Networking Demystified: The Modern Networking Stack

Suppose you were to peruse any book or paper on the topic of computer networking. In that case, you will undoubtedly find at least a cursory mention of the OSI or TCP/IP networking stack. This 7 (or 5) layers model defines the protocols used in a communication network, described in a hierarchy with abstract interfaces and standard behaviors. In this “Networking Demystified” blog post, we shed light on the modern networking stack but from a completely different vantage point: the focus will be on the technologies and areas associated with the various layers of the stack. The goal is to offer a glimpse of what engineers and technologists are working on in this exciting and continuously evolving space that impacts businesses, education, healthcare, and people worldwide.

But first, how did we get to where we are today?

A Brief History of Time (well, … networking mostly)

The early years of networking were all about plumbing: building the pipes to interconnect endpoints and enable them to communicate. The first challenges to conquer were distance and reach—the connection of many devices—which gave rise to local area networks, wide area networks, and the global Internet. The second wave of challenges involved scaling those pipes with technologies that offered faster speeds and feeds and better reliability.

The evolution in Physical and Link Layer technologies continued at a rapid cadence, with several technologies getting their 15 minutes of fame (X 25, Frame Relay, ISDN, ATM, among others) over the years and others ending up as roadkill (which shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent). The Internet Protocol (IP) quickly emerged as the narrow waist of the hourglass, normalizing many applications over several link technologies. This normalization created an explosion in Internet usage that led to the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space, thereby bringing complexities like Network Address Translation (NAT) to the network as a workaround.

The years that followed in the evolution of networking focused on enabling services and applications that run over the plumbing. Voice, video, and numerous data applications (email, web, file transfer, instant messaging, etc.) converged over packet networks and contended for bandwidth and priority over shared pipes. The challenges to overcome were guaranteeing application quality of service, user quality of experience, and client/provider service level agreements. Technologies for traffic marking (setting bits in packet headers to indicate the quality of service level), shaping (delaying/buffering packets above a rate), and policing (dropping packets above a guaranteed rate), as well as resource reservation and performance management, were developed. As networks grew more extensive, and with the emergence of public (provider-managed) network services, scalability and availability challenges led to the development of predominantly Service Provider oriented technologies such as MPLS and VPNs.

Then came the things… the Internet of Things, that is. The success of networks in connecting people gave rise to the idea of connecting machines to machines (M2M) to enable many new use cases in home automation, healthcare, smart utilities, and manufacturing, to name a few.  This, in turn, presented a new set of challenges pertaining to constrained devices (i.e., one with limited CPU, memory, and power) networking, ad hoc wireless, time-sensitive communication, edge computing, securing IoT endpoints, scaling M2M networks, and many others. While the industry has solved some of these challenges, many remain on the plates of current and future networking technologists and engineers.

Throughout this evolution, the complexity of networks continued to grow as IT added more and more mission-critical applications and services. Every emerging innovation in networking created new use cases that contributed to more significant network usage. The high-touch, command-line interface (CLI) oriented approach to network provisioning and troubleshooting could no longer achieve the scalability, agility, and availability demanded by networks. A paradigm shift in the approach to network operations and management was needed.

Cue the Controllers

Network management systems are not a new development in the history of networking. They have existed in some form or fashion since the early days. However, those management controls operated at the level of individual protocols, mechanisms, and configuration interfaces. This mode of operation was slowing innovation, increasing complexity, and inflating the operational costs of running networks. The demand for networks to meet business needs with agility led to the requirement for networks to be software-driven and thus programmable.

This change led to the notion of Software-Defined Networks (SDN). A core component of a Software-Defined Network is the controller platform: the management system that has a global view of the network and is responsible for automating network configuration, assurance, troubleshooting, and optimization functions. In a sense, the controller replaces the human operator as the brain managing the network. It enables centralized management and control, automation, and policy enforcement across network environments. Controllers have southbound APIs that relay information between the controller and individual network devices (such as switches, access points, routers, and firewalls) and northbound APIs that relay information between the controller and the applications and policy engines.

Controllers originally were physical appliances deployed on-premises with the rest of the network devices. But more recently, it is possible for the controller functions to be implemented in the Cloud. In this case, the network is referred to as a cloud-managed network. The choice of cloud-managed versus on-premises depends on several factors, including customer requirements and deployment constraints.

Figure 1: Modern Networking Stack

So now that we have a historical view of how networking has evolved over the years let’s turn to the modern networking stack.

From Silicon to the Cloud

The OSI and TCP/IP reference models only paint a partial picture of the modern networking stack. These models specify the logical functions of network devices but not the controllers. With networks becoming software-defined, the networking stack spans from silicon hardware to the cloud. So, building modern networking gear and solutions has become as much about low-level embedded systems engineering as it is about cloud-native application development.

First, let’s examine the layers of the stack that run on network devices. The functions of these layers can be broadly categorized into three planes: data plane, control plane, and management plane. The data plane is concerned with packet forwarding functions, flow control, quality of service (QoS), and access-control features. The control plane is responsible for discovering topology and capabilities, establishing forwarding paths, and reacting to failures. In comparison, the management plane focuses on functions that deal with device configuration, troubleshooting, reporting, fault management, and performance management.

