Building AI/ML Networks with Cisco Silicon One

It’s evident from the amount of news coverage, articles, blogs, and water cooler stories that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are changing our society in fundamental ways—and that the industry is evolving quickly to try to keep up with the explosive growth.

Unfortunately, the network that we’ve used in the past for high-performance computing (HPC) cannot scale to meet the demands of AI/ML. As an industry, we must evolve our thinking and build a scalable and sustainable network for AI/ML.

Today, the industry is fragmented between AI/ML networks built around four unique architectures: InfiniBand, Ethernet, telemetry assisted Ethernet, and fully scheduled fabrics.

Each technology has its pros and cons, and various tier 1 web scalers view the trade-offs differently. This is why we see the industry moving in many directions simultaneously to meet the rapid large-scale buildouts occurring now.

This reality is at the heart of the value proposition of Cisco Silicon One.

Customers can deploy Cisco Silicon One to power their AI/ML networks and configure the network to use standard Ethernet, telemetry assisted Ethernet, or fully scheduled fabrics. As workloads evolve, they can continue to evolve their thinking with Cisco Silicon One’s programmable architecture.

Figure 1. Flexibility of Cisco Silicon One

All other silicon architectures on the market lock organizations into a narrow deployment model, forcing customers to make early buying time decisions and limiting their flexibility to evolve. Cisco Silicon One, however, gives customers the flexibility to program their network into various operational modes and provides best-of-breed characteristics in each mode. Because Cisco Silicon One can enable multiple architectures, customers can focus on the reality of the data and then make data-driven decisions according to their own criteria.

Figure 2. AI/ML network solution space

To help understand the relative merits of each of these technologies, it’s important to understand the fundamentals of AI/ML. Like many buzzwords, AI/ML is an oversimplification of many unique technologies, use cases, traffic patterns, and requirements. To simplify the discussion, we’ll focus on two aspects: training clusters and inference clusters.

Training clusters are designed to create a model using known data. These clusters train the model. This is an incredibly complex iterative algorithm that is run across a massive number of GPUs and can run for many months to generate a new model.

Inference clusters, meanwhile, take a trained model to analyze unknown data and infer the answer. Simply put, these clusters infer what the unknown data is with an already trained model. Inference clusters are much smaller computational models. When we interact with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or Google Bard, we are interacting with the inference models. These models are a result of a very significant training of the model with billions or even trillions of parameters over a long period of time.

In this blog, we’ll focus on training clusters and analyze how the performance of Ethernet, telemetry assisted Ethernet, and fully scheduled fabrics behave.

AI/ML training networks are built as self-contained, massive back-end networks and have significantly different traffic patterns than traditional front-end networks. These back-end networks are used to carry specialized traffic between specialized endpoints. In the past, they were used for storage interconnect, however, with the advent of remote direct memory access (RDMA) and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), a significant portion of storage networks are now built over generic Ethernet.

Today, these back-end networks are being used for HPC and massive AI/ML training clusters. As we saw with storage, we are witnessing a migration away from legacy protocols.

The AI/ML training clusters have unique traffic patterns compared to traditional front-end networks. The GPUs can fully saturate high-bandwidth links as they send the results of their computations to their peers in a data transfer known as the all-to-all collective. At the end of this transfer, a barrier operation ensures that all GPUs are up to date. This creates a synchronization event in the network that causes GPUs to be idled, waiting for the slowest path through the network to complete. The job completion time (JCT) measures the performance of the network to ensure all paths are performing well.

Figure 3. AI/ML computational and notification process

 

This traffic is non-blocking and results in synchronous, high-bandwidth, long-lived flows. It is vastly different from the data patterns in the front-end network, which are primarily built out of many asynchronous, small-bandwidth, and short-lived flows, with some larger asynchronous long-lived flows for storage. These differences along with the importance of the JCT mean network performance is critical.

To analyze how these networks perform, we created a model of a small training cluster with 256 GPUs, eight top of rack (TOR) switches, and four spine switches. We then used an all-to-all collective to transfer a 64 MB collective size and vary the number of simultaneous jobs running on the network, as well as the amount of network in the speedup.

The results of the study are dramatic.

Unlike HPC, which was designed for a single job, large AI/ML training clusters are designed to run multiple simultaneous jobs, similarly to what happens in web scale data centers today. As the number of jobs increases, the effects of the load balancing scheme used in the network become more apparent. With 16 jobs running across the 256 GPUs, a fully scheduled fabric results in a 1.9x quicker JCT.

