Master Cisco network assurance, elevate your career

In today's hyper-connected world, network reliability and performance are paramount. Businesses demand networks that are not just operational, but optimally performing, secure, and resilient. This is where expertise in Cisco network assurance becomes a critical asset, transforming reactive troubleshooting into proactive network health management. For IT professionals aiming to elevate their careers, mastering Cisco network assurance offers a clear pathway to becoming an indispensable expert.

The official Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam page introduces you to the Cisco 300-445 ENNA certification, a specialized credential that validates your ability to design, implement, and operate enterprise network assurance solutions using Cisco technologies. This article delves into how achieving the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification can significantly boost your career trajectory, offering analytical insights and value-focused perspectives on the skills you'll gain and the opportunities that await.

Understanding Cisco Network Assurance: The Foundation for Network Resilience

At its core, Cisco network assurance is about ensuring that a network consistently meets its intended performance, security, and availability objectives. It's a proactive approach that moves beyond traditional "break-fix" models, allowing organizations to maintain peak operational efficiency and deliver superior user experiences. This comprehensive strategy leverages advanced tools and methodologies to monitor, analyze, and optimize network behavior.

Why Network Assurance is More Critical Than Ever

Modern enterprise networks are complex, dynamic ecosystems supporting critical applications, cloud services, and a distributed workforce. Downtime, performance degradation, or security breaches can have severe financial and reputational consequences. Effective network assurance provides the visibility and control needed to prevent such issues, quickly identify their root causes, and restore services efficiently. It encompasses a broader concept of network monitoring but extends into predictive analytics and automated remediation.

The Role of Cisco DNA Center in Network Assurance

Cisco DNA Center network assurance is central to Cisco's strategy. It serves as the command and control center for your network, providing a unified platform for automation, analytics, and security. With DNA Center, network administrators gain unparalleled insights into network health, application performance, and user experience across wired and wireless infrastructures. This platform empowers you to implement Cisco network assurance best practices, ensuring a robust and predictable network environment.

Key Concepts in Network Assurance

• Telemetry and Analytics for Cisco Networks: Modern assurance heavily relies on collecting vast amounts of telemetry data (NetFlow, IPFIX, streaming telemetry) from network devices. This data is then analyzed to identify trends, anomalies, and potential issues before they impact users.
• Network Performance Monitoring Cisco Solutions: These solutions continuously track key performance indicators (KPIs) like latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth utilization, providing a real-time view of network health and application experience.
• Proactive Troubleshooting: Instead of waiting for users to report problems, network assurance tools can identify performance bottlenecks or misconfigurations proactively, allowing network teams to address them before they escalate. This is crucial for troubleshooting enterprise networks Cisco environments effectively.

The Cisco 300-445 ENNA Exam: Your Gateway to Expertise

The Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam, titled "Cisco Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance," is the cornerstone of achieving the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification. This exam validates your comprehensive understanding and practical skills in leveraging Cisco's assurance capabilities within enterprise environments.

Exam Details at a Glance

Before embarking on your study journey, it's essential to understand the logistics of the exam:

• Exam Code: 300-445 ENNA
• Exam Name: Cisco Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance
• Exam Price: $300 USD (Note: Cisco 300-445 exam cost may vary by region and additional taxes)
• Duration: 90 minutes
• Number of Questions: 55-65 questions
• Passing Score: Variable (approximately 750-850 out of 1000)

This exam is a concentration exam for the CCNP Enterprise certification track. Passing it demonstrates specialized knowledge in network assurance and is a step towards earning a broader professional-level certification if combined with the core ENCOR exam. The digital badge for the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance is a tangible recognition of your achievement.

Cisco ENNA Certification Pathway

The Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification signifies your ability to implement and manage network assurance solutions effectively. It demonstrates a focused expertise that is highly valued by organizations relying on Cisco infrastructure. This certification pathway empowers you to become a specialist in ensuring network performance and reliability across complex enterprise architectures.

To further test your knowledge and prepare for the actual exam, you can find sample questions and answers for the 300-445 ENNA exam to gauge your readiness.

Deep Dive into the 300-445 ENNA Syllabus

The Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam topics cover a wide array of concepts and practical skills crucial for implementing robust network assurance. Understanding the `Cisco Enterprise Network Assurance syllabus` is the first step in formulating an effective study plan. Here's a breakdown of the key domains and their weightage:

Platforms and Architecture - 20%

This section focuses on the foundational components and architectural considerations for network assurance. You'll need to understand the various platforms and their roles in data collection and analysis.

• Identify and describe Cisco assurance architectures and components.
• Explain the role of Cisco DNA Center in network assurance and automation.
• Understand assurance for traditional and SD-Access architectures.
• Describe the assurance capabilities within Cisco Catalyst Center.

Mastering this domain is key to understanding how different Cisco network assurance concepts integrate into a cohesive solution, laying the groundwork for effective troubleshooting enterprise networks Cisco challenges.

Data Collection Implementation - 25%

Effective assurance hinges on reliable data collection. This domain tests your ability to configure and verify various data collection methods across different Cisco devices.

• Implement and verify telemetry data collection methods (e.g., streaming telemetry, NetFlow/IPFIX).
• Configure and verify SNMP and syslog for monitoring and assurance.
• Implement packet capture and analysis techniques for in-depth troubleshooting.
• Understand and configure network device programmability for data extraction.

Proficiency here ensures you can gather the necessary information to perform comprehensive data analysis, a core aspect of network performance monitoring Cisco solutions.