Data Plane

Engineers focusing on the data plane work on or close to the hardware (e.g., ASIC or FPGA design, device drivers, or packet processing engine programming). One of the perennial focus areas in this layer of the stack is performance in the quest for faster-wired link speeds, higher wireless bandwidth, and wider channels. Another focus area is power optimization to achieve usage-proportional energy consumption for better sustainability. A third focus area is determinism in latency/jitter to handle time-sensitive and immersive (AR/VR/XR) applications.

Control Plane

Engineers working on the control plane are involved with designing and implementing networking protocols that handle topology and routing, multicast, OAM, control, endpoint mobility, and policy management, among other functions. Modern network operating systems involve embedded software application development on top of the Linux operating system. Key focus areas in this layer include scaling of algorithms; privacy and identity management; security features; network time distribution and synchronization; distributed mobility management; and lightweight protocols for IoT.

Management Plane

Engineers working on the management plane work with protocols for management information transfer, embedded database technologies, and API design. A key focus area in this layer is scaling the transfer of telemetry information that needs to be pushed from network devices to the controllers to enable better network assurance and closed-loop automation.

Understanding the Controller Software Stack

Next, we will look at the layers of the stack that run on network controllers. Those can be broadly categorized into four layers: the runtime environment layer, the control layer, the assurance layer, and the northbound API layer.

◉ The runtime environment layer is responsible for the lifecycle management of all the software services that run on the controller, including infrastructure services (such as persistent storage and container/VM networking) and application services that are logically part of the other three layers.

◉ The control layer handles the translation and validation of user intent and automatic implementation in the network to create the desired configuration state and enforce policies.

◉ The assurance layer constantly monitors the network state to ensure that the desired state is maintained and performs remedial action when necessary.

◉ The northbound API layer enables the extension of the controller and integration with applications such as trouble-ticketing systems and orchestration platforms.

State-of-the-art controllers are not implemented as monolithic applications. To provide the required flexibility to scale out with the size of the network, controllers are designed as cloud-native applications based on micro-services. As such, engineers who work on the runtime environment layer work on cloud runtime and orchestration solutions. Key focus areas here include all the tools needed for applications to run in a cloud-native environment, including:

◉ Storage that gives applications easy and fast access to data needed to run reliably,

◉ Container runtime, which executes application code,

◉ Networks over which containerized applications communicate,

◉ Orchestrators that manage the lifecycle of the micro-services.

Engineers working on the control layer are involved with high-level cloud-native application development that leverages open-source software and tools. Key focus areas at this layer include Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to handle intent translation. Other critical focus areas include data modeling, policy rendering, plug-and-play discovery, software image management, inventory management, and automation. User interface design and data visualization (including 3D, AR, and VR) are also crucial.

Engineers developing capabilities for the assurance layer are also involved with high-level cloud-native application development. However, the focus here is more on AI capabilities, including Machine Learning (ML) and Machine Reasoning (MR), to automate the detection of issues and provide remediation. Another center of attention is data ingestion and processing pipelines, including complex event processing systems, to handle the large volumes of network telemetry.

Engineers working on the northbound API layer focus on designing scalable REST APIs that enable network controllers to be integrated with the ecosystem of IT systems and applications that use the network. This layer focuses on API security and scalability and on providing high-level abstractions that hide the complexities and inner workings of networking from applications.

It’s an Exciting Time to be in Network Engineering

As networking evolved over the years, so did the networking stack technologies. What started as a domain focused primarily on low-level embedded systems development has expanded over the years to encompass everything from low-level hardware design to high-level cloud-native application development and everything in between. It is an exciting time to be in the networking industry, connecting industries, enabling new applications, and helping people work together where ever they may be!

Source: cisco.com

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Deploying the Wi-Fi Network at Cisco Live EMEA 2023

It is now the fourth time in a row that I had the chance to be part of the Cisco NOC team for Cisco Live EMEA.

If we go even further back in time, I had the chance to go to Cisco Live for the Technical Design Clinics back in London and Berlin. The pressure was on the shoulders of the NOC team who had to deliver a working Wi-Fi network with so many random client devices connected. I did not envy their position (although I admired it). I particularly remember a bug from smartphone vendors in Cisco Live London that was repeating the event SSID as a personal hotspot, causing a lot of trouble to other client connectivity. This was the year the CiscoLive SSID went from fully open to a pre-shared key SSID to prevent that type of problem.

End of 2017, the NOC team invited me to be part of the Wireless Controller team for Cisco Live Barcelona 2018. I accepted quickly mostly for the sake of being part of the Cisco Live event, which I consider a privilege. I discovered since then how setting up a large events network is such a unique endeavor and will try to give some insights into certain choices and decisions.

The Planning

Around summer the year before the event, the first meetings start. We set up a team and make sure we have the best people for the job at every position. This is the responsibility of Remco Kamerman, the Cisco Live NOC team lead and pretty much the only fixed team member since he recruits the rest of us. Some people from the software engineering teams, some salespeople, and some CX people (TAC, Customer Success, and Professional Services): team members are not picked for their job role but for their expertise. If you are one of the top people in your technology, chances are that you already know a good part of the NOC team for having worked with them throughout the year since they are the top people too.