Figure 4. Job completion time for Ethernet versus fully scheduled fabric

Studying the data another way, if we monitor the amount of priority flow control (PFC) sent from the network to the GPU, we see that 5% of the GPUs slow down the remaining 95% of the GPUs. In comparison, a fully scheduled fabric provides fully non-blocking performance, and the network never pauses the GPU.

Figure 5. Network to GPU flow control for Ethernet versus fully scheduled fabric with 1.33x speedup

 

This means that for the same network, you can connect twice as many GPUs for the same size network with fully scheduled fabric. The goal of telemetry assisted Ethernet is to improve the performance of standard Ethernet by signaling congestion and improving load balancing decisions.

As I mentioned earlier, the relative merits of various technologies vary by each customer and are likely not constant over time. I believe Ethernet, or telemetry assisted Ethernet, although lower performance than fully scheduled fabrics, are an incredibly valuable technology and will be deployed widely in AI/ML networks.

So why would customers choose one technology over the other?

Customers who want to enjoy the heavy investment, open standards, and favorable cost-bandwidth dynamics of Ethernet should deploy Ethernet for AI/ML networks. They can improve the performance by investing in telemetry and minimizing network load through careful placement of AI jobs on the infrastructure.

Customers who want to enjoy the full non-blocking performance of an ingress virtual output queue (VOQ), fully scheduled, spray and re-order fabric, resulting in an impressive 1.9x better job completion time, should deploy fully scheduled fabrics for AI/ML networks. Fully scheduled fabrics are also great for customers who want to save cost and power by removing network elements, yet still achieve the same performance as Ethernet, with 2x more compute for the same network.

Cisco Silicon One is uniquely positioned to provide a solution for either of these customers with a converged architecture and industry-leading performance.

Figure 6. Evolve your network with Cisco Silicon One

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

To the Cloud and Beyond―A Comprehensive Model for Enhanced NetOps and User Experience

Cloud computing has become wildly popular among IT organizations for a number of reasons, including its ability to enhance efficiency, security, agility, and cost-effectiveness. But now cloud features and principles have also become the building blocks of something even bigger and more all-encompassing: a unified IT operating model that spans people, devices, networks, applications, and things across the digital infrastructure.

With end-to-end visibility and centralized, cloud-based management, IT can monitor, manage, and control an organization’s entire networking, cloud, and security infrastructure. A unified cloud operating model makes it easier for organizations to pivot as their needs change. Organizations can quickly deploy innovative applications, respond to disruptions and threats, and scale performance and capacity. The model is an antidote to separate, complex, operational silos on-premises, on the internet, and in the cloud. The overall goal of the model is to dramatically improve the efficiency, reliability, and resiliency of IT operations, as well as the quality of user experience.

The Need for a Comprehensive Operating Model 

Recent research conducted by IDC has found IT staff worldwide engaged in a struggle with highly specialized, complex, and manual management tools and procedures in use across on-premises, internet, cloud, and security silos. Between all of the silos are management and security gaps. Integration is limited. Efficiency and time-to-market suffer.

Meanwhile, IT is being asked to innovate in the use of applications and data intelligence, to create great and secure user experiences, to scale up or down in response to demand, and to do it all efficiently and cost-effectively.

Enter the cloud operating model.

With the cloud operating model, cloud principles like anywhere access, self-service dashboards, policy automation, end-to-end visibility, microservices, continuous integration, and continuous delivery (CI/CD), and extensibility can be applied across the entire digital infrastructure from access to internet to cloud (Figure 1). That includes all endpoints and systems whether they are on-premises, in the cloud, in remote offices, or mobile.

Figure 1. The Cloud Operating Model

With consistent policies and governance within and across operational domains, the cloud operating model can improve cross-functional collaboration, eliminating disparate processes and disjointed efforts that hamper better business outcomes.

An Ongoing Journey

Achieving a cloud operating model is a journey for organizations requiring a significant shift in how they approach their IT operations:

• A shift in thinking from viewing cloud and on-premises environments as separate entities to looking at how the best features of both can converge
• A cultural shift that embraces breaking down silos, promoting collaboration, and encouraging cross-functional innovation
• New skills, tools, and processes to manage infrastructure, such as automation, DevOps, and agile methodologies
• Integration of cloud management platforms with legacy systems, which requires careful assessment and a migration strategy

Achieving a cloud operating model is not a one-time event but rather an ongoing journey of continuous improvement across the entire IT environment. Cloud features and a unified management platform provide the means to monitor, optimize, and innovate to help ensure that organizations are getting the most value from their investments.