Data Analysis - 30%

Once data is collected, the next crucial step is to analyze it to derive meaningful insights. This is the largest section of the exam, emphasizing your analytical skills.

• Analyze network device health and performance metrics (e.g., CPU, memory, interface utilization).
• Interpret application performance metrics and their impact on user experience.
• Troubleshoot network issues using collected assurance data (e.g., path analysis, historical data comparison).
• Utilize Cisco DNA Center assurance capabilities for root cause analysis and impact assessment.
• Perform baseline analysis and detect deviations for proactive problem identification.

This domain requires a deep understanding of how to translate raw telemetry and analytics for Cisco networks into actionable intelligence, enabling you to pinpoint and resolve issues efficiently. It directly ties into applying Cisco network assurance best practices.

Insights and Alerts - 25%

The final domain focuses on transforming analyzed data into actionable insights and configuring appropriate alerts to notify administrators of critical events.

• Configure and interpret alerts and notifications based on network performance and health thresholds.
• Generate custom reports and dashboards within Cisco DNA Center to visualize network assurance data.
• Implement and verify SD-Access assurance Cisco implementation functionalities, including policy compliance and fabric health.
• Utilize assurance insights for capacity planning and network optimization.

This section ensures you can not only identify problems but also communicate them effectively and leverage insights for continuous improvement and strategic planning.

Career Transformation with Cisco Network Assurance Certification

Earning the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification is more than just passing an exam; it's an investment in your professional future. The `Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance benefits` are profound, positioning you as a highly valuable asset in the IT industry.

Enhanced Marketability and Job Prospects

In a competitive job market, specialized skills stand out. Organizations are actively seeking professionals who can ensure the reliability and performance of their critical network infrastructure. Your expertise in Cisco network assurance, validated by this certification, makes you highly marketable for roles such as Network Engineer, Network Operations Specialist, Solutions Architect, and even Senior Network Administrator.

The demand for skilled network professionals continues to grow. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook for network and computer systems administrators is projected to grow faster than the average for all occupations, emphasizing the need for advanced skills in areas like network assurance.

Higher Earning Potential

Specialization often correlates with increased earning potential. Professionals with certifications like the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance are typically compensated at a higher rate due to their unique skill set and their ability to prevent costly network outages and performance issues. Your ability to optimize and maintain a reliable network directly contributes to an organization's bottom line, making you a significant asset.

Mastery of Critical Skills

Beyond the certification itself, the process of preparing for the 300-445 ENNA exam instills a deep understanding of `Cisco network assurance concepts` and best practices. You'll gain practical skills in:

• Designing and implementing robust assurance solutions.
• Leveraging advanced telemetry and analytics for Cisco networks.
• Proactively identifying and resolving network performance issues.
• Utilizing Cisco DNA Center for comprehensive network visibility.
• Improving network resilience and user experience.

These are not just theoretical skills; they are directly applicable to real-world scenarios, allowing you to drive tangible improvements in your organization's network operations.

Preparing for Success: Your 300-445 ENNA Study Plan

Successfully passing the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam requires a structured and dedicated approach. Here's a roadmap on `how to pass Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam` and maximize your chances of success.

Official Training and Resources

Cisco provides excellent official training to prepare for the exam. The recommended course is "Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (ENNA)." You can find details and enrollment options at Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance | ENNA. This course is specifically designed to cover all the `Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam topics` and provide hands-on experience.

Additionally, refer to the `Cisco 300-445 study guide` and the `Cisco ENNA exam blueprint` available on Cisco's official certification pages. These documents outline the exact objectives and knowledge domains you need to master.

Practice, Practice, Practice

One of the most effective ways to prepare is through practice. Utilize a `Cisco 300-445 ENNA practice test` to familiarize yourself with the exam format, question types, and time constraints. There are many resources offering `Cisco network assurance exam questions` that can help you gauge your understanding and identify areas for improvement.

• Lab Exercises: Hands-on experience with Cisco DNA Center and other assurance tools is invaluable. Set up a lab environment (physical or virtual) to configure telemetry, analyze data, and troubleshoot scenarios.
• Review Official Documentation: Dive deep into Cisco's technical documentation for DNA Center, SD-Access, and other relevant technologies.
• Study Groups: Collaborating with peers can provide different perspectives and help solidify your understanding of complex topics.

For a more detailed blueprint to 300-445 ENNA success, consider exploring a comprehensive guide on mastering Cisco 300-445 ENNA.

Implementing Network Assurance Best Practices

Beyond passing the exam, applying what you've learned in real-world scenarios is where your expertise truly shines. Implementing `Cisco network assurance best practices` transforms theoretical knowledge into tangible operational improvements.

Establishing Baselines and Performance Thresholds

A fundamental practice is to establish clear performance baselines for your network. This involves monitoring key metrics over time to understand what "normal" looks like. Once baselines are set, you can configure thresholds that trigger alerts when performance deviates significantly, enabling proactive `network performance monitoring Cisco solutions`.

Leveraging Telemetry and Analytics

Fully embrace streaming telemetry and advanced analytics for Cisco networks. Move away from traditional polling mechanisms where possible, opting for real-time data streams that provide granular insights. Utilize platforms like Cisco DNA Center to visualize this data, identify anomalies, and perform root cause analysis.

Automating Assurance Workflows

Automation plays a pivotal role in modern network assurance. Automate routine monitoring tasks, alert escalations, and even certain remediation actions. This not only reduces operational overhead but also improves the speed and accuracy of issue resolution, enhancing your ability to perform `troubleshooting enterprise networks Cisco` challenges.

