Saturday, 11 September 2021

Introducing Success Track for Data Center Network

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The pace of digital transformation has accelerated. In the past year and a half, business models have changed, and there is a need for enterprises to quickly improve the time taken to launch new products or services. The economic uncertainty has forced enterprises to reduce their overall spending and focus more on improving their operational efficiencies. As the pandemic has changed the way the world does business, organizations have been quick to pivot to digital mediums, as their survival depends on it. The results of a Gartner survey published in November 2020, highlights this rapid shift. 76% of CIOs reported increased demand for new digital products and services and 83% expected that to increase further in 2021, according to the Gartner CIO Agenda 2021.

Today, more than ever, IT operations are being asked to manage complex IT infrastructure. This when coupled with rising volumes of data, makes the task of IT teams more difficult to manage today’s dynamic, constantly changing data center environments. Automation is clearly the need of the hour and automation enabled by AI will play a huge role. Hyperscalers are leading the way in using AI for IT operations and are increasingly setting the trend that will see AI being embedded in every component of IT. Powered by AI, hyperscalers are quickly defining the future of IT– from self-healing infrastructure to databases that can recover quickly in the event of a failure or networks that can automatically configure and re-configure without any human intervention.

Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a software-defined networking (SDN) solution designed for data centers. Cisco ACI allows network infrastructure to be defined based upon network policies and facilitates automated network provisioning – simplifying, optimizing, and accelerating the application deployment lifecycle.

To minimize the effort of managing your data center networks, Cisco has created Success Track for Data Center Network, a new innovative service offering. We want to help you simplify and remove roadblocks. Success Tracks provides coaching and insights at every step of your lifecycle journey.

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Success Track for Data Center Network provides a one stop digital platform called CX Cloud.

The CX Cloud is your digital connection to access Cisco specialists and customized resources to help you simplify solution adoption and resolve issues faster. This is a new way of engaging with us, bringing together connected services—expertise, insights, learning, and support all in one place with a personalized, use-case driven solutions approach.

CX Cloud gives you contextual guidance for three data center networking (ACI) use cases: Network provisioning and operations, Network automation and programmability and Distributed networking.

The number one issue that we have heard about is that most next generation data centers (based on SDN) are complex and difficult to deploy. All three Success Track use cases will help simplify your network management and operations so you can serve the business more efficiently.

Take network provisioning and operations for example. A box by box, element by element management approach does not scale nor give the confidence for consistency required in today’s fast moving IT organizations.

By using the embedded tools built into the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (or APIC) we demonstrate how to get a single point of automation, orchestration, and troubleshooting that will simplify data center network management and operations for Days 0, 1, and beyond.

To achieve these benefits, it is critical that a strong foundation be built on such a simple management infrastructure such as ACI’s single pane of glass tools.

Success Track for Data Center Network is a suite of use case guided service solutions designed to help you realize the full value of your ACI deployment, faster. This holistic service digitally connects you through CX Cloud to the right expertise, learning and insights at the right time to accelerate success.

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Get access to experts, on-demand learning, Cisco community, and product documentation on our CX Cloud Portal.

Customers can simplify data center network deployment and operations through access to experts, embedded tools, and a unified digital platform. This results in greater efficiencies, cost savings and a reduction of errors.

If you are looking for a consistent onboarding of network infrastructure, expedited workload provisioning to network fabric, and improved monitoring and insights, Cisco Success Track for Data Center Network will help you get there.

Thursday, 9 September 2021

Simplified Insertion of Cisco Secure Firewall with AWS Route Table Enhancement

Cisco Secure Firewall provides industry-leading firewall capabilities for Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)and resources deployed inside. Customers use these firewalls to protect north-south and east-west traffic.

Typically, we provide north-south traffic inspection in AWS infrastructure by deploying a load balancer and adding firewalls behind it. Another approach uses Amazon VPC Ingress Routing to steer traffic to Cisco Secure Firewalls.

