, 2, & 3 cover diverse business settings to show how solutions can always be tailored to different business needs.

Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.

With user experience increasingly being a key performance indicator at the boardroom level and claiming to be uniquely positioned to deliver industry-leading Full-Stack Observability to customers, Cisco has announced a new OpenTelemetry-based integration of its AppDynamics application observability and ThousandEyes network intelligence.

Explaining the launch of the solutions – for which integration is bi-directional, with data exchanged simultaneously between both solutions, in real time – the networking tech giant said organisations are working to ensure they can elevate digital experiences at scale via the applications “at the heart of all business interactions today”.

It also recognised user experience can be affected by many factors and that the key to enabling the optimal experience was to find the root cause of impact as soon as possible and address the issue before it reaches the end user and hurts the overall performance of the application and ultimately the business.

The firm added that the ability of companies to get a complete picture of their applications’ health and users’ journeys positions businesses to make better-informed decisions and resolve issues quicker, ultimately leading to better user experience and improved business outcomes.

The new Cisco solution is designed to provide insights into both the application and the network, with internet connectivity metrics for application operations and real-time application dependency mapping for network operations. It is automatically available without further installations, drives customer digital experience monitoring from the combined application and network vantage points, and delivers differentiated business outcomes.

It is also attributed with reducing significantly mean time to resolution (MTTR), closing observability gaps with actionable recommendations and helping teams prioritise network remediation based on business impact/criticality.

“Our customers are committed to delivering the best digital experiences for their businesses. However, as digital experiences get simpler for the consumers, they get more complex for companies,” said Liz Centoni, Cisco executive vice-president, chief strategy officer and general manager of applications.

“Customer Digital Experience Monitoring seamlessly brings together our industry leading application observability and our unparalleled network intelligence, so that customers can uncover all the application and network dependencies not visible before.”

The Customer Digital Experience Monitoring solution is intended to allow organisations to break down the barriers to meaningful collaboration that can exist between Infrastructure and operations teams, application developers, SecOps and DevSecOps teams; all of whom need to work more closely together to ensure success. This, said Cisco, will help organisations to move fast and focus on what matters most – driving revenue, elevating user experience, managing risk and reducing costs all while reducing tool sprawl.

Another key feature of the bi-directional integration is that it strengthen the ability to deliver customer digital experience monitoring when coupled with the real user monitoring (RUM) capability offered by end user digital behaviour technology provider Smartlook, a company that Cisco intends to acquire.

This combination is said to fulfil the expectations customers have to be able to enjoy end-to-end monitoring of an experience for user accessing applications and services hosted anywhere from any location using any device.

As part of what it says is a commitment to simplifying the buying experience, Cisco launched its Business Risk Observability pack in February 2023 and is included in the Cisco FSO Essentials bundle, which also includes critical full stack observability capabilities. 

The company is now announcing the Cisco FSO Advantage bundle, adding real-time ingestion of network intelligence metrics into application observability and real-time application dependencies for network operations.

This is intended to help customers deliver end-to-end visibility, correlated insights and recommended actions, all tied to business context, across application monitoring, application security, the network and the internet.

May 11, 2023, 12:00 PM EDT

The tech giant announces a new OpenTelemetry-based integration of Cisco AppDynamics application observability and ThousandEyes network intelligence as the company continues to prioritize full-stack observability.

Cisco Systems has revealed a new OpenTelemetry-based integration of Cisco AppDynamics application observability and ThousandEyes network intelligence so partners and end customers can determine if a performance problem is stemming from the network or application faster and using less tools.

The integration is bi-directional, with data exchanged simultaneously between both solutions in real time. It means that two customer use cases will immediately benefit, including application dependency monitoring and digital experience monitoring (DEM), a priority for Cisco right now as part of its full-stack observability push, according to the company.

The Cisco Customer DEM offering lets partner and business infrastructure and operations teams, application developers, SecOps and DevSecOps teams collaborate better by using a “single source of truth.” These groups need to work more closely than ever before, Carlos Pereira, Cisco fellow and chief architect, strategy, emerging technologies, incubation and applications, told CRN.

“We believe that OpenTelemetry is going to be a standard for data ingestion, so we can bring [the data] in, and then contextualize. After contextualizing, you can do correlation that drives insights and those insights will trigger actions,” Pereira said. “We have a full-stack observability platform that allows it to ingest telemetry in real time as streaming telemetry on the OpenTelemetry platform.”