Continuous Optimization and Learning

Network assurance is not a one-time implementation but an ongoing process. Regularly review your assurance policies, dashboards, and alerts. Use the insights gained from your assurance systems to continually optimize network design, configurations, and operational workflows. Stay updated with the latest `SD-Access assurance Cisco implementation` advancements and other Cisco technologies.

The Future of Network Assurance

As networks evolve, so too must assurance strategies. The proliferation of IoT, edge computing, and multi-cloud environments introduces new complexities and challenges. However, the foundational principles of `Cisco network assurance` remain critical, adapted to these new paradigms.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) into network operations is set to revolutionize assurance. AI-powered analytics can detect subtle anomalies, predict potential failures, and even suggest automated remediation steps with greater precision than ever before. Professionals certified in Cisco network assurance will be at the forefront of leveraging these advanced tools to build self-healing, self-optimizing networks.

Your expertise in `telemetry and analytics for Cisco networks`, coupled with an understanding of evolving architectures like intent-based networking, will ensure you remain relevant and highly valuable as the industry progresses.

Conclusion

Mastering Cisco network assurance and achieving the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification is a strategic move for any networking professional serious about career advancement. The Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam is your validated pathway to gaining the specialized skills needed to design, implement, and operate robust, high-performing enterprise networks.

By focusing on proactive monitoring, advanced analytics, and effective troubleshooting, you will not only secure your own professional growth but also contribute significantly to your organization's operational excellence. Begin your journey today by exploring the official training and preparing diligently. The demand for experts in Cisco network assurance is growing, and with this certification, you'll be perfectly positioned to meet that demand and elevate your career to new heights. For further insights into passing the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam, make sure to review this blueprint to Cisco 300-445 ENNA success.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam?

The Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam, "Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance," is a concentration exam that validates a candidate's ability to implement and assure enterprise networks using Cisco DNA Center and related assurance technologies. Passing it leads to the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification.

2. What are the main benefits of achieving the Cisco Certified Specialist Enterprise Network Assurance certification?

Key benefits include enhanced marketability and job prospects in network engineering and operations, higher earning potential due to specialized skills, and mastery of critical network assurance concepts and Cisco DNA Center capabilities. It positions you as an expert in maintaining network reliability and performance.

3. How much does the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam cost?

The Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam costs $300 USD. This price is subject to change and may vary depending on regional taxes or currency conversions.

4. What kind of topics are covered in the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam syllabus?

The syllabus covers Platforms and Architecture (20%), Data Collection Implementation (25%), Data Analysis (30%), and Insights and Alerts (25%). These topics collectively ensure a comprehensive understanding of designing and implementing Cisco network assurance solutions.

5. What are the best resources to prepare for the Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam?

The best resources include Cisco's official "Designing and Implementing Enterprise Network Assurance (ENNA)" training course, the official Cisco 300-445 ENNA exam blueprint, study guides, practice tests, and hands-on lab experience with Cisco DNA Center.

Continue reading

Cisco DNA Center Has a New Name and New Features

Cisco DNA Center is not only getting a name change to Cisco Catalyst Center, it also offers lots of new features, and add-ons in the API documentation. Let me tell about some of them.

Version selection menu

The first improvement I want to mention is the API documentation version selection drop down menu. You’ll find it in the upper left-hand corner of the page. When you navigate to the API documentation website, by default you land on the latest version of the documentation as you can see in the following image:

You can easily switch between different versions of the API documentation from that drop down menu. Older versions of the API will still be named and referenced as Cisco DNA Center while new and upcoming versions will reflect the new name, Cisco Catalyst Center.

Event catalog

The second addition to the documentation that I want to mention is the event catalog. We’ve had several requests from our customers and partners to have the event catalog for each version of Catalyst Center published and publicly available. I am happy to report that we have done just that. You can see in the following image a snippet of the event catalog that can be found under the Guides section of the documentation.

Not only is there a list of all the events generated by Catalyst Center, but for each event we have general information, tags, channels, model schema, and REST schema as you can see in the following images:

List of available reports

Another popular request was to have a list of available reports generated by Catalyst Center published and easily referenced in the documentation. Under the Guides section you can now also find the Reports link that contains a list of all available reports including the report name, description and supported formats. By clicking on the View Name link you can also see samples for each of the reports.

OpenAPI specification in JSON format

These are all nice extra features and add-ons. However, my favorite one must be the fact that you can now download the Catalyst Center OpenAPI specification in JSON format! This one has been a long time coming and I’m happy to announce that we finally have it. You can find the download link under the API Reference section.

Net Promoter Score

We have also enabled NPS (Net Promoter Score) on the Catalyst Center API documentation site. As you navigate the website, a window will pop up in the lower right-hand corner of the page asking you to rate our docs.

Your feedback is most welcome

Please do take time to give us feedback on the documentation and tell us what you liked or what we can improve on.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Spend Less Time Managing the Network, More Time Innovating with the Network

As networks evolve to keep up with the requirements of a distributed hybrid workforce and the need for new B2B and B2C cloud applications, an increasingly complex workload for IT is an inevitable byproduct. Remote workers, collaborative applications, and smart building IoT devices have all added management challenges to the hybrid workplace network. IT teams, already responsible for network device onboarding, availability, and resilience, are taking on AIOps responsibilities for ensuring high application experience. They’re also picking up SecOps oversight for monitoring various endpoints for spoofing threats and malware intrusions. With this growing load of responsibilities, how is IT going to scale and not break?