Since the AWS VPC Ingress Routing feature launched, we’ve waited for a similar feature for east-west traffic inspection, as a route in a routing table couldn’t be more specific than the default local route. Figure 1 below illustrates when the VPC range is 10.82.0.0/16, it is impossible to add a more specific route for 10.82.100.0/24 & 10.82.200.0/24.

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Figure 1 – Cisco Secure Firewall in Amazon VPC (more specific route not allowed)

However, as of today, AWS launched a new feature that enables adding a more specific route in the Amazon Route Table. This feature provides functionality to send and inspect traffic between subnets in a VPC, as shown in Figure 2 below.

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Figure 2 – Cisco Secure Firewall in Amazon VPC (more specific route allowed)
 
The route table in Figure 3 is associated with a trusted subnet and has a route for an untrusted subnet pointing to the trusted interface (Elastic Network Interface – ENI-B) of the Cisco Secure Firewall.

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Figure 3- AWS Route Table Associated with Trusted Subnet

The route table in Figure 4 is associated with an untrusted subnet and it has a route for trusted subnet pointing to the untrusted interface (ENI-A) of the Cisco Secure Firewall.

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Figure 4- AWS Route Table Associated with Untrusted Subnet

Tuesday, 7 September 2021

Best Resources to Earn Perfect Score in Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI Exam

Cisco exam preparation is a daunting task. Everyone knows about the difficulty level of Cisco exams, putting the applicants in different scenarios. Even though you might consider that you have the essential skills to get through a Cisco exam, you will figure out on the exam day that things are not so simple as they appear. If you want to be different than other applicants, you should study smart. So, identifying the most effective study resources is an excellent means for exam preparation. When it comes to the Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI exam, the difficulty level is the same. You need to count on verified study resources before you take the exam.

This exam will help you receive two certifications, the CCNP Enterprise and Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Wireless Implementation. The corresponding tool by earning the first certification, you need to succeed in the 350-401 exam; only after that step are you qualified to opt for a 300-430 exam. So, are you all set to know which are the best study resources and tactics you can use for Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI exam?

Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI Exam: Preparation Options and Methods

Before we dive deep into the study resources for Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI exam, you should become familiar with the skills required to obtain. The assessment’s blueprint will help you understand what you have to learn to get the passing score from the first attempt. So, you will require to become an expert in deploying the following topics:

  • Flex-Connect environment
  • QoS services
  • Multicast infrastructure
  • Advanced location services
  • Highest level of security for client connectivity
  • Efficient monitoring solutions
  • Device hardening management and troubleshooting

Are you curious to know which study resources can help you? Keep on reading for further information in the paragraphs below.

Also Read: Introduction to Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI Exam

Available Study Resources for Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI 430 Exam

Cisco 300-430 exam gauges your skill in working with wireless network implementation; this exam is not a cakewalk in the park. Even though it might not be difficult to find various study resources for this exam, you shouldn’t trust all the resources that you find online. So, our advice is, to begin with, the vendor’s official website.

Cisco is an internationally recognized vendor acknowledged for its different certifications and learning materials variance. So, if you visit the Cisco 300-430 official webpage, you will find other learning resources. One of the most popular ways used by successful test-takers is an instructor-led training course. In this course, you will get your doubts solved right away. Moreover, Cisco certified trainers share tips and other helpful resources for exam preparation.

You can also take up the video course or register for the in-classroom training. The option you choose especially for you mostly relies on your location, time you can commit to the training process, and your study schedule.

Taking Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI practice tests is also an outstanding preparation option. Once you are done with the other training methods, you can use this method to gauge your readiness. Thus, you can point out the topics you have to concentrate on before taking the actual exam.

You can join online study groups and discussion forums to reach out to other learners and professionals that will help you solve your doubts and better prepare. Through these groups, you can get several study resources and other essential exam-related information.

Benefits of Being Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI Certified

You may think if all this hard work for Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI exam prep is worth it or not. The answer is yes, as earning a CCNP Enterprise certification comes with many benefits such as:

1. Increase Your Productivity at Work

For one to get a certification, they have to prove skills and knowledge of explicit concepts needed at theworkplace. Since the Cisco CCNP Enterprise Certification program undergoes frequent updates to match the up-to-date working requirements, obtaining a Cisco certification indicates that one has the requisite competencies to perform in his/her job position successfully.