[Related: Cisco Eyes India To Diversify Supply Chain, Aiming For $1B In Exports And Production ]

Full-stack observability is a growing trend and increasingly, a customer demand. IT administrators monitor across their own domains, like infrastructure, networking or application performance. The problem with that is too many tools because each environment requires their own. The integration will not only help business move fast and focus on user experience, but it will also help them combat tool sprawl and reduce costs, he said.

And while the key performance indicator for businesses used to be availability, it’s now shifted to experience, Pereira said. “Now, everybody’s connected. Everything has been digitized and the pandemic just accelerated that motion more than anything,” he said.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company in April revealed plans to buy Smartlook, a provider of qualitative analytics for websites and mobile apps, to boost Cisco’s application performance monitoring software business AppDynamics’ DEM.

The new bi-directional integration will strengthen Cisco’s ability to deliver DEM, especially when combined with the Real User Monitoring technology that Smartlook is bringing to the table, Pereira said.

Cisco’s partner ecosystem, said Pereira, is a big part of Cisco’s differentiation in the observability arena.

“Cisco has been for over 30-plus years selling indirect. Now, we’re coming with a [full-stack observability] platform that is manifesting an opportunity that is part of a business transition that is happening everywhere because everybody’s trying to find digital experiences for their customers,” he said.

The tech giant views the platform as extensible for partners, who can build on top of the offering, he said.

The Cisco Customer DEM offering, which provides insights into both the application and the network, is automatically available without further installations, Cisco said.

CRN is live in Las Vegas providing full coverage of Cisco Live 2022. Bookmark this page for the latest news, interviews and exclusive videos from the show.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins On Supply Chain, XaaS And The Mission To Integrate And Simplify
‘What we have seen in the partner community is a serious uptake on taking our technology and delivering managed services to the customer. I think the desire for these kinds of services from the customer is real,’ Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told CRN about the company’s XaaS and managed services push.

Cisco Is ‘Tearing Down Walls’ With Unified Networking, CX Goals
‘There’s a lot of cross business unit work going on, and I think it’s a muscle that we’re going to build even more effectively as we go forward,’ Chuck Robbins tells CRN during an interview about Cisco’s simplification efforts at Cisco Live 2022.

Cisco U. Stops Partners From Getting ‘Lost In The Sea Of Trainings’
The new Cisco U. will provide partners with information on where they should go next, says Kent MacDonald, senior vice president of strategic alliances at Cisco Gold partner Long View Systems. ‘Sometimes that’s the other challenge—I don’t quite know what I need or what I should do. That functionality will help so we don’t feel lost in the sea of trainings.’

Cisco Catalyst Gains ‘Industry-Changing’ Simplicity With Meraki Cloud Management Option
The tech giant announces a breakthrough in network management at Cisco Live 2022 with the announcement that the powerful Cisco Catalyst portfolio can now be managed via the popular and simplistic cloud-based Meraki dashboard.

The Latest Cisco Webex Devices And Updates Revealed At Cisco Live 2022
From Webex Calling updates to new devices and integrations, here are the updates to the Cisco Webex platform that were unleashed at Cisco Live 2022.

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:41:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.crn.com/cisco-live-2022

Since 1992 Matt McGew has provided content for on and offline businesses and publications. Previous work has appeared in the "Los Angeles Times," Travelocity and "GQ Magazine." McGew specializes in search engine optimization and has a Master of Arts in journalism from New York University.

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Digitization is transforming businesses in every industry, opening up a $2.1 trillion global market opportunity by 2019, according to IDC*.  The path to digitization requires a digital network that evolves beyond just connectivity. This new network will enable business innovation, generate insights and create customer experiences. It will reduce cost and complexity with new orchestration and automation capabilities, while protecting the business with an architecture designed for security.

Cisco recently unveiled its Digital Network Architecture (DNA), an open, extensible and software driven architecture for digital business. Cisco® DNA complements Cisco’s market leading, data center based Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) technology by extending the policy driven approach and software strategy throughout the entire network: from campus to branch, wired to wireless, core to edge.  Cisco DNA is delivered within the Cisco ONE™ Software family, enabling simplified software-based licensing, investment protection and flexibility.