The answer lies in the past as well as in the future. Twenty years ago, Cisco developed one of the first machine-learning toolsets to analyze vast quantities of telemetry collected from switches, routers, and access points to assist in technical problem resolution. The system, created by the Cisco Advanced Services team, was called Network Profile (NP). Built on top of one of the first network-specific data lakes, NP helped customers understand the current state of their networks and enabled Cisco technicians to quickly troubleshoot network issues.

Since then, Cisco has worked diligently to augment the intelligence inherent in the network. Today, the continuously evolving NP is an integral part of the Cisco CX Cloud and is tightly integrated with Cisco DNA Center. Cisco DNA Center Analytics, like NP and Site Analytics, and automations like the Machine Reasoning Engine, make network pros more effective by offloading repetitive, complex, and time-sensitive tasks that do not directly add new value to the organization.

A key value of applying Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence engines in conjunction with volumes of operational telemetry is to do simple things simply well and thus enable less experienced NetOps technicians to handle a broader range of maintenance tasks.

Automating Compliance Checks

A great example of this intelligent automation lies in the area of compliance. Cisco DNA Center automates configuration checks of settings—such as certificates and SNMP—across hundreds of controllers. What is usually a time-consuming and tedious task is greatly simplified. Guided automations recommend fixes that IT can quickly implement with a single click. And since this scanning is always on, in real-time, technicians don’t need to remember to set aside time every week to run a network compliance scan. That’s simplification!

Simplifying Device Maintenance

Similarly, when managing thousands of networking devices across campuses, branches, and remote offices, what IT doesn’t know about lingering security issues forces technicians to be reactive rather than proactive. It takes time and expertise to keep up with PSIRT vulnerabilities and patches to network software on thousands of access points and switches.

Cisco DNA Center provides preventative measures for device maintenance. By connecting Cisco DNA Center to Cisco CX Cloud, fixes for known PSIRTs and software patches that IT can identify by existing TAC cases are shared automatically through a Cisco DNA Center dashboard with IT teams operating with relevant infrastructures. The granularity of these notifications extends from controller OS images down to specific device configurations, so only features in use are included in notifications. As a result, instead of discovering that an issue causes a network problem with a known resolution, Cisco DNA Center proactively recommends an appropriate resolution even before a problem occurs. And if a configuration is not using any of the affected features, the controllers will bypass installing unnecessary patches. The result is complexity simplified.

Moving From Reactive to Preventative

Predictive analytics with DNA Center’s Trends and Insights dashboard is an AIOps tool for monitoring the network for changes and anomalies that, while not causing an immediate issue, could become a problem in the future. For example, early warning alerts for events like a gradual increase in wireless interference, a sudden increase in the number of devices connected to the same Access Point, or an IoT device that is pulling 20% more power from a switch can help IT take preventative actions before issues impact workforce performance or network availability. By identifying the signs of looming network problems, Cisco DNA Center keeps NetOps teams ahead of issues instead of constantly chasing them—the empowerment of being proactive versus reactive.

Figure 1. Out of complexity, simplicity with Cisco DNA Center AI/ML and Cisco Knowledgebase.

Optimizing the Network Fabric for Application Performance

Reducing complexity with AI/ML processes that assist IT in optimizing the network enables the best application experience for the workforce and customers. Increasingly this is even more critical as applications are literally everywhere, and so are the people who rely on them to keep operations rolling and interact with the business. Gaining visibility into application usage everywhere in the distributed network enables IT to prioritize network resources for business-critical applications and deprioritize irrelevant business applications.

Take, for example, the fast-growing use of collaboration applications incorporating audio and video, screen sharing, recording, and translation. Cisco DNA Center AIOps features enable IT to proactively manage Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx performance. The Applications Dashboard in Cisco DNA Center displays the audio, video, and application share quality of experience for individual or team sessions for both platforms, enabling IT to quickly determine if a problem is inside or outside the network. The dashboard also provides remediation suggestions, such as increasing Wi-Fi coverage in specific areas—before operations are affected. Suppose the problem is outside the enterprise network. In that case, IT can activate Cisco ThousandEyes WAN Insights directly from the dashboard to determine the internet bottleneck or provider causing the issue, along with alternate routing suggestions to fix the performance degradation.

Simplify Networks with a Foundation of Automation and Analytics

We are weaving AI and ML capabilities throughout Cisco software, controllers, and network fabrics to simplify the management of complex networks, including innovations like AI Network Analytics, Machine Reasoning Engine Workflows, Networking Chatbots, AI Spoofing Detection, Group-Based Policy Analytics, and Trust Analytics. These solutions assist IT in directing talent to more innovative projects that add value to the organization, such as securing the remote workforce, managing multi-cloud applications, and implementing a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) for holistic security across the enterprise.

Cisco DNA Center enables IT to hide complexity and operate massive networks at scale, securely, and with agility. The value of AI/ML in Cisco DNA Center is in the ability of the network to enable an excellent experience for IT personas, which in turn provides an optimal experience for the workforce, along with trust in knowing the network is always watching and self-adjusting.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Cisco Catalyst IE3100 Rugged Series switches: Big benefits, small footprint

Now making its entrance is our latest and most compact industrial managed Ethernet switch, the Catalyst IE3100 Rugged Series. First announced in February 2023, these switches are now shipping and are ready to power your industrial networks, especially in space-constrained deployments, where every inch matters.