2. Amazing Career Opportunities

There has been a reported increase in salary for IT professionals upon earning a certification. In addition to this, certified professionals are frequently entrusted with supervising and being a mentor to their colleagues, assisting them for a promotion.

3. Become a Part of Professional Community with Cisco 300-430 ENWLSI Certification

Being certified, you’ll have entrance to educational and training databases, conferences, mentorship programs, and networking opportunities such as Cisco Networking Academy, from which IT professionals are presented with resources to upgrade their careers.

Conclusion

The Cisco 300-430 certification exam will be your key to unlock the door to a successful career as an Enterprise Wireless Implementation Specialist. This exam will help you acquire the essential skills to add value to your team and improve your possibilities to get an attractive salary. As the study resources are important for your success, you should select them thoroughly. Consider the information provided in this article, study smart, and get the flying score on the first attempt. Good luck!

How the network team’s bold steps + agile mindset launched a cloud-ready backbone

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In 2014, we realized our world in network engineering was changing rapidly. Like many IT organizations, we saw a shift to the internet and cloud services in our network traffic. Over that year alone, we observed a 200% increase in peak internet and cloud traffic. That’s when we knew our network needed to change to accommodate the evolution of conducting business at Cisco.

Our network was designed and evolved with the bulk of our enterprise traffic originating from and destined for resources within Cisco’s “four walls.” The growing demand for traffic to cloud providers and SaaS services meant a quick pivot was necessary. As a result, our initial step was to build Cisco IT CloudPorts in strategic carrier-neutral facilities, which allowed us to quickly secure connections between the Cisco enterprise and the outside world.

Our CloudPort hubs provide high availability and flexibility to turn up new connectivity quickly, but our private backbone connecting the CloudPorts needed enhancement. With more and more business reliance on public cloud and SaaS workloads, the resiliency and performance required for CloudPort connections grew. We needed the capability to quickly respond to network issues and use our backbone to route traffic from one region to another.

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Our CloudPorts are now interconnected with a global cloud-ready backbone that allows seamless routing of connectivity in case of outages or performance issues within a region. This new backbone is built on top-of-line routers like the Cisco ASR9k and Cisco NCS5k series that are optimized for internet route table scale and better programmability of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) policies.

That’s where we are today. But how did we get here?

The genesis: The birth of a strategy


During a team off-site — sitting in a small restaurant near our offices in North Carolina — our group discussed how our core network design was not sustainable. We needed a big change. While the approaches and technologies weren’t anything new, the scale and breadth of such a change was significant. How would we rearchitect and deploy a change of this scale, especially given the size and complexity of Cisco’s business? And a common question — how would we deploy with minimal disruption?

Over dessert, we began to sketch and brainstorm and sketch some more — literally on the back of a cocktail napkin. (We’ve all done that, right?) We concluded that we needed to stop thinking of the traditional enterprise where communication patterns were between users and our private cloud. Instead, we needed to design a new architecture that would deliver optimized and resilient connectivity between on-premise resources and users, and the outside world.

Our path to a solution began.

The value in the process


Over the next three years, our team looked at how to address the issue. We started by examining the existing infrastructure and making small, incremental changes to address immediate performance concerns. While we saw minor improvements, they were isolated, not necessarily repeatable at scale, and would create new complexity down the road. But this exercise provided great insight into the issues and confirmed our belief that we needed a new uniform network architecture.

Team member Oliver Agpalasin shares how our journey began: “We started with a blank canvas and set out to define the ‘future state’ of the network, putting traditional and historical thinking aside. With that architecture defined, we could then start thinking about execution and how to move to the new environment. All while recognizing the value this would bring to Cisco and the quality of experience it could provide to our internal clients.”