Mapping Madness

We receive the venue plans and event blueprints early on but they keep changing until the very last day (less and less as time goes by of course). This is the challenge of the design folks in the team (Professional Services and System Engineers mostly) who have to do a wireless design mostly by looking at regularly changing plans. A few site visits were organized to get a feeling of the venue. I was there on the first day the building team started building for the event and can testify that the number of physical changes the venue goes through in just a couple of days is unthinkable if you are not used to such events.

Maps are an important part of managing a wireless network. We could leverage the interoperability between the venue maps on the RAI Prime Infrastructure appliance, the Cisco DNA Center we used for the event, and the Ekahau design software we used for the design. Maps were cross-imported between those 3 places so that we could have the proper maps for design and day-to-day management.

Keynote Design

A specific challenge was the keynote area which consisted of 4500 chairs around a central stage in an empty hall. 50 9104 stadium antennas were used to provide coverage from the trusses. Mounting those APs/antennas required very close collaboration with the keynote area build team as there are specific moments where the truss is down and accessible and then brought up (after which you need a scissor lift to access it and you want to avoid that as much as possible for efficiency)

The Build Up

The majority of the NOC team consists of people actually physically building up the network. That requires deploying hundreds of switches throughout the venue and the cabling that goes with that without anything visible to the naked eye. It also requires deploying hundreds of wireless access points in various places. They can be on poles, walls, or ceilings, and mounting elegantly and efficiently becomes an art.

Figure 1: Mounting APs and antennas on the structure

Similar to the Fira Barcelona, we inherited around 400 Wi-Fi access points from the RAI Amsterdam venue. They were nice enough to let us control their access points for the duration of the event. This way, we don’t have to deal with two separate wireless networks. A good part of the venue APs were Cisco 9120s with directional antennas mounted on the very high ceiling (as well as some 9104s in one Hall) which are perfect for providing general coverage.

Indeed the RAI hosts a lot of different shows that have nothing in common (Cisco Live was between a horse show and a pregnancy-related show) and their Wi-Fi network needs to stay stable between events. However, since we are Cisco and we are willing to deploy a network just for our own event, we could add access points at the ground level and be better oriented for specific applications (in general, the close the AP is to the clients, the better, if you can afford it). We knew the high-density areas and more complicated ground areas where additional coverage would be welcome and that’s what our design consisted of.

Figure 2: 9104 stadium antennas mounted on a truss that will go up in the Keynote area

Event Wi-Fi Choices

Historically, the main SSID is WPA2 PSK SSID and the organization prints the key on the event badge everyone wears. We added EduRoam support for our education customers to have an SSID their device already knows and can connect to, using their education credentials. We also added OpenRoaming, where your device automatically connects to the Wi-Fi as soon as you enter the venue if you already had an OpenRoaming profile installed on your device. If you didn’t you can install one from the CiscoLive event app. Personally, I installed an OpenRoaming profile on my iPhone after my local supermarket created a profile for me from their app. My phone automatically connected, in a secure and transparent manner, to the venue as soon as I arrived with my profile from my local supermarket thanks to the RAI also having an OpenRoaming SSID even before Cisco arrived onsite.

We definitely wanted to keep the number of SSIDs offered as low as possible to avoid confusion and to keep the wifi network efficiency to the maximum possible, but the convenience (and the security!) of OpenRoaming and Eduroam convinced us to offer those as extra services.

Wi-Fi 6E

This year, we wanted to offer 6ghz Wi-Fi as 6E is the newest coolest thing. The difficulty is that providing this across the whole event would have meant purchasing hundreds of 9166 access points. This is not possible as we prioritize customer deliveries for the first time on a new device. It would also have meant replacing all the venue APs which is impractical for us. We then covered the entire Meeting Village hall with the 40 9166 we had. The challenge with this hybrid approach is that Wi-Fi 6E requires WPA3 and we did not want to make the main SSID WPA3 yet.

Even if the CiscoLive population is typically nerdy (it’s a compliment nowadays I think) and well equipped, you wouldn’t believe some of the older devices that connect to the network and WPA3 support is just not at 100% yet we believe. We had to create a separate WPA3 SSID which was broadcasted both in 5Ghz and 6Ghz (but 6ghz being only available in the Meeting Village) for compatibility reasons.

Legacy and “Bells and Whistles” SSIDs

As a general rule, is good practice to have some kind of legacy SSID and some kind of more performing SSIDs with more bells and whistles. Some years ago, it meant we provided a Cisco Live Legacy SSID which existed on 2.4ghz, while the 5Ghz was the main and “cool” SSID.

In Cisco Live 2023, we completely gave up on 2.4ghz and the CiscoLive SSID was only available on 5Ghz. This meant the main CiscoLive SSID needed to have the most compatible settings to ensure all the clients could connect and that meant giving up on some great Cisco features (like Device Analytics) for the sake of maximum compatibility. I predict that very soon, the WPA3/6Ghz SSID will become the main SSID and the 5Ghz-only/WPA2 SSID will be the legacy one. Maybe too early for that to happen next year but why not 2025?