Part of a powerhouse family

The Catalyst IE3100 is the latest addition to our comprehensive family of industrial switches—a family that includes switches in various form factors, such as rack-mount, DIN rail mount, IP67 rated, and embedded. These ruggedized switches can resist extreme temperatures, shocks, vibration, and humidity. They are specifically developed for industrial IoT networks and deliver deterministic and extremely fast resiliency for uninterrupted operations.

The Catalyst IE3100 complements the Catalyst IE3x00 family of switches that include the Catalyst IE3200, IE3300, and IE3400. The Catalyst IE3x00 family of switches are DIN rail-mounted and run the same modern IOS-XE operating system that powers our Catalyst 9000 Series enterprise switches. This family features Gigabit Ethernet copper and fiber interfaces, fast convergence in case of failure, and additional enhanced features such as Layer 2 NAT, which makes them a popular choice among many verticals such as manufacturing, roadways, railways, utilities, ports and terminals, mining, and oil and gas.

Stand-out features

In addition to combining the power of Cisco IOS XE with built-in security and Cisco DNA Center for simplified management, the Catalyst IE3100 allows customers to use existing IT investments and knowledge while offering targeted functionality expected by industrial IoT customers, such as:

1. Compact size. Reduce engineering efforts and cost when designing cabinets and other deployment considerations.

2. Fully managed. Administer with Cisco DNA Center for streamlined network management and increased network and device visibility while reducing downtime for routine maintenance.

3. Extend IT practices into your industrial network with IOS XE built-in security, and seamlessly integrate into Cisco security solutions with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), Secure Network Analytics (Stealthwatch), and SecureX. Use 802.1x-based authentication, downloadable ACL lists, and dynamic VLAN assignments for network segmentation to reduce cybersecurity risk.

4. OT mindset. Integrate effortlessly into your industrial network with the features you need, such as L2 NAT for machine builders, IT and OT redundancy protocols, support for EtherNet/IP (CIP), Modbus, PROFINET, SCADA, and more.

5. Flexible deployments.Take advantage of 6, 10, or 20 Gigabit Ethernet ports with two Gigabit SFP uplink ports or two Gigabit combo uplink ports.

Use cases

Too often, unmanaged switches find their way into industrial networks, but such equipment falls short in delivering what today’s enterprises need. Unmanaged switches cannot enforce policies or prioritize or segment traffic, their open ports create security risks, and network monitoring proves difficult. In short, they cannot deliver what is needed.

Being fully managed, the Catalyst IE3100 is in control of the endpoints that get connected, how the data is prioritized for quality of service (QoS), and how the traffic is separated by VLANs. Therefore, it is a strong alternative over unmanaged switches. It is especially beneficial for machine builders who make complex, custom-built turnkey solutions, such as robots and conveyor belts, which have connected devices within their assemblies. The end users will appreciate that these solutions can seamlessly fit within their networks with improved control and an enhanced security posture.

The Catalyst IE3100 is an excellent choice for deployments in confined spaces. Space is a common consideration in cabinets that house several pieces of control equipment in addition to networking, such as those used at roadway intersections, at manufacturing plants, next to railroad tracks, and in solar and wind farms. The ability to use smaller enclosures helps to reduce engineering effort and cost.

Planning space-constrained deployments in industrial settings no longer requires a compromise between size, manageability, and security. With the Cisco Catalyst IE3100 Rugged Series Switches, OT teams can connect more devices, secure them with confidence, and manage them with limitless agility.

The Catalyst IE3100 is the most compact switch in our managed Industrial Ethernet portfolio for your space-constrained use cases.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Good Friends Say Goodbye as Prime Infrastructure Sunsets

It is with great gratitude and appreciation that we wave goodbye to Cisco Prime Infrastructure. Prime Infrastructure has been helping customers manage their enterprise networks for more than a decade. The first Prime Infrastructure release was in 2011, and the latest and last version of Prime Infrastructure 3.10 was released in September of 2021. On March 31, 2023, Cisco is announcing the End of Life (EoL) for Prime Infrastructure.

Figure 1 – Prime Infrastructure EoL timeline

Cisco Prime Infrastructure provided comprehensive management of wired/wireless access, campus, and branch networks, as well as rich visibility into end-user connection and assurance of application performance. Prime Infrastructure was the first enterprise product to combine the network management of both wired and wireless under a single management application. Cisco Prime Infrastructure also set and raised an industry bar for compliance and reporting functions for network management systems (NMS).

The rise of Intent-Based Networking (IBN), Software Defined Networking (SDN), automation, AI/ML (AIOps), and the need for visibility into user experience and application experience has given rise to Cisco DNA Center.

Cisco DNA Center

Cisco DNA Center is the next-generation platform and continues to raise the bar on what network management should be. Cisco DNA Center provides the network management capabilities previously delivered by Prime Infrastructure but delivers a wide range of new and additional capabilities:

Figure 2 – Cisco DNA Center Pillars

Complete network management system: Cisco DNA Center provides a full range of network visibility and monitoring capabilities complete with discovery, hierarchy, topology, and a comprehensive reporting engine. Additionally, Cisco DNA Center provides a comprehensive collection of “360 views” offering insightful perspectives into overall network health, device health, user health, and application health.

AI/ML analytics platform: Cisco DNA Center leverages Cisco’s industry-leading AI network analytics engine, which brings together machine learning, clustering, machine reasoning, visual analytics, and decades of Cisco networking expertise. This results in the ability to deliver Dynamic Baselining, Personalized Anomaly Detection, Trends, Insights, Comparative Analytics, and Predictive Analytics.  This power combination puts Cisco DNA Center at the forefront of AIOps with unparalleled assurance capabilities.