Changing the mindset


As an operations organization typically focused on solving day-to-day business issues, we were challenged by our inherent silos and conflicts of interest. To solve this, we adopted an agile mindset and made operations engineers the leaders of the program, freeing them from the constraints of “just keeping the lights on.” We wanted to leverage the team’s deep working knowledge of the network, break down the barriers between design and operations, and gather everyone in the same room in a series of workshops.

“We never questioned the value in the vision,” says team member Alisha Sanchez. “Adopting an agile mindset gave us the opportunity to carve that path independently and allowed us to focus on creating options, test those theories, and make informed decisions based on our findings.”

Insight from one team manager summarizes the real value of this mindset shift. As Steve Sheldon describes it, “Part of the agile methodology for me is that you’re able to make your own work. You are able to decide the best strategy as a team. In an operational role, you don’t always get that option. That’s a big mindset shift.”

Team member Prashant Bhadoria adds: “Along the way, and despite the new challenges that came up, we were always focused on choosing the best options. Having an overarching strategy in place helped us address each issue focused on that overall intent. We’re typically perfectionists, not risk-takers. But with the support of our leadership, we were encouraged to take bold steps.”

Deploying the new network


We understood our most significant challenges to be twofold:

1. Building consensus among our stakeholders
2. Deployment of the new network itself

With a project at this scale, we recognized  significant obstacles which at first appeared insurmountable. But through the program team’s persistence and commitment, we solved them one by one.

“It was not easy to explain the business value to secure the funding and resources,” says Warren Rigney, a team manager. “But our leadership understood the risks and potential impacts of doing nothing.”

Part of the task facing us was to unravel two decades of complexity that could hinder delivery of the new architecture. Through self-written automation and auditing tools, we could visualize and continuously track all required clean-up efforts. As we peeled back the onion, we grew more confident in our ability to succeed.

In the words of team member Touseef Ahmed Gulgundi, “To speed up deployments and avoid risks, we utilized Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) automation to deploy the new backbone and policies. This approach allows us to reduce the deployment time from 12 hours for the first deployment down to less than four hours for the second — an efficiency trend that continued over time.”

Because we were deploying significant changes to Cisco’s core network, a prudent approach was needed, even if it meant small delays to project timelines. We built development and test environments where we could safely validate our changes before deploying at scale in production.

Building and deploying the new backbone was one thing. We also had to make sure that our support teams would understand the new environment. The test and development networks allowed team members to spin up their own virtual instances so they could freely play with the new setup. We invited these teams to shadow us during the implementations and turned over the keys to those confident enough to learn the new setup during deployment. In addition, we did extensive Transfer of Information sessions to make sure everyone in the wider team could support the new solution.

IT is all about the people


In the last one and a half years, the newly formed program team put their shoulders to the wheel, and things really started to happen. The team consisted of a mix of engineers, some wanting to move very aggressively while others preferring a more prudent approach. This mix triggered good conversations (and occasional differences) that ultimately resulted in the right decisions being made. The team also worked tirelessly across time zones, through late evenings, and in meetings while supporting their families during the global pandemic. Behind every corner there was often a new surprise, but the team never gave up and tackled each problem as it came.

The future of our network


This new backbone design laid the groundwork for the future and allowed us to be more agile and deliver new technical capabilities quickly while supporting our business transition and adoption of the cloud. Most importantly, the lessons learned during this program will benefit us as we keep driving innovation into Cisco’s corporate network.

What’s next? Our team is focused on expanding the network’s capabilities, including automating the resiliency of our internet network, extending the resiliency in our connectivity to cloud services, and bolstering our disaster recovery for internet services at scale.

Oh, and what became of the napkin? We still have it. We break it out every time a member of our team says, “It can’t be done!”

Monday, 6 September 2021

Edge Apps in the enterprise

The concept of edge computing has been in use for quite a while now in IoT networks. It makes immense sense for compute to be shifted to the edge in these kind of networks since we can save on costly bandwidth by avoiding unnecessary traffic over the WAN. Sensors that sent data up only when a metric changed Or just when thresholds were breached helped save on precious WAN bandwidth. More importantly this also dramatically reduced the amount of data that had to be processed.