How the Event Went

Keynote and 6ghz

The event went very well overall. During the keynote or the party, throughput tests returned surprisingly good results. The 9104 antennas were really surprised by their well-defined coverage area with very small leakage outside of the coverage direction. This really helps with channel reuse in a large venue hall.

It was a good surprise to see more than 60% of the Wireless clients using Wi-Fi 6. However, only a few dozen supported 6E. We expect a sharp increase by next year, but it will stay a minority of clients. There were a couple of 802.11n clients but really not many.

The top simultaneous client count was around 13 500. It is slightly lower than the last event in Barcelona. We expect the event to grow by next year since this was the first one post-Covid.

Figure 3: Our custom telemetry graph

Hardware and Software Considerations

It was the first Cisco Live we ran 100% on the Catalyst 9800 in EMEA and 100% on Cisco DNA Center. Indeed in 2020, they were there but we still had 8540 WLCs in the network. We ran the 17.9.2 CCO software and only had minor issues to report. As is becoming more and more commonplace, most of the time we spent troubleshooting was on interoperability issues with specific device types and features. Completely disabling 2.4Ghz was a great idea because we noticed an increased usage of Bluetooth among the attendees and the Wi-Fi network would have disturbed all those Bluetooth devices.

Not everything was perfect though, it can never be in such a large event with so many new technologies. But I’m glad we keep improving year after year. There are always areas of complaint when the client density is higher than what we anticipated: there were some very successful sessions in Devnet theater or World of Solutions and connectivity was subpar during those events. We’ll make sure to come up with an improvement plan for next year to make that better.

Source: cisco.com

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Is Passing Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI Exam Worth Effort?

IT professionals highly covet the CCNP certification from Cisco. It confirms that a person has the necessary abilities and expertise to work with intricate networks by designing, setting up, configuring, and solving issues. The Cisco CCNP Enterprise certification includes the 300-415 ENSDWI exam.

The Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI exam concentrates on the technologies necessary for safeguarding business networks.

Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI Exam Information

The CCNP 300-415 Exam from Cisco is highly renowned and widely taken. It evaluates a person’s proficiency and expertise in configuring, handling, and fixing issues with Cisco networks.

The CCNP 300-415 exam is demanding and necessitates extensive preparation. Candidates must fully grasp the exam’sexam’s topics before attempting it. In addition to studying, candidates must also possess practical experience in dealing with Cisco networks.

You will need to pay $300 to take the exam and have 90 minutes to finish it. The exam is available in both Japanese and English. Cisco exams hold their validity for three years for associate and professional levels and two years for expert levels.

Pearson VUE conducts the CCNP 300-415 exam, and candidates can register via their website. The exam includes 55-65 multiple-choice and simulation questions, and candidates are allowed two hours to complete the exam.

Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI Exam Objectives:

Architecture (20%)

Controller Deployment (15%)

Router Deployment (20%)

Policies (20%)

Security and Quality of Service (15%)

Management and Operations (10%)

Tips for Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI Exam Preparation

Individuals who pass the Cisco 300-415 exam are awarded the esteemed Cisco Certified Specialist - Enterprise SD-WAN Implementation certification. However, before preparing for this certification exam, students should take note of the following:

Check out these five pointers that can assist you in passing the 300-415 ENSDWI exam on your initial attempt:

Comprehend the Exam

Register for Formal Training

Practice Continuously!

Sharpen Your Practical Abilities

Search and Join an Online Community

Before obtaining any study materials, registering for training, or buying exam preparation resources, it is recommended that you review the exam objectives. This will provide you with an understanding of the extent and complexity of the exam.

Once you clearly understand the exam objectives, you should select an appropriate training method (such as self-study or formal training). It is highly recommended to choose instructor-led training, as it allows interaction with experienced instructors and skilled professionals in passing the Cisco 300-415 exam.

Unfortunately, some candidates rely solely on study notes when preparing for the Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI exam. However, you require more than notes to pass this exam successfully. It is crucial to spend ample time practicing and mastering the intricacies of the exam curriculum. Therefore, seeking out and accessing online practice exams is advisable to make your preparation more dynamic. One such resource is the nwexam that provides practice questions, which can help you evaluate your level of readiness.

Technical skills are a significant part of the Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI exam. Thus, setting up a lab environment to refine the hands-on skills required for the exam is essential. By doing this, you can enhance your likelihood of passing the exam and gain proficiency in applying the acquired skills in practical situations.

Lastly, numerous online forums are available on the internet, allowing you to connect with other candidates preparing for the Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI exam. You can benefit from these forums by obtaining relevant study resources and other preparation tools from those who have already succeeded in passing the certification test.

Benefits of Becoming Cisco Certified

1. Skilled and Expert in the Field

To begin with, obtaining this certification will provide you with a top-notch qualification in the field of networking. It may assist you in standing out from other professionals in the industry and confirming your understanding to prospective employers. This validates your proficiency in resolving issues related to networks.