Automation and Orchestration engine: Cisco DNA Center offers many automation workflows from device upgrades to configuration compliance, automated device onboarding, and troubleshooting. With Cisco DNA Center automation, customers have been able to gain efficiency, consistency, and scalability.

Software Defined Network (SDN): Cisco DNA center enables customers to deploy the Software Defined Access (SDA) with a fabric-based solution enabling a complete zero trust model with macro or micro-segmentation and eliminating many Layer2 limitations and dependencies often seen in legacy networks.

Endpoint identification engine, Cisco DNA Center provides advanced capabilities to identify and profile endpoints on the network providing next-generation endpoint visibility with AI-driven analytics and network-driven deep packet inspection.

Migration Options

Prime Infrastructure customers have two migration paths:

◉ Customer Managed Solution with Cisco DNA Center

◉ Cloud SaaS Managed solution with the Cisco Meraki Dashboard

Figure 3 – Cisco Network Management Options

For Prime Infrastructure customers who have not migrated to Cisco DNA Center, now is the time to start your migration to the new platform. Cisco provides the ability to run Cisco DNA Center in 3 form factors:

◉ Physical Appliance

◉ Virtual Appliance hosted on AWS public cloud

◉ Virtual Appliance hosted on a private cloud using VMware/ESXi

Migration Tools

Cisco has made available several tools to ease the migration process:

PDART – Prime to DNA Assessment Readiness Tool, you can run this tool on your Prime Infrastructure to check your migration readiness based on your specific Prime utilization.

Figure 4 – Cisco PDART Report Example

PDMT – Prime to DNA Migration Tool, this tool will automate the migration process by migrating your hierarchy, devices, maps, AP locations, and various other data elements to accelerate the migration from Prime to Cisco DNA Center and enable the customers to begin leveraging the value and advanced capabilities of Cisco DNA Center quickly.

Migration Services

Cisco offers a range of services to assist customers with the Prime Infrastructure to Cisco DNA migration; for more information about migration services, please contact your account team.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Designing and Deploying Cisco AI Spoofing Detection – Part 2

AI Spoofing Detection Architecture and Deployment

Our previous blog post, Designing and Deploying Cisco AI Spoofing Detection, Part 1: From Device to Behavioral Model, introduced a hybrid cloud/on-premises service that detects spoofing attacks using behavioral traffic models of endpoints. In that post, we discussed the motivation and the need for this service and the scope of its operation. We then provided an overview of our Machine Learning development and maintenance process. This post will detail the global architecture of Cisco AISD, the mode of operation, and how IT incorporates the results into its security workflow.

Since Cisco AISD is a security product, minimizing detection delay is of significant importance. With that in mind, several infrastructure choices were designed into the service. Most Cisco AI Analytics services use Spark as a processing engine. However, in Cisco AISD, we use an AWS Lambda function instead of Spark because the warmup time of a Lambda function is typically shorter, enabling a quicker generation of results and, therefore a shorter detection delay. While this design choice reduces the computational capacity of the process, that has not been a problem thanks to a custom-made caching strategy that reduces processing to only new data on each Lambda execution.

Global AI Spoofing Detection Architecture Overview

Cisco AISD is deployed on a Cisco DNA Center network controller using a hybrid architecture of an on-premises controller tethered to a cloud service. The service consists of on-premises processes as well as cloud-based components.

The on-premises components on the Cisco DNA Center controller perform several vital functions. On the outbound data path, the service continually receives and processes raw data captured from network devices, anonymizes customer PII, and exports it to cloud processes over a secure channel. On the inbound data path, it receives any new endpoint spoofing alerts generated by the Machine Learning algorithms in the cloud, deanonymizes any relevant customer PII, and triggers any Changes of Authorization (CoA) via Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) on affected endpoints.

The cloud components perform several key functions focused primarily on processing the high volume data flowing from all on-premises deployments and running Machine Learning inference.  In particular, the evaluation and detection mechanism has three steps:

1. Apache Airflow is the underlying orchestrator and scheduler to initiate compute functions. An Airflow DAG frequently enqueues computation requests for each active customer to a queuing service.

2. As each computation request is dequeued, a corresponding serverless compute function is invoked. Using serverless functions enables us to control compute costs at scale. This is a highly efficient multi-step, compute-intensive, short-running function that performs an ETL step by reading raw anonymized customer data from data buckets and transforming them into a set of input feature vectors to be used for inference by our Machine Learning models for spoof detection. This compute function leverages some of cloud providers’ common Function as a Service architecture.

3. This function then also performs the model inference step on the feature vectors produced in the previous step, ultimately leading to the detection of spoofing attempts if they are present. If a spoof attempt is detected, the details of the finding are pushed to a database that is queried by the on-premises components of Cisco DNA Center and finally presented to administrators for action.

Figure 1: Schematic view of Cisco AISD cloud and on-premises components.

Figure 1 captures a high-level view of the Cisco AISD components. Two components, in particular, are central to the cloud inferencing functionality: the Scheduler and the serverless functions.

The Scheduler is an Airflow Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) responsible for triggering the serverless function executions on active Cisco AISD customer data. The DAG runs at high-frequency intervals pushing events into a queue and triggering the inference function executions. The DAG executions prepare all the metadata for the compute function. This includes determining customers with active flows, grouping compute batches based on telemetry volume, optimizing the compute process, etc. The inferencing function performs ETL operations, model inference, detection, and storage of spoofing alerts if any. This compute-intensive process implements much of the intelligence for spoof detection. As our ML models get retrained regularly, this architecture enables the quick rollout—or rollback if needed—of updated models without any change or impact on the service.