More recently this trend of computing at the edge of the network is being increasingly embraced in the enterprise with several not-so-obvious yet key benefits.

Let’s look at some of these.

Point of deployment

Network monitoring is best done near the point where its performance is perceived. If you’d like to measure how the network is treating its users, its best done at the edge. Hence apps like Cisco ThousandEyes are ideally suited to run in devices like the Catalyst 9300 and 9400s that form the access layer of the network.

Apps that guard the network are best deployed where attacks strike first. An app that simulates a honeypot or one that looks for suspicious rogues is best when deployed where such attacks strike first.

Apps that monitor the OT(Operational Technology) network have to be deployed at the point where the IT and OT networks intersect. The Cisco Cybervision app hence belongs here.

As we see from the above examples, Edge Apps have to be deployed in those parts of the network where they can perform their function the best.

Point of compute

The fact that network bandwidth is abundant in the enterprise may lead us to believe that it does not pay to process information at the edge. Computing at the edge of the network has another not-so-obvious benefit. In reducing the amount of traffic we send up to the controller or data center, we save on precious compute resources at those points in the network where traffic is aggregated like a wireless controller or the management station in the data center. This frees up compute for the other more important functions that these network equipment deliver like scaling to more sessions or ensuring better performance.

Enterprise IoT convergence

Customers had to deploy overlay networks in order to achieve IoT use cases like ESL (Enterprise Shelf Labels) tags or for managing devices over ZigBee or other IoT protocols. With an extensible USB dongle in the Cisco Catalyst range of access points, the same infrastructure deployed for providing WiFi networking services can be used for IoT use cases too. This results in lesser management and operational overheads.

Cisco DNAC Spaces embraces app hosting on edge equipment to support legacy IoT devices that run the not-so-latest protocols.

What’s changing now ?

The coming together of three different complementary technologies from Cisco stables is truly changing the game here.

Apps

Compute at the edge is only useful when we have killer apps that offer business critical functionality. Cisco ThousandEyes which already loved and used by enterprises world over is now available to be run on the Catalyst range of switches. So is Cisco Cybervision  which helps with industrial visibility and security and Cisco Edge Intelligence which helps get IoT data to the right application at the right time.

App hosting capability

Cisco has been working on the app hosting capabilities on the supported range of Catalyst switches and access points to enable several more capabilities that the apps can exploit. Be it greater available bandwidth for operations, the ability to utilize the in-built SSD on the device in-lieu of external storage or even getting access to more privileges as a Docker container running on the switches, apps  on switches can now do so much more.

Cisco Catalyst Access Points support a third party dongle that apps can access and use. This ability is what apps like SoluM and ImagoTag use. Plans are afoot to grant the apps access to many more capabilities on the access points.

Orchestration of apps via Cisco DNA Center

Unlike networking configuration, apps on device could pose a very different challenge to the network administrator. Apps have a life of their own – they need to be configured at start, be monitored while in action, be restarted when in need and be upgraded to fix vulnerabilities or avail new features. Network admins can ill afford to use another tool to this purpose since it would mean that the network inventory needs to be kept in sync on both tools.

Managing apps in enterprise networks require an integrated console that can help manage the network and the apps running across it.

Cisco DNA Center fits this ask to the T with the app hosting capability. Apps can be managed across hundreds or even thousands of devices (switches or access points) with this capability.

The Cisco Thousand Eyes can be installed across on several vantage Catalyst devices with this one workflow.

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Apps can be uploaded straight out of DockerHub into Cisco DNAC.

Several Cisco apps like Cisco ThousandEyes are auto uploaded into Cisco DNAC so that you have the latest and greatest version of the app at all times.

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With an architecture designed for high performance at scale operations like app configuration edit or upgrade can be performed on thousands of devices through a single user action.

What’s more, one could even download the app’s console logs right from Cisco DNA Center. This makes collections of logs for troubleshooting extremely easy and intuitive.