In essence, Cisco sets the standard against which all networking professionals are evaluated.

2. Globally Respected

Approximately one million Cisco students are currently studying in 165 countries worldwide. A Cisco certification will add a set of globally recognized and respected credentials to your resume, which can be easily translated into any language.

Earning Cisco qualifications can offer work and travel abroad opportunities, making it a suitable option for those seeking global career prospects.

3. Become Sought-After Professional

In simple terms, employers are seeking candidates who hold relevant qualifications. According to a survey, 93% of employers acknowledge that Cisco-certified employees are not just an asset to their organization. Still, they also possess more excellent knowledge than their counterparts who still need certification.

Becoming Cisco certified is becoming increasingly important for businesses and Cisco partners. Many require Cisco-certified employees, making CCNP Enterprise-qualified individuals highly sought after in the industry.

4. Makes You an Expert

Cisco certifications offer the opportunity to focus on a specific area of networking that aligns with your interests. This means you can pursue a field you are passionate about while establishing yourself as an authority in your chosen networking specialization.

There are nine distinct paths to choose from, each offering a diverse range of continuously evolving content. This means you have many options when deciding which course to take.

5. Higher Salary

In the end, obtaining a Cisco certification is the optimal approach if you desire a well-paying profession. Those with Cisco certifications earn up to 15% more than others in comparable positions.

Conclusion

Preparing for the Cisco 300-415 ENSDWI exam may seem challenging, but don’t give up. Keep striving until you pass the test and earn your CCNP Enterprise certification. It’s important to remember that worthwhile accomplishments require effort and persistence. Best of luck to you!

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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

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Scaling the Internet for the Future With 800G Innovations

Working out at the gym. Waiting in the doctor’s office. Shopping in the grocery aisle. Meeting in the conference room. With digital transformation, these types of activities are increasingly now hybrid, with many virtual options. At the same time, the demand for insights with AI/ML applications are growing, from generative AI and chatbots to medical diagnostics/treatment and fraud detection.

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

The rising use of online applications and analytics is generating large amounts of data that need to be moved swiftly, and as a result, users and devices are demanding more bandwidth. According to GSMA, 5G connections will grow to 5 billion by 2030. Analysys Mason forecasts that there will be 6.2 billion fixed and mobile connected IoT devices by 2030, up from nearly 1.8 billion at the end of 2020.

Adoption of 1G+ broadband also continues to grow rapidly. Based on the latest OpenVault Broadband Insights Report, average per-subscriber broadband consumption approached a new high of nearly 600 GB per month at the end of 2022 and the percentage of subscribers provisioned for gigabit speeds more than doubled Y/Y to 26%. What’s even more interesting is that the percentage of power users consuming 1TB or more per month was 18.7% Y/Y, and “super power users” consuming 2TB or more per month grew 25% Y/Y in Q4CY22.

Analysys Mason forecasts global fixed internet and cellular data volumes to rise to a combined total of 18.5 zettabytes (one zettabyte = one trillion gigabytes) worldwide by 2028 – nearly 3 times what it was in 2022.

Network Implications

What does this all mean? High-speed broadband and 5G mobile access are enabling users to consume more bandwidth, and seem to be driving “induced demand”, where, in this case, increasing the bandwidth supply can create more demand.

In particular, video is highly bandwidth-intensive and continues to dominate traffic patterns, whether for entertainment or real-time communications. For example, depending on the quality, short-form videos can add up to 300MB to 800MB per hour, a videoconference call can consume from 800MB to 2G/hour and streaming video can generate 2G to 7GB/hour.

Given these traffic rates, service providers and cloud operators are looking to scale for today and the future to keep up with user demands. Delivering high-quality user experiences is important for providers, and relies on a network infrastructure that can have the capacity and control to provide high-quality services.

Growing network capacity can require adding more line cards to modular routing systems as well as more routers, which can drive up complexity and space consumption with more hardware expansion. For example, scaling to 230T aggregate throughput using 115.2T modular platforms could require up to six systems, which is estimated to be nearly 80 kW power consumption.

What if you could double the performance of your phone, without replacing it entirely? At Cisco, we have made investments to help scale routers without complete replacement or sacrificing simplicity and operational efficiency.

New Cisco 800G Innovations

With market-leading densities and space efficiency through the industry’s first 28.8T line card powered by the Silicon One P100 ASIC, we are introducing 800G capability to the modular Cisco 8000 Series Router, which can scale to 230T in a 16 RU form factor with the 8-slot Cisco 8808, and up to 518T in the 18-slot chassis. At up to 15T/RU, we estimate that our dense core and spine solutions can deliver industry-leading bandwidth capacity and space savings, with up to double the capacity of competing single chassis platforms and up to 6x more space efficient compared to distributed chassis solutions.

These new line cards can support 36xQSFP-DD800 ports, which can enable the use of 2x400G and 8x100G breakout optics, and deliver market-leading densities with 72x400G ports or 288x100G ports per slot. The reason we can double the density is because the P100 uses state-of-the-art 100G SerDes technology that can achieve higher bandwidth speeds in the same footprint.

Instead of six 400G modular systems, one 800G 8-slot modular system can achieve 230T with up to 83% space savings, up to 68% energy savings or ~215,838 kg CO2e/year ~GHG savings. To put it in perspective, these carbon savings are the equivalent of recycling 115 tons of waste a year instead of going into landfills.

In addition to sustainability and operational cost benefits, our customers can also protect their pluggable optics investments since Cisco QSFP-DD 800G can support backward compatibility to lower-speed QSFP-DD and QSFP modules.

Operational Simplicity

Doubling the density in the same footprint can also mean less hardware to manage, which can help simplify operations. Managing traffic with a high-speed network might seem challenging, so we’re also providing more visibility, granular and scalable services health monitoring, closed-loop network optimization and faster provisioning with Cisco Crosswork Network Automation. These capabilities help customers consistently meet SLAs, reduce operational costs and time-to-market with service delivery.

We’re also introducing new IOS XR Segment Routing innovations with Path Tracing, which can give customers hop-by-hop visibility into where packets are flowing to help detect and troubleshoot issues quickly and enable better customer outcomes on agility and cost reduction.

Another way Cisco is helping simplify networks is through our award-winning Cisco Routed Optical Networking architecture. By converging IP and optical layers, platforms such as the Cisco 8000, can support IP and private line services through coherent pluggable optics, advanced intelligence with segment routing, and multi-domain/multivendor automation with Crosswork Network Automation. We’re striving to help our customers reduce costs while optimizing operations.

Use Cases

Given that traffic volumes are increasing, higher capacity is needed at the network intersection points, such as in the core. These core networks are in the IP backbone and metro regions, where we’re seeing more traffic concentrating, as applications and services move closer to the user, user access speeds increase with fiber and 5G, and functionality such as peering, subscriber management and CDN get distributed locally.

To avoid traffic jams with network congestion, a scalable metro core is needed to transport all traffic types, particularly high-bandwidth latency-sensitive traffic. However, metro locations tend to be smaller with tighter space constraints, which is why space efficiency is critical. Scaling to 800G can help providers address space and traffic demands efficiently with metro applications.

At the same time, IP backbones that interconnect metro networks are important to scale and help reduce bottlenecks. According to Dell’Oro, upgrades with IP backbone networks represent the highest demand for 400G, since the Internet backbone includes both cloud and communications service provider networks that carry traffic with mobile, broadband, and cloud services.

Traffic volumes, which rose during the pandemic, haven’t gone back to pre-pandemic levels as was expected, driven by remote/hybrid work and learning, which Dell’Oro believes is also driving the need for more network investment. And as Sandvine points out, “the onslaught of video, compounded by a growing number of applications with greater demands for latency, bandwidth and throughput, is exerting extraordinary pressure on global networks”.

As more people, applications, and devices get connected to global networks, more traffic continues to multiply in data centers, where we’re also seeing higher capacity demands in spine/leaf environments, such as super-spine, in addition to Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and data center WAN/core networks. AI/ML workloads are different from traditional data center traffic because the processors are very high bandwidth devices that can overwhelm networks and impact job completion rates without sufficient spine capacity. Dell’Oro also expects AI/ML workloads need 3x more bandwidth over typical workloads, with stringent requirements for lossless and low-latency networks. As AI/ML clusters grow in system radix and capacity, they require denser spines that can efficiently scale to 28.8T with 72x400G ports in order to avoid chokepoints.

Internet For the Future at 800G Speeds

With our modular 800G systems, we can offer the flexibility to deploy dense Nx400G and Nx100G ports in various use cases and leverage our Flexible Consumption Model (FCM) that supports Pay-as-You-Grow (PAYG) licensing to help with budgeting goals over time.

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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

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Failing Forward – What We Learned at Cisco from a “Failed” Digital Orchestration Pilot

The modern customer experience is fraught with friction:

You speak to a customer representative, and they tell you one thing.

You log into your digital account and see another.

You receive an email from the same company that tells an entirely different story.

At Cisco, we have been working to identify these friction points and evaluating how we can orchestrate a more seamless experience—transforming the customer, partner, and seller experience to be prescriptive, helpful – and, most importantly, simple. This is not an easy task when working in the complexity of environments, technologies, and client spaces that Cisco does business in, but it is not insurmountable.

We just closed out a year-long pilot of an industry-leading orchestration vendor, and by all measures – it failed. In The Lean Startup Eric Ries writes, “if you cannot fail, you cannot learn.” I fully subscribe to this perspective. If you are not willing to experiment, to try, to fail, and to evaluate your learnings, you only repeat what you know. You do not grow. You do not innovate. You need to be willing to dare to fail, and if you do, to try to fail forward.

So, while we did not renew the contract, we did continue down our orchestration journey equipped with a year’s worth of learnings and newly refined direction on how to tackle our initiatives.

Our Digital Orchestration Goals

We started our pilot with four key orchestration use cases:

1. Seamlessly connect prescriptive actions across channels to our sellers, partners, and customers.

2. Pause and resume a digital email journey based on triggers from other channels.

3. Connect analytics across the multichannel customer journey.

4. Easily integrate data science to branch and personalize the customer journey.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into each. We’ll look at the use case, the challenges we encountered, and the steps forward we are taking.

Use Case #1: Seamlessly connect prescriptive actions across channels to our sellers, partners, and customers.

Today we process and deliver business-defined prescriptive actions to our customer success representatives and partners when we have digitally identified adoption barriers in our customer’s deployment and usage of our SaaS products.

In our legacy state, we were executing a series of complex SQL queries in Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Automation Studio to join multiple data sets and output the specific actions a customer needs. Then, using Marketing Cloud Connect, we wrote the output to the task object in Salesforce CRM to generate actions in a customer success agent’s queue. After this action is written to the task object, we picked up the log in Snowflake, applied additional filtering logic and wrote actions to our Cisco partner portal – Lifecycle Advantage, which is hosted on AWS.

There are several key issues with this workflow:

◉ Salesforce Marketing Cloud is not meant to be used as an ETL platform; we were already encountering time out issues.

◉ The partner actions were dependent on the seller processing, so it introduced complexity if we ever wanted to pause one workflow while maintaining the other.

◉ The development process was complex, and it was difficult to introduce new recommended actions or to layer on additional channels.

◉ There was no feedback loop between channels, so it was not possible for a customer success representative to see if a partner had taken action or not, and vice versa.

Thus, we brought in an orchestration platform – a place where we can connect multiple data sources through APIs, centralize processing logic, and write the output to activation channels. Pretty quickly in our implementation, though, we encountered challenges with the orchestration platform.

The Challenges

◉ The complexity of the joins in our queries could not be supported by the orchestration platform, so we had to preprocess the actions before they entered the platform and then they could be routed to their respective activation channels. This was our first pivot. In our technical analysis of the platform, the vendor assured us that our queries could be supported in the platform, but in actual practice, that proved woefully inaccurate. So, we migrated the most complex processing to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and only left simple logic in the orchestration platform to identify which action a customer required and write that to the correct activation channel.

◉ The user interface abstracted parts of the code creating dependencies on an external vendor. We spent considerable time trying to decipher what went wrong via trial and error without access to proper logs.

◉ The connectors were highly specific and required vendor support to setup, modify, and troubleshoot.

Our Next Step Forward

These three challenges forced us to think differently. Our goal was to centralize processing logic and connect to data sources as well as activation channels. We were already leveraging GCP for preprocessing, so we migrated the remainder of the queries to GCP. In order to solve for our need to manage APIs to enable data consumption and channel activation, we turned to Mulesoft. The combination of GCP and Mulesoft helped us achieve our first orchestration goal while giving us full visibility to the end-to-end process for implementation and support.

Orchestration Architecture

Use Case #2: Pause and resume a digital email journey based on triggers from other channels.

We focused on attempting to pause an email journey in a Marketing Automation Platform (Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Eloqua) if a customer had a mid-to-high severity Technical Assistance Center (TAC) Case open for that product.

Again, we set out to do this using the orchestration platform. In this scenario, we needed to pause multiple digital journeys from a single set of processing logic in the platform.

The Challenge

We did determine that we could send the pause/resume trigger from the orchestration platform, but it required setting up a one-to-one match of journey canvases in the orchestration platform to journeys that we might want to pause in the marketing automation platform. The use of the orchestration platform actually introduced more complexity to the workflow than managing ourselves.

Our Next Step Forward

Again, we looked at the known challenge and the tools in our toolbox. We determined that if we set up the processing logic in GCP, we could evaluate all journeys from a single query and send the pause trigger to all relevant canvases in the marketing automation platform – a much more scalable structure to support.

Sample of Wait Until Event used in Journey Builder

Wait Until API Configuration

Another strike against the platform, but another victory in forcing a new way of thinking about a problem and finding a solution we could support with our existing tech stack. We also expect the methodology we established to be leveraged for other types of decisioning such as journey prioritization, journey acceleration, or pausing a journey when an adoption barrier is identified and a recommended action intervention is initiated.

Use Case #3: Connect analytics across the multichannel customer journey.

We execute journeys across multiple channels. For instance, we may send a renewal notification email series, show a personalized renewal banner on Cisco.com for users of that company with an upcoming renewal, and enable a self-service renewal process on renew.cisco.com. We collect and analyze metrics for each channel, but it is difficult to show how a customer or account interacted with each digital entity across their entire experience.

Orchestration platforms offer analytics views that display Sankey diagrams so journey strategists can visually review how customers engage across channels to evaluate drop off points or particularly critical engagements for optimization opportunities.

Sample of a Sankey Diagram

The Challenge

◉ As we set out to do this, we learned the largest blocker to unifying this data is not really a challenge an orchestration platform innately solves just through executing the campaigns through their platform. The largest blocker is that each channel uses different identifiers for the customer. Email journeys use email address, web personalization uses cookies associated at an account level, and the e-commerce experience uses user ID login. The root of this issue is the lack of a unique identifier that can be threaded across channels.

