5 Acquisition Strategies to Support CIOs Keeping Pace with Innovation

The pace of new technology adoption and innovation to help prevent future disruption while remaining competitive has accelerated beyond all expectations. When the global pandemic first hit, businesses scrambled to get their workforce and operations back online. What would have taken months, suddenly had to happen instantly.

More Info: 300-415: Implementing Cisco SD-WAN Solutions (ENSDWI)

Now, as CIOs continue to drive transformation, there are several ways to get access to the technology needed to recover and grow without having to break your budget.

1. Don’t own it

Pay to use has never been a more attractive model than it is today. With a large proportion of employees in many industries expected to work remotely for the foreseeable future under a hybrid workplace model, the number of office branches is likely to increase. You will need to upgrade your infrastructure so that it can be scaled quickly to support a user experience that keeps employees productive and secure.

Without having to compromise on your priorities, there are options that allow your business to use budget effectively as you plan your recovery. IT-as-a-Service allows businesses to get the technology needed with no upfront costs, and they can pay over time as they use it.  Entire infrastructure solutions can be implemented with supporting technology, software and tools—all paid for using subscription-type models. Not only does this alleviate some of the budgetary pressure, but it also lends itself to an asset-light strategy that many businesses are now striving for.

2. Justifying OpEx over CapEx

As the CIO, you’re trying to lead your organization through digital transformation while making it as painless as possible. With many industries continuing to lean heavily on finance to underpin pandemic related shortfalls in revenue, justifying any CapEx can seem impossible. But, by moving technology costs from CapEx to OpEx you avoid large initial investments, enabling you to shift budget priorities and support key transformation projects. IT financing can simplify accounting by rolling all your technology needs into regular payments, making it easier to track against budgets and allow the business to follow market trends, upscale to evolve, and increase competitiveness.

3. Go green and get more for your money

You can extend available budget and shrink your company’s carbon footprint by using certified remanufactured equipment. This allows you to access equipment at a more competitive price while still receiving the same warranties and product support. In addition, by financing this equipment you can upgrade when you need to and offset the cost against future revenue.

4. Begin with the end in sight. Your CFO will thank you!

Managing technology can be complicated, particularly as we all look to return to some semblance of normal. Creating a lifecycle management plan for the technology needed at this time can help avoid a future of depreciating assets, while also helping you stay ahead with the latest innovations. IT budget planning becomes easier, and you can run your businesses more efficiently with up-to-date infrastructure and the latest software solutions. This helps align OpEx payments with the benefits gained from refresh lifecycles, while managing cash flow and budget needed to further grow your business, as well as removing depreciating assets from your CFO’s balance sheet.

5. True up, true forward. Take the guesswork out of unpredictable usage

As your business evolves and you update your infrastructure to enable the best collaboration and customer experience to remain productive, effective acquisition of the right technology can help you meet your business goals and grow. Forecasting user uptake of new technology is hard enough with all the proper pilots in place, but when new tools are services are stood up in a hurry, predicting capacity can be a huge gamble. However, access to as-a-service, subscription-like models or spreading the cost of your solutions over time allows you to focus on your other priorities and fund other investments.

Cisco is here to support you as you expedite your digital transformation. Along with Cisco Capital, we can help you determine not only what to buy but also how to buy it to match your business requirements and budget strategy. Whatever your plans are, we’re here to meet you where you are.

Source: cisco.com

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Under Pressure to Secure Your Enterprise? Predict More to Prevent More

Cybersecurity is a top priority for any organization conducting business over the Internet. Protecting your assets encompasses an ever-expanding digital landscape. Any data breach can have a devastating impact on the finances and brand equity of an organization. It’s why cybersecurity is treated as a business risk, rather than merely an IT issue. The importance of security is nothing new, but the global pandemic has made it even more critical.

Rise in Remote Access Authentication

Many of the new security challenges stem from the rapid increase in remote work that occurred almost overnight last year with the global rollout of stay-at-home orders. According to data from Cisco DUO, more organizations across all industries have enabled their employees to work from home, and there’s every indication this could continue for an extended time. Between February and April of 2020, we saw a 60% increase in remote access authentication — a percentage that has held remarkably steady ever since.

For IT Ops, a key challenge was ensuring their business employees could securely access the tools and resources they needed to do their jobs, seamlessly and with no additional friction. At the same time, organizations have had to protect critical information and minimize risk, all while accommodating myriad types of users and devices using unsecured networks. In order to accomplish the above, having visibility and insights into remote work patterns is a must, allowing SecOps and NetOps teams to authenticate and secure enterprise traffic through zero-trust solutions and multi-factor authentication.

Identifying Cyberthreat Patterns

In addition to the expansion of the attack surface due to the shift to remote work, cyber-criminals evolved their attacks to feed on people’s fears around the pandemic. DNS traffic analysis by Cisco Umbrella revealed some startling findings for the first nine months of 2020. For example, among our Umbrella DNS customers:

◉ 91% saw a domain linked to malware

◉ 68% saw a domain linked to cryptomining

◉ 85% saw a domain linked to phishing

◉ 63% saw a domain linked to trojans

In fact, since 2019, trojans and phishing have traded spots in threat ranking. In 2019, trojans were the number two threat at 59%, while phishing was number four with 46% impacted. Over the past year, phishing has risen by nearly 40% in large part due to malicious actors preying on people’s fears about the virus.

If IT teams are to scale and stay ahead of the bad actors in this evolving landscape of cyberthreats, they must be able to proactively monitor and identify malicious traffic and its patterns. It is vastly better to predict and prevent cyberattacks than to try to undo the damage caused by data breaches after the fact.

Threat Targets by Industry

Shifts in the distribution of threat traffic across different business markets since 2019 offer further insight into how to secure your enterprise. In particular, managed service providers (MSPs) have now surpassed financial services as the most impacted markets. In fact, U.S. government agencies have issued recent warnings about the heightened risk of attacks by state actors on MSPs.

Why this jump in MSP threat traffic? MSPs are attractive targets because, unless an MSP has effectively secured its own environment, it is vulnerable to attack by malicious actors who can then hijack remote monitoring management to go after the MSP’s clients. These customers are then at higher risk than the MSP itself. (By contrast, higher education traffic has dropped considerably in the ranking of impacted markets over the past year — from the top spot to the number six spot — most likely due to students being unable to attend classes in person.)

The rise in malware using sophisticated hiding and evasion techniques has made cyber defense teams’ jobs that much harder. In order to secure your data and your enterprise, manual monitoring and intervention is no longer a viable solution. Today’s cyber defenders must have visibility across applications, networks, and devices, along with the ability to leverage machine speed and predictive intelligence to deliver scalable, adaptable protection.

Source: cisco.com

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Cisco Digital Network Architecture – An Overview of the Architecture Tools and Vision

At one of the projects that I’m currently working on, confusion was rising around the terms Cisco DNA, DNA Center and the implementation of Cisco DNA Center. It didn’t take me much effort to clear up the confusion but it does provide the need for an explanation on Cisco DNA, DNA Center, Software-Defined Access, Network Function Virtualization, Analytics, Automation and Smart Networks.

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Cisco CCNA Cyber Ops Scholarship: The Ins and Outs!

Cisco had developed a new certification in order to reduce the global cybersecurity skills gap that has been reported throughout various sources. This certification is called the CCNA Cyber Ops and it is along the lines of what a Security Analyst in a Security Operations Center (SOC) does. There are two exams associated with this certification: the SECFND 210-250 and the SECOPS 210-255. Cisco introduced the Global Cybersecurity Scholarship program where they invest $10 million into the program to increase the talent pool with cybersecurity proficiency.

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