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One of the challenges with Cisco devices that support app hosting is that different devices have different capabilities enabling them to support only some apps based on which image they run or what hardware they have. Cisco DNA Center helps customers solves this conundrum by running a bunch of tests on each device and telling them if the device is ready for app hosting as well as what it may be missing.

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Customers could bring their own apps into their network just as easily.

The combination of these three developments brings app hosting in the enterprise to an inflection point as evidenced by the large number of Cisco customers embracing this solution.

Source: cisco.com

Saturday, 4 September 2021

Cisco vAnalytics: enabling an optimal user experience with Microsoft 365

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Applications and cloud connectivity are the lifeblood of any enterprise today. The ability to connect users to applications reliably and securely across the remote workforce, branches, data centers, and multicloud has become a critical success factor for any organization. In a time where employees are working from home or in a hybrid work environment, reliable and secure connectivity to SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365, is ever more important.

Applications experience poses special challenges for network teams. First and foremost is application performance. For a remote workforce or branch offices, routing user requests to SaaS applications through a centralized data center creates substantial performance impacts that include delays and latencies. Second, application optimization comes to mind. Applications, whether internally hosted or SaaS, require constant prioritization and optimization. For instance, when concurrent traffic accessing Microsoft Word and video conferencing are treated with the same parameters, optimization becomes a critical factor to ensure the quality of experience (QoE). Last, network teams often lack visibility into the performance of SaaS applications. Application issues might manifest as network issues. Service disruptions can lead to endless finger-pointing. The resulting cycles spent pinpointing the source of issues can lead to prolonged service interruptions.

Visibility and insight with network analytics 

As organizations continue to embrace the internet, cloud, and SaaS, network teams are increasingly embracing analytics and visibility capabilities that result in improved application performance, faster troubleshooting, actionable business insights, and remediation. Cisco offers comprehensive analytics solutions for SD-WAN with Cisco ThousandEyes and Cisco vAnalytics.

Cisco SD-WAN is fully integrated with ThousandEyes as a turn-key solution that extends visibility into the internet, cloud, and SaaS applications for actionable insights beyond the traditional corporate network. Network teams can expedite the deployment of ThousandEyes agents from vManage to quickly pinpoint the source of issues, get to a resolution faster, and manage the performance of what matters.

Cisco vAnalytics is a powerful cloud-based analytics engine for aggregation, visualization, and analysis of SD-WAN telemetry.  It is a feature-rich application that provides correlation of application behavior and QoE with the underlying SD-WAN network, translating telemetry data into visualized insights. vAnalytics is seamlessly integrated with vManage for complete management and control of the entire SD-WAN fabric.

Getting the best out of Microsoft 365

Cisco is the first SD-WAN vendor in the industry to deliver informed network routing for Microsoft 365. Leveraging real-time telemetry data from Microsoft 365 and Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp path probing data, vAnalytics dynamically correlates the baseline network performance of underlying infrastructure with Microsoft 365; proactively providing corrective suggestions when real-time metrics deviate from the operational benchmark.

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This enhanced visibility substantially increases overall control over user experience with Microsoft 365. It enables automation of the edge devices to determine the best performing path for Microsoft 365 applications, such as direct internet access (DIA) policies based on specific predefined service areas. URL categorization provided by Cloud OnRamp also classifies Microsoft 365 applications into three categories based on the application characteristics such as sensitivity to loss, latency, and jitter. Using this classification CloudOnRamp creates granular policies, giving network teams more detailed control over traffic management within the platform. By enabling policy-based parameters for different Microsoft applications, organizations can now prioritize their network traffic more efficiently around their business needs and ensure an optimal application experience.

Source: cisco.com

Friday, 3 September 2021

Cisco Catalyst 9100 series, much more than Wi-Fi connectivity

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Are you one of those people who, when entering a new building (such as a hotel, corporate office, stadium, hospital—literarily any building) the first thing you do is look up to spot the presence of an access point (AP)?

What? You don’t? You don’t know what you are missing!

Yes, I am one of those people. Call it professional deviation, but when entering a building I must check if there is a Wi-Fi signal, where the APs are located, what’s the AP brand, how have the access points been mounted, what type of antennas they us. Sometimes I even take pictures, but don’t tell anyone.