◉ Additionally, we discovered that our analytics and metrics team had existing gaps in attribution reporting for sites behind SSO login, such as renew.cisco.com.

◉ Finally, since many teams at Cisco are driving web traffic to Cisco.com, we saw a large inconsistency with how different teams were tagging (and not tagging) their respective web campaigns. To be able to achieve a true view of the customer journey end to end, we would need to adopt a common language for tagging and tracking our campaigns across business units at Cisco.

Our Next Step Forward

Our team began the process to adopt the same tagging and tracking hierarchy and system that our marketing organization uses for their campaigns. This will allow our teams to bridge the gap between a customer’s pre-purchase and post-purchase journeys at Cisco—enabling a more cohesive customer experience.

Next, we needed to tackle the data threading. Here we identified what mapping tables existed (and where) to be able to map different campaign data to a single data hierarchy. For this particular example for renewals, we needed to tackle three different data hierarchies:

1. Party ID associated with a unique physical location for a customer who has purchased from Cisco

2. Web cookie ID

3. Cisco login ID

Data mapping exercise for Customer Journey Analytics

With the introduction of consistent, cross Cisco-BU tracking IDs in our Cisco.com web data, we will map a Cisco login ID back to a web cookie ID to fill in some of the web attribution gaps we see on sites like renew.cisco.com after a user logs in with SSO.

Once we had established that level of data threading, we could develop our own Sankey diagrams using our existing Tableau platform for Customer Journey Analytics. Additionally, leveraging our existing tech stack helps limit the number of reporting platforms used to ensure better metrics consistency and easier maintenance.

Use Case #4: Easily integrate data science to branch and personalize the customer journey.

We wanted to explore how we can take the output of a data science model and pivot a journey to provide a more personalized, guided experience for that customer. For instance, let’s look at our customer’s renewal journey. Today, they receive a four-touchpoint journey reminding them to renew. Customers can also open a chat or have a representative call or email them for additional support. Ultimately, the journey is the same for a customer regardless of their likelihood to renew. We have, however, a churn risk model that could be leveraged to modify the experience based on high, medium, or low risk of churn.

So, if a customer with an upcoming renewal had a high risk of churn, we could trigger a prescriptive action to escalate to a human for engagement, and we could also personalize the email with a more urgent message for that user. Whereas a customer with a low risk for churn could have an upsell opportunity weaved into their notification or we could route the low-risk customers into advocacy campaigns.

The goals of this use case were primarily:

1. Leverage the output of a data science model to personalize the customer’s experience

2. Pivot experiences from digital to human escalation based on data triggers.

3. Provide context to help customer agents understand the opportunity and better engage the customer to drive the renewal.

The Challenge

This was actually a rather natural fit for an orchestration platform. The challenge we entered here was the data refresh timing. We needed to refresh the renewals data to be processed by the churn risk model and align that with the timing of the triggered email journeys. Our renewals data was refreshed at the beginning of every month, but we hold our sends until the end of the month to allow our partners some time to review and modify their customers’ data prior to sending. Our orchestration platform would only process new, incremental data and overwrite based on a pre-identified primary key (this allowed for better system processing to not just overwrite all data with every refresh).

To get around this issue, our vendor would create a brand new view of the table prior to our triggered send so that all data was newly processed (not just any new or updated records). Not only did this create a vendor dependency for our journeys, but it also introduced potential quality assurance issues by requiring a pre-launch update of our data table sources for our production journeys.

Our Next Step Forward

One question we kept asking ourselves as we struggled to make this use case work with the orchestration platform—were we overcomplicating things? The two orchestration platform outputs of our attrition model use case were to:

1. Customize the journey content for a user depending on their risk of attrition.

2. Create a human touchpoint in our digital renewal journey for those with a high attrition risk.

For number one, we could actually achieve that using dynamic content modules within SalesForce Marketing Cloud if we simply added a “risk of attrition” field to our renewals data extension and created dynamic content modules for low, medium, and high risk of attrition values. Done!

For number two, doesn’t that sound sort of familiar? It should! It’s the same problem we wanted to solve in our first use case for prescriptive calls to action. Because we already worked to create a new architecture for scaling our recommended actions across multiple channels and audiences, we could work to add a branch for an “attrition risk” alert to be sent to our Cisco Renewals Managers and partners based on our data science model. A feedback loop could even be added to collect data on why a customer may not choose to renew after this human connection is made.

Finding Success

At the end of our one-year pilot, we had been forced to think about the tactics to achieve our goals very differently. Yes, we had deemed the pilot a failure – but how do we fail forward? As we encountered each challenge, we took a step back and evaluated what we learned and how we could use that to achieve our goals.

Ultimately, we figured out new ways to leverage our existing systems to not only achieve our core goals but also enable us to have end-to -end visibility of our code so we can set up the processing, refreshes, and connections exactly how our business requires.

Now – we’re applying each of these learnings. We are rolling out our core use cases as capabilities in our existing architecture, building an orchestration inventory that can be leveraged across the company – a giant step towards success for us and for our customers’ experience. The outcome was not what we expected, but each step of the process helped propel us toward the right solutions.

Source: cisco.com

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