The inference function executions have a stable average runtime of approximately 9 seconds, as shown in Figure 2, which, as stipulated in the design, does not introduce any significant delay in detecting spoofing attempts.

Figure 2: Average lambda execution time in milliseconds for all Cisco AISD active customers between Jan 23rd and Jan 30th

Cisco AI Spoofing Detection in Action

In this blog post series, we described the internal design principles and processes of the Cisco AI Spoofing Detection service. However, from a network operator’s point of view, all these internals are entirely transparent. To start using the hybrid on-premises/cloud-based spoofing detection system, Cisco DNA Center Admins need to enable the corresponding service and cloud data export in Cisco DNA Center System Settings for AI Analytics, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Enabling Cisco AI Spoofing Detection is very simple in Cisco DNA Center.

Once enabled, the on-prem component in the Cisco DNA Center starts to export relevant data to the cloud that hosts the spoof detection service. The cloud components automatically start the process for scheduling the model inference function runs, evaluating the ML spoofing detection models against incoming traffic, and raising alerts when spoofing attempts on a customer endpoint are detected. When the system detects spoofing, the Cisco DNA Center in the customer’s network receives an alert with information. An example of such a detection is shown in Figure 4. In the Cisco DNA Center console, the network operator can set options to execute pre-defined containment actions for the endpoints marked as spoofed: shut down the port, flap the port, or re-authenticate the port from memory.

Figure 4: Example of alert from an endpoint that was initially classified as a printer.

Protecting the Network from Spoofing Attacks with Cisco DNA Center

Cisco AI Spoofing Detection is one of the newest security benefits provided to Cisco DNA Center operators with a Cisco DNA Advantage license. To simplify managing complex networks, AI and ML capabilities are being woven throughout the Cisco network management ecosystem of controllers and network fabrics. Along with the new Cisco AISD, Cisco AI Network Analytics, Machine Reasoning Engine Workflows, Networking Chatbots, Group-Based Policy Analytics, and Trust Analytics are additional features that work together to simplify management and protect network endpoints.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Designing and Deploying Cisco AI Spoofing Detection – Part 1

The network faces new security threats every day. Adversaries are constantly evolving and using increasingly novel mechanisms to breach corporate networks and hold intellectual property hostage. Breaches and security incidents that make the headlines are usually preceded by considerable recceing by the perpetrators. During this phase, typically one or several compromised endpoints in the network are used to observe traffic patterns, discover services, determine connectivity, and gather information for further exploit.

Compromised endpoints are legitimately part of the network but are typically devices that do not have a healthy cycle of security patches, such as IoT controllers, printers, or custom-built hardware running custom firmware or an off-the-shelf operating system that has been stripped down to run on minimal hardware resources. From a security perspective, the challenge is to detect when a compromise of these devices has taken place, even if no malicious activity is in progress.

In the first part of this two-part blog series, we discuss some of the methods by which compromised endpoints can get access to restricted segments of the network and how Cisco AI Spoofing Detection is designed used to detect such endpoints by modeling and monitoring their behavior.

Part 1: From Device to Behavioral Model

One of the ways modern network access control systems allow endpoints into the network is by analyzing identity signatures generated by the endpoints. Unfortunately, a well-crafted identity signature generated from a compromised endpoint can effectively spoof the endpoint to elevate its privileges, allowing it access to previously unauthorized segments of the network and sensitive resources. This behavior can easily slip detection as it’s within the normal operating parameters of Network Access Control (NAC) systems and endpoint behavior. Generally, these identity signatures are captured through declarative probes that contain endpoint-specific parameters (e.g., OUI, CDP, HTTP, User-Agent). A combination of these probes is then used to associate an identity with endpoints.

Any probe that can be controlled (i.e., declared) by an endpoint is subject to being spoofed. Since, in some environments, the endpoint type is used to assign access rights and privileges, this type of spoofing attempt can lead to critical security risks. For example, if a compromised endpoint can be made to look like a printer by crafting the probes it generates, then it can get access to the printer network/VLAN with access to print servers that in turn could open the network to the endpoint via lateral movements.

There are three common ways in which an endpoint on the network can get privileged access to restricted segments of network:

1. MAC spoofing: an attacker impersonates a specific endpoint to obtain the same privileges.

2. Probe spoofing: an attacker forges specific packets to impersonate a given endpoint type.

3. Malware: a legitimate endpoint is infected with a virus, trojan, or other types of malware that allows an attacker to leverage the permissions of the endpoint to access restricted systems.

Cisco AI Spoofing Detection (AISD) focuses primarily on the detection of endpoints employing probe spoofing, most instances of MAC spoofing, and some cases of Malware infection. Contrary to the traditional rule-based systems for spoofing detection, Cisco AISD relies on behavioral models to detect endpoints that do not behave as the type of device they claim to be. These behavioral models are built and trained on anonymized data from hundreds of thousands of endpoints deployed in multiple customer networks. This Machine Learning-based, data-driven approach enables Cisco AISD to build models that capture the full gamut of behavior of many device types in various environments.

Figure 1: Types of spoofing. AISD focuses primarily on probe spoofing and some instances of MAC spoofing.