Ok, but even if you are not a human Wi-Fi sentinel like myself, I am quite sure that when you see an access point, you immediately think of a reliable, secure (and yes, hopefully free!) wireless connection. Today it is all about Wi-Fi 6, so you have even greater expectations, right?

I agree with you, the primary role of the AP is to provide reliable coverage and a secure connection, with the bandwidth needed for your devices and applications to work properly.

But what if I told you that there is much more than connectivity to a Cisco Access Point? Cisco has embedded so many cool innovations into the Catalyst Access Point that by the end of this blog, you will look at an access point in a totally different prospective.

When you think about it, the AP can do much more than just offer Wi-Fi connectivity: you have these intelligent network devices sitting in the ceiling  with a privileged view of people and things moving around. The APs are in the perfect spot to capture a lot of useful information beyond the client data packets. For example, getting the location of movable devices.

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The AP can act as a multi-protocol (multi-language) gateway, capable of enabling multiple wireless technologies. It can also open up a lot of interesting use cases in the IoT world, for example simplifying Retail management using integrated remote shelf labeling solutions.

We have built the Catalyst AP with this idea in mind: to make it a multi-function and multi-purpose platform for innovation. We do this first by embedding a dedicated, software programmable radios in the access point. The main purpose of this radio is to grab and analyze RF information so that the system can make intelligent decisions. Cisco brings the benefits of programmable hardware to the edge of the network: being programmable, it allows Cisco to introduce technology innovations without requiring a hardware refresh. For the Catalyst Wi-Fi 6 access points, the built-in programmable radio is called Cisco RF ASIC.

We then combine it with the Cisco IoX framework, bringing the possibility to load a Cisco or 3rd party containerized application directly on to the Catalyst AP in a completely automated manner. This combination of programmable hardware and embedded software capabilities is an industry first and allows Cisco to bring new innovative wireless solutions faster to market.

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Let’s look under the AP hood and understand the benefits of these innovations. The first focus of an Access Point is the Wi-Fi connectivity, so we built a  state-of-the-art Wi-Fi 6 AP with an awesome RF design capable of embedding ten different antennas in a small form factor. It’s actually 25% smaller and lighter than the previous models, allowing for easier mounting and even more pleasant aesthetics:

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But Cisco goes beyond the Wi-Fi standard in multiple ways; first, thanks to a close collaboration with device vendors (Apple, Samsung, and Intel), Cisco has embedded additional functionalities to make sure that these vendor devices have a better experience on a Cisco wireless network. Apple Analytics, Apple FastLane and Fastlane+, Samsung and Intel Analytics are some of the most recent examples of this partnerships. The insights Cisco gets from client devise are super critical for troubleshooting because they provide the client view of the RF network, which is usually different from the access points’ view.

With the introduction of the Cisco RF ASIC as a third dedicated radio, the wireless connectivity is optimized because this offloads all the heavy-duty work from the client-serving radios: resulting 25% increase in client performance is expected for all clients, not only Wi-Fi 6 clients. The dedicated programmable radio is continuously scanning and grabbing a lot of critical information about the RF environment, client onboarding, interferences and analytics in general. From there, it’s streamed efficiently and securely to the cloud and use Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in DNAC Assurance and DNA Spaces to make the data actionable. A clear example of this is Intelligent capture in DNAC Center Assurance which provides a new way of proactively troubleshooting the network.

This is going to save you and your team a lot of time, effort  and busy work.

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And finally, the AP can act as an IoT gateway, supporting multiple IoT protocols via software. A Cisco or third party APP can be installed directly on the AP in a fully automated fashion. This opens a lot of opportunities for. One example is an IoT gateway for remote shelf labelling that allows customer to save operational and capital expenses by not deploying a parallel IoT network.

So, I am sure you agree with me that a Cisco Catalyst Access Point is much more than just Wi-Fi connectivity; and next time you enter a building you will turn your head up and look for those great pieces of wireless innovation.

Source: cisco.com