“In the IoT era, enterprises are addressing how to move to digitization with tremendous innovation in networking, including software defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), open API’s, cloud management, analytics and more. Though these innovations offer great promise to Improve operational efficiency and enable digital applications, adoption has been slow due to the difficulty in consuming these many new technologies. The market needs a solution that integrates the critical innovations in networking software into an architecture that can achieve these promises in an integrated and easy to consume manner. Cisco DNA does just that,” said Mike Weston, Vice President, Cisco Middle East.

Cisco DNA is built on five guiding principles:  

1. Virtualize everything to deliver organizations freedom of choice to run any service anywhere, independent of the underlying platform – physical or virtual, on premise or in the cloud.
2. Designed for automation to make networks and services on those networks easy to deploy, manage and maintain – fundamentally changing the approach to network management.
3. Pervasive analytics to provide insights on the operation of the network, IT infrastructure and the business – information that only the network can provide.
4. Service management delivered from the cloud to unify policy and orchestration across the network - enabling the agility of cloud with the security and control of on premises solutions.
5. Open, extensible and programmable at every layer – Integrating Cisco and 3^rd party technology, open API’s and a developer platform, to support a rich ecosystem of network-enabled applications.

“The digital network is the platform for digital business,” said Rob Soderbery, SVP for Enterprise Products and Solutions, Cisco.  “Cisco DNA brings together virtualization, automation, analytics, cloud and programmability to build that platform.  The acronym for the Digital Networking Architecture – DNA – isn’t an accident. We’re fundamentally changing the DNA of networking technology.”

Cisco recently announced automation, virtualization and cloud management capabilities in support of the DNA architecture, including APIC-Enterprise Module (APIC EM) Platform and Automation Services, Evolved IOS-XE and Enterprise NFV and CMX Cloud.

To support Cisco customers and partners on this network transformation journey, the Learning at Cisco and Cisco DevNet developer programs are committed to educating and enabling networking professionals transitioning to a software-driven networking model. Network Programmability Specialist Certification is available built on top of Industry award winning CCIE and CCNP programs. As developers and engineers build on DNA, Cisco is making available training, hands on exercises and certifications to enable the workforce of the future.

Cisco Capital Easy Pay is a new global offer is specifically created for DNA. It allows a three-year fair market value 0% lease for all products as part of Cisco DNA. Customers pay 90% of the cost, over the three-year term, providing predictable monthly payments and cash flow management. At the end of the three-year term the customer has three options: keep, return and refresh or purchase the assets for 10% of the original purchase price

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 12:00:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.albawaba.com/business/pr/cisco-unveils-digital-network-architecture-accelerate-customer-digital-transformation-83

Cisco continues to invest in its customer experience (CX) group, which provides product lifecycle management and aims to ensure that customers get what they want out of their technology purchases.

Alistair Wildman, senior vice president of Cisco Global Customer Experience, says his team of 20,000 is primed to make sure enterprises are effectively choosing, implementing, and using the technologies they purchase to achieve their business goals. Cisco CX offers a suite of services to help customers optimise their network infrastructure, security, collaboration, cloud and data center operations – from planning and design to implementation and maintenance.

“We are really focused on making sure that we understand the use cases behind why customers bought the technology they did and [helping] them maintain it, run it if necessary, upgrade software, [or] whatever is needed to make sure customers get a return on investment as soon as possible [and] achieve the business outcomes they expected when buying Cisco products,” Wildman said.

In addition to making sure customer networks, software and services are working as advertised, a key part of CX is to grow customer retention and bolster hardware and software sales, although CX isn’t directly involved in selling. 

As a real-world example of what CX does, “we have a customer who wants to make sure their network is current, but they have only small windows to perform changes and upgrades,” Wildman said. “We'll set the automation and run the changes, and we do it with optimisation, security and usability in mind.”

“Others may want something as simple as to refresh the network so that all their end users at the offices have a great Wi-Fi experience. Or they want to secure the network and have a great application experience. Whatever it may be, we focus on that,” Wildman said.

The CX Cloud is core to the CX mission, and it incorporates a wide range of information from Cisco, including best practices, telemetry, AI/ML-driven insights, use cases, and contextual learning, Wildman said. There is a CX Cloud for partners, CX-P, as well.