Creating Benchmark Datasets

As with any AI-based approach, Cisco AISD relies on large volumes of data for a benchmark dataset to train behavioral models. Of course, as networks add endpoints, the benchmark dataset changes over time. New models are built iteratively using the latest datasets. Cisco AISD datasets for models come from two sources.

◉ Cisco AI Endpoint Analytics (AIEA) data lake. This data is sourced from Cisco DNA Center with Cisco AI Endpoint Analytics and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and stored in a cloud database. The AIEA data lake consists of a multitude of endpoint information from each customer network. Any personally identifiable information (PII) or other identifiers such as IP and MAC addresses—are encrypted at the source before it is sent to the cloud. This is a novel mechanism used by Cisco in a hybrid cloud tethered controller architecture, where the encryption keys are stored at each customer’s controller.

◉ Cisco AISD Attack data lake contains Cisco-generated data consisting of probe and MAC spoofing attack scenarios.

To create a benchmark dataset that captures endpoint behaviors under both normal and attack scenarios, data from both data lakes are mixed, combining NetFlow records and endpoint classifications (EPCL). We use the EPCL data lake to categorize the NetFlow records into flows per logical class. A logical class encompasses device types in terms of functionality, e.g., IP Phones, Printers, IP Cameras, etc. Data for each logical class are split into train, validation, and test sets. We use the train split for model training and the validation split for parameter tuning and model selection. We use test splits to evaluate the trained models and estimate their generalization capabilities to previously unseen data.

Benchmark datasets are versioned, tagged, and logged using Comet, a Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) and experiment tracking platform that Cisco development leverages for several AI/ML solutions. Benchmark Datasets are refreshed regularly to ensure that new models are trained and evaluated on the most recent variability in customers’ networks.

Figure 2: Benchmark Dataset and Data Split Creation

Model Development and Monitoring

In the model development phase, we use the latest benchmark dataset to build behavioral models for logical classes. Customer sites use the trained models. All training and evaluation experiments are logged in Comet along with the hyper-parameters and produced models. This ensures experiment reproducibility and model traceability and enables audit and eventual governance of model creation. During the development phase, multiple Machine Learning scientists work on different model architectures, producing a set of results that are collectively compared in order to choose the best model. Then, for each logical class, the best models are versioned and added to a Model Registry. With all the experiments and models gathered in one location, we can easily compare the performance of the different models and monitor the evolution of the performance of released models per development phase.

The Model Registry is an integral part of our model deployment process. Inside the Model Registry, models are organized per logical class of devices and versioned, enabling us to keep track of the complete development cycle—from benchmark dataset used, hyper-parameters chosen, trained parameters, obtained results, and code used for training. The models are deployed in AWS (Amazon Web Services) where the inferencing takes place. We will discuss this process in our next blog post, so stay tuned.

Production models are closely monitored. If the performance of the models starts degrading—for example, they start generating too many false alerts—a new development phase is triggered. That means that we construct a new benchmark dataset with the latest customer data and re-train and test the models. In parallel, we also revisit the investigation of different model architectures.

Figure 3: Cisco AI Spoofing Detection Model Lifecycle

Next Up: Taking Behavioral Models to Production in Cisco AI Spoofing Detection

In this post, we’ve covered the initial design process for using AI to build device behavioral models using endpoint flow and classification data from customer networks. In part 2 “Taking Behavioral Models to Production in Cisco AI Spoofing Detection” we will describe the overall architecture and deployment of our models in the cloud for monitoring and detecting spoofing attempts.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

We’ve Doubled the Number of Cisco DNA Center Reservable Sandboxes

The Cisco DNA Center sandboxes have always been in high demand. For a while now we have had two always-on and two reservable sandboxes for Cisco DNA Center. With each of these sandboxes requiring at least one Cisco DNA Center appliance and several Catalyst 9000 switches, it’s easy to see why they were some of the most expensive sandboxes we have. (Hence, the limited number.) Expensive not only because of the hardware appliance and physical Catalyst 9000 switches, but also from a rack footprint, power, and cooling perspective.

Fully test all the features of the Cisco DNA Center platform including building SDA fabrics

Taking advantage of some virtualization secret sauce and holiday magic, the sandbox team has done a tremendous job and they have launched 4 Cisco DNA Center reservable sandboxes. Yes, you’ve read that right! We have doubled the number of Cisco DNA Center reservable sandboxes! And all 4 of them are running the latest version of code 2.3.3.5 as of the writing of this blog and have a Cisco ISE server so you can fully test all the features of the Cisco DNA Center platform including building SDA fabrics. There are two CoreOS virtual machines attached to the access switches for traffic generation and client troubleshooting. We’ve also included a CentOS DevBox that provides a developer environment with Python, virtual environment, Ansible and other tools already preinstalled.

Topology of the new reservable sandboxes

Test and develop your applications and integrations

The two always on sandboxes are still there, available at all times. They will also be upgraded to 2.3.3.5 in January, 2023. So, you now have 6 Cisco DNA Center sandboxes available for you to test and develop your own applications and integrations!

Next year will be an even bigger year for Cisco DNA Center sandboxes with the team looking at migrating our current environments to a fully virtual setup taking advantage of the recently announced Cisco DNA Center virtual appliance. This should allow us to better scale our Cisco DNA Center environments and provide even more sandboxes to you, our community.

No cost to you

If you want to discover Cisco DNA Center, explore the REST API interface it provides, or develop your first application or integration using Cisco DNA Center, these sandboxes provided at no cost to you are an invaluable resource!

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading