Ciscos Nightingale: Cloud-neutral orchestration and automation are primary goals for 2021
While Todd Nightingale has been Ciscos Enterprise Networking amp; Cloud business chief since March_ some of the directions he wants to take the companys biggest business unit—namely higher cloud-neutral orchestration and automation—are already plum.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the enterprise response to it are big drivers for near-forthcoming enterprise networking technology. But the ideas of cloud connectivity and pushing artlessness and agility in the network_ while they are already significant_ implementation has accelerated for most customers_ Nightingale said in a late colloquy.
“IT shops about the globe have been recentreed_ and the real need for agility athwart different technologies is whats driving our forthcoming developments_” Nightingale said. “The idea going advanced is to centre on liberateing strong networking and software options on a smaller number of integrated platforms to facilitate and fetch an huge amount of agility for enterprise customers.”
Network pros recoil to new Cisco certification curriculum <_aside>A couple of models of what Nightingale has in mind have already been rolled out.
For one_ in October Cisco upgraded and integrated some of its core software packages to help customers feel_ control and automate functions in mixed and multicloud data-center environments. One of the new tools_ Ciscos Nexus Dashboard_ melds a number of Ciscos feelment tools into a one interface to feel application lifecycles from set-up to livelihood and optimization. In this case_ by supporting Ciscos Multi-Site Orchestrator_ which provisions_ advisers_ and feels resources in Cisco ACI networks_ the dashboard can set network and application-control policies athwart on-premises or cloud-based business environments_ Cisco says.
The Nexus Dashboard also integrates with third-party services such as ServiceNow for incident feelment_ AlgoSec for security plan_ Splunk for business intelligence and F5_Citrix for load balancing. Additional third-party integrations are expected_ Cisco stated. The method also supports open-source software including Red Hat Ansible for edifice and deploying enterprise automation and Hashicorps Terraform infrastructure feelment software.
<_aside>Another sample is the Cisco SecureX platform_ announced this summer_ which is an open_ cloud-native method that integrates Cisco security wares and third-party tools to let IT security teams automate security feelment athwart enterprise cloud_ network_ applications and end points from a one interface. Cisco has engineered tighter integration between SecureX and its Secure Cloud Analytics program so that SecOps teams can adviser for conduct that may be indicative of menaces or misconfigurations in the cloud.
Cisco also says it will prolong SecureX to include support for Extended Detection and Response XDR_ which offers a unified access to security-incident detection and response that can let customers correlate menace intelligence and signals athwart multiple security offerings.
<_aside>Nightingale peaked to another fruit_ Ciscos Intersight_ the companys cloud-based methods-feelment offering_ as an sample of a platform that will see continued integration to help customers orchestrate multicloud workloads going advanced.
Cisco lately bolstered Intersight with the power to feel Kubernetes containers. The idea is with Intersight Kubernetes Service_ infrastructure teams can automate the lifecycle feelment of Kubernetes and containerized applications athwart any environment
“Cloud-neutral automation and orchestration are our last goals_” Nightingale said. “There is a grave transition going on now about where workloads are deployed and orchestrated between special and open clouds. Now workloads are beseeming more containerized and customers are deploying a difference of services and preparers to feel them. We can prepare the cloud-neutral orchestration and networking to make that all work smoothly_” Nightingale said.
Part of that goal is enabled through Ciscos AppDynamics and lately purchased ThousandEyes technology. AppDynamics is Ciscos application-accomplishment feelment method that lets users administer app accomplishment and availpower athwart cloud and data-center environments. ThousandEyes fetchs a cloud-based software package that analyzes accomplishment of local and wide-area networks and the internet.
<_aside>“The ThousandEyes and AppDynamics union gives customers end-to-end visibility and feelment capabilities regardless of where workloads are located which will befit more significant as applications and workloads are distributed_” Nightingale said.
Hand-in-hand with the networking and application changes cloud is fetching_ is the transformation of transmitted wide area networking_ Nightingale said.
“The WAN was built years ago to secure site-to-site capabilities_ but that is no longer the core use case today_” Nightingale said. “SD-WAN and SASE technologies are driving running WAN directions_ and there are a total slew of partners out there adding security features to our existing portfolio to give customers a full secure experience.”
Core to Ciscos WAN forthcoming is its Cloud OnRamp fruit that connects distant users at member services or other distant locations to cloud applications. OnRamp also supports connectivity to a number of cloud resources in AWS and Microsoft Azure. SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp is part of Ciscos overarching SD-WAN software package_ and the company lately upgraded OnRamp to help customers tie distributed cloud applications back to a member service or special data center.
"Helping liberate and feel applications athwart the WAN in new secure integrated ways is the next gear for us_" Nightingale said. "Whether users are working from home_ or are mobile it doesnt substance we want to give them one enterprise cloud on ramp experience that is easy to use."