Where to Begin?

Start by evaluating which cloud principles exist in which domains. At Cisco, we’re developing a new tool that helps organizations define their various infrastructure principles within the access network, software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), and data center. By overlaying principles on infrastructures, an organization can identify opportunities to integrate silos to help meet business and operational objectives.

Some organizations are starting the journey to the cloud operating model by extending SD-WAN connectivity across multiple clouds for simpler IT management and a better application experience. With a distributed SD-WAN, they can apply policy, visibility, control, and zero trust consistently across all clouds, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and middle-mile providers. Other organizations are planning to use this SD-WAN foundation to transition to a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture to connect network and security domains across branches and remote clients.

With our broad cloud and networking platform portfolio, Cisco provides a comprehensive set of solutions with the visibility, consistent policy governance, and insights-driven automation necessary to support an effective cloud operating model. For example, in campus networking, the Cisco Meraki platform supports many key cloud principles.

The Meraki dashboard provides cloud-based management for connected access points and IoT devices, plus monitoring and management of switches. Through the dashboard, configuration and access policies can be defined and automated throughout the network. The dashboard interface is a visual representation of all connected devices, showing the real-time status of each device. And Meraki has a marketplace of partner applications that leverage APIs to extend these capabilities across the network.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Secure Workload 3.8 delivers more productivity, lower TCO, and faster time to value

If the network is the skeleton, then applications are the lifeblood of today’s business. They connect organizations with their customers, employees, supply chains, partners, and even generate revenue. Safeguarding modern applications running across complex hybrid multicloud environments is paramount for every size and type of business. Cisco Secure Workload 3.8 brings a wealth of new capabilities to help security professionals protect critical application workloads by simplifying complexity and unifying network controls to improve their overall security posture.

Secure Workload protects the applications that power business in an infrastructure, location, and form factor agnostic manner. It does this by employing an agent and agentless approaches to give customers deep visibility into every workload interaction and uses powerful AI/ML-driven automation to handle tasks that are beyond human scale, delivering accurate and consistent microsegmentation and continuously monitoring compliance across the application landscape.

Secure Workload 3.8 improves productivity, lowers the overall TCO for existing and new customers by delivering a minimum of 50% greater scale on the existing platforms. It also provides consistent agent and agentless microsegmentation for workload deployment across hybrid multicloud, expanding the core microsegmentation use cases. And last but certainly not least it strengthens the integration with Cisco Secure Firewall and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

The latest version of Secure Workload continues to focus on enhancing the user experience with more automation, simplifying the onboarding process, and adding new platform APIs. The end-to-end workflow helps customers achieve zero trust faster, improve operator productivity by 50% or more, and significantly reduce the time to value.

In the digital economy, speed and information are the key currencies. The persona-based reporting dashboard introduced in the 3.8 release delivers actionable intelligence on demand, reports the overall security health of applications, illustrates emerging trends based on historical data, and introduces new Forensics alerts based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

Figure – 1 Alerts based on MITRE ATT&CK Framework

Secure Workload 3.8 supports greater scale on the existing platform and connectors which helps customers extend their hardware life and lowers the solution’s total cost of ownership. The updated scale numbers are shown below:

And in our continued effort to deliver a true multicloud zero trust solution with agent and agentless flexibility for our customers, the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) connector in the 3.8 release delivers agentless microsegmentation for applications deployed in Google Cloud, adding to our existing support for AWS and Azure cloud.

Since the early days of its inception, Secure Workload has integrated with Identity Services Engine (ISE) to address user/device identity-based segmentation scenarios in the customer environment. In the 3.8 release, Secure Workload integrates with the ISE Passive ID which helps ingest user, group, and other attributes from the customer Active Directory and/or Azure Directory and in turn enables endpoint identity-aware visibility and policy enforcement.

Two years ago, we launched the native integration between Secure Workload and Secure Firewall to provide defense in depth and an agentless approach for on-prem environments to achieve zero trust. With the 3.8 release, we are taking this integration to the next level with topology awareness, giving customers the granular control to discover, enforce, and automate select policies on a specific firewall or set of firewalls through Secure Workload.

Figure 2 – Defense in Depth and Virtual Patching – Secure Workload and Secure Firewall Integration

As you may know, it is not uncommon to have critical vulnerabilities unpatched in an environment despite best-of-breed vulnerability management solutions. While there are many factors, with virtual patching Secure Workload and Secure Firewall seamlessly share threat intelligence and ensure that the right SNORT signature is applied to protect against a known vulnerability present in the customer environment without breaking the application.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Deliver the Experience Your Customers Want with a Data-Informed Hybrid Work Strategy

Introduction: The Evolution of Hybrid Work

While hybrid work is not a new concept, it continues to evolve as we gather more information about employee work preferences and customers’ workplace and real estate goals. At Cisco, we leverage the insights gained from our own hybrid work environments, including our offices and collaboration centers, to shape our approach. In this blog, we will focus on two of our Hybrid Work building pillars—supporting hybrid work and digitizing real estate—and how data plays a vital role in optimizing workspaces. The remaining pillars, corporate sustainability and employee health and wellness, will be covered in our next blog.

The four pillars and corresponding data points for our latest Hybrid work office transformation in Atlanta

Support Hybrid Work: Designing Spaces that Matter

Even as employees return to the office post-pandemic, companies are reconfiguring their real estate portfolios to align with their return-to-work strategies. Cisco has been proactive in reimagining the workplace by investing in collaborative hubs and, in some cases, downsizing office spaces to prioritize other areas.

Toronto & Chicago

Our hybrid work journey began with the design of an innovation center in Toronto, aimed at inspiring innovation and investment in Digital Transformation. This office, although constructed before the pandemic, marks some of our first steps in creating smart and collaborative workspaces. By leveraging a single converged network powered by Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology, we connected people, processes, and data, enhancing productivity and optimizing energy usage. Over time, we made adjustments to the space based on insights gathered, including downsizing the overall floorplate. Today, the Toronto office serves as a studio to educate people on the hybrid work journey.

In Chicago, our office layout was designed to accommodate a pre-pandemic work environment, with employees spending more time in the office. The majority of the layout was dedicated to “me” spaces (70%), such as personal offices and individual workstations, while the remaining portion focused on “we” spaces (30%) to foster collaboration. This office serves as a showcase for Cisco’s technology and collaboration devices, furthering our hybrid work journey.

Penn1 & Atlanta

Throughout each these projects and our work -from-home experiment during the pandemic, we collected significant data to inform our future space designs. A 2021 Cisco Employee Survey revealed that 81% of our employees preferred to work outside the office for 3 to 5 days per week, with office visits primarily driven by learning and collaboration needs.

Armed with these valuable insights, we incorporated these findings into our subsequent major office transformations, including PENN1 in NYC and our latest office in Atlanta. In these locations, we purposefully designed specific spaces such as hot desks, huddle rooms, and collaboration areas to align with the identified trends and utilization patterns of our offices. Each of these offices were meticulously configured with layouts and technology to enhance productivity and collect valuable data for ongoing support of hybrid work. At both, Penn1 and Atlanta, our commitment to hybrid work is evident in the deliberate reduction of space to meet workforce capacity, utilization of collaboration technology, video-enabled environments, prioritization of collaboration spaces over individual workstations, and the elimination of personal offices.

The PENN1 office follows a 30% “me” space to 70% “we” space ratio, which is the opposite of what our pre-pandemic offices were designed for. With the development of our latest office in Atlanta, the ratio of “me” to “we” spaces is now 10% to 90%. This clear shift reflects our data and observations on how people now utilize office space. Hybrid work means going to the office to collaborate with others, rather than focusing on individual tasks. The choices we made in our office designs demonstrate our dedication to creating environments where teams can thrive, engage in meaningful learning, collaborate seamlessly, and drive innovation.

Digitize Cisco Real Estate: Leveraging Data for Smarter Workspaces

Building on the previous section, we now explore how data and analytics have shaped Cisco’s decision-making process in creating workspaces that promote collaboration, learning, and productivity. By harnessing insights from various sources, we have been able to optimize the physical environment to align with employee needs and preferences. Here are a few examples of how data and analytics have guided our hybrid work approach.

Cisco Video End Points

Analyzing data from Cisco Video End Points revealed that the average meeting size consisted of 3.7 in-person participants and 2.5 remote participants. Armed with this information, we intentionally designed small collaboration rooms, quiet spaces, and huddle rooms that cater to smaller groups. This approach fosters frequent and effective collaboration within a more intimate setting.

Cisco Spaces

Cisco Spaces is the core of our Hybrid Work strategy, acting as the foundation that brings everything together. It transforms flat floor plans into dynamic and interactive 3D maps, helping us to better understand and strategize for space utilization. We continuously collect data around the clock from our collaboration devices, networking devices, and third-party devices, enabling us to gain valuable insights in real time. This data empowers us to make informed decisions across the many areas of space design, safety, sustainability, and employee health and wellness. Whether it’s reimagining the layout of a room or helping facilities know what rooms to clean based on occupancy, this data provides us with the insights drive an impactful and informed hybrid work practice.

Room Design

By utilizing data from Cisco Spaces, we identified a popular room layout at Penn1—a semi-open space with a high-top bar, low-profile seating, and limited power outlets. This configuration unexpectedly became a preferred spot for employees, encouraging focused collaboration and reducing distractions. Analyzing room utilization data through Cisco Spaces allowed us to recognize the demand for such spaces, leading us to implement similar designs in our latest office in Atlanta.

Employee Data

Industry standards revealed that employees typically visit the office to learn, collaborate, and socialize. This knowledge greatly influenced our space design, resulting in dedicated areas at Penn1 and Atlanta that cater to these functions. From large, connected rooms for training and workshops to smaller breakout rooms for collaboration, our spaces are purposefully designed to support these activities based on employee data.

By leveraging the power of data and analytics, Cisco has made informed decisions about space utilization, room design, and meeting configurations. This optimization not only enhances the physical environment but also ensures that our spaces align with the needs and preferences of our employees, facilitating a seamless transition into the hybrid work model.

You Can Be Next: Translating Data into Action

Now that we have discussed how data informs our approach to hybrid work, you may be wondering how to begin implementing your data-driven strategy. At Cisco, we recognize that smart buildings and hybrid work environments require a network of trusted partners to design, build, implement, and iterate — partners just like you. To get started on developing a data-first approach to hybrid work, consider the following options as your next steps:

1. Schedule a tour: Visit our new offices in Atlanta or PENN1 in NYC to witness firsthand the data-driven approach we have adopted and how it can benefit your customers. If you are an existing partner, reach out to your Product Marketing Manager (PMM) today.

2. Virtual tour: If an in-person visit is not possible, take a virtual tour of PENN1 to preview the capabilities of our smart building approach.

Together, let’s leverage data to create actionable insights and shape the future of hybrid work. By creating workspaces that employees want to return to, buildings that provide the necessary data to adapt to changing needs, and environments that foster sustainability and innovation, we can deliver the experience that both customers and employees desire.

Remember, the future of work is hybrid, and data is the key to unlocking its full potential. Together, we can create workspaces that inspire productivity, collaboration, and success. Let’s embrace the power of data and embark on this exciting journey toward a more connected, smart, and flexible work environment.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Built on Cisco Security Cloud: XDR

As we enter the age of Cisco Security Cloud, we have delivered on the first phase of our vision that aims to provide organizations with a comprehensive, open, and integrated platform for protecting their users, data, infrastructure, and applications whether on-premises, in the cloud, or both.

In the era of hybrid clouds, security platforms must meet organizations where they are to protect their data, networks, and systems from cyberattacks. Hybrid clouds combine on-premises and cloud-based resources, which can create new and complex security challenges. For example, it can be difficult to manage security policies across multiple environments, and it can be difficult to detect and respond to threats that move between on-premises and cloud environments.

During the RSA Conference in 2023, we launched our first product on the Cisco Security Cloud and unveiled Cisco XDR to the world. Cisco XDR is a cloud-based extended detection and response solution for security operations teams that detects, prioritizes, and remediates threats more efficiently to achieve security resilience. Integrating with the broad Cisco security portfolio and many third-party offerings, Cisco XDR is the most comprehensive solution on the market today.

Cisco XDR leverages the Cisco Security Cloud to provide organizations with a comprehensive view of their security posture. XDR collects data from across the security stack, including endpoints, networks, cloud, firewall, and email, and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and respond to threats in real time.

Overall, Cisco Security Cloud’s capabilities benefit Cisco XDR in several ways. By providing common data, centralized provisioning of physical identity and access management (PIAM) policies, and native cross domain telemetry, Cisco Security Cloud helps to improve the effectiveness of Cisco XDR in detecting, investigating, and responding to threats.

Here are some of Cisco Security Cloud’s capabilities that benefit Cisco XDR:

• Common Data: This makes it easier for Cisco XDR to correlate data from different sources and to identify threats that might otherwise be missed.
• Native Cross Domain Telemetry: Cisco Security Cloud can collect and correlate data from across the entire security infrastructure, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. This gives security teams a more complete view of the security landscape and helps them to identify and respond to threats more quickly.

Additionally, Cisco Security Cloud facilitates the following Cisco XDR capabilities that benefit SOC processes:

• Threat Detection and Hunting: By leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms using behavior-based analysis and anomaly detection techniques, Cisco Security Cloud identifies potential security threats leveraged by Cisco XDR for early detection and proper prioritization of unknown/zero-day threats as well as known malware.
• Incident Investigation and Response: When a security incident occurs, Cisco Security Cloud provides real-time alerts and actionable insights to facilitate rapid investigation under Cisco XDR. It offers crucial information about the incident, including affected assets and related indicators of compromise where recommended remediation steps are displayed by Cisco XDR.

With Cisco Security Cloud, Cisco XDR can detect, investigate, and respond to threats more effectively. As a result, organizations are able to improve their security posture and ensure that their data is protected against cyberattacks.

Continue reading

How Cisco’s SaaS Solutions on AWS Deliver Unbeatable Value to Customers and Partners

The cloud has become a vital tool for businesses of all sizes, providing flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness that are necessary to compete in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. However, as more companies move their applications and data to the cloud, they face new challenges in terms of security, connectivity, observability, optimization. That’s where Cisco comes in.

“Cisco is meeting customers where they are by offering end-to-end solutions for their cloud journeys, including cloud security, connectivity, observability, and remote work.”

As a leading provider of  networking, cybersecurity and observability solutions, Cisco has become a trusted partner for businesses looking to navigate their cloud journeys. Cisco offers end-to-end solutions for customers’ cloud journeys, including cloud connectivity, cloud security, cloud observability, cloud optimization, and remote work.

Cisco is making it easier for customers and partners to take advantage of its solutions by offering them on AWS Marketplace. Cisco SaaS solutions on AWS provide greater flexibility for customers and partners, making procurement easier. With the AWS Marketplace channel program, CPPO (Channel Partner Private Offer), partners can sell more Cisco SaaS solutions on AWS to customers. Most of Cisco’s SaaS solutions run on AWS, providing customers with greater flexibility and convenience in terms of procurement, leveraging their EDP commitments, and accessing the robust ecosystem support provided by Cisco and AWS.

Cisco’s SaaS solutions on AWS cover a wide range of areas, including cloud security, connectivity, observability, and hybrid work solutions. Cisco SaaS solutions on AWS are designed to work seamlessly with AWS services, making it easier for customers and partners to integrate them into their existing cloud environments. For cloud security, Cisco offers zero trust, SSE, SASE, infrastructure protection, application security, and XDR solutions, which can help customers secure their cloud environments and protect their data from cyber threats.

In terms of cloud connectivity, Cisco offers SD-WAN and simplified cloud connectivity solutions that help customers connect their on-premises and cloud environments.

Additionally, Cisco’s cloud observability solutions offer full-stack observability that covers infrastructure, internet, applications, business, code-to-cloud, and cloud optimization. This helps customers gain better visibility into their cloud environments and optimize their cloud resources for cost and performance.

Lastly, Cisco’s end-to-end hybrid work solutions help customers support remote work and collaboration. This includes solutions for secure remote access, video conferencing, and team collaboration.

Cisco’s SaaS Key Solutions Use cases

The Cisco and AWS partnership offers numerous benefits for customers and partners who are looking to migrate to the cloud or optimize their existing cloud environments. One of the most significant advantages of this partnership is the ability to access Cisco’s SaaS solutions on the AWS Marketplace.

In conclusion, By offering its solutions on AWS, Cisco is making it easier for businesses to take advantage of the latest technologies and innovations and stay ahead of the curve in their respective industries. The Cisco and AWS partnership is a powerful combination that can help customers and partners optimize their cloud environments and achieve their business objectives. To learn more about the AWS and Cisco partnership, and how you can benefit from Cisco’s SaaS solutions on AWS, visit the AWS and Cisco partnership page, as well as Cisco’s solutions for AWS.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading

Forrester TEI™ Finds Cisco Vulnerability Management Delivers 125% ROI

Oh, the torture of not having a strong risk-based vulnerability management solution in place.

You know what I’m talking about. Relying on ineffective and unmanageable CVSS, homegrown scoring systems, vendor scoring, or a mixture of those options to help you try to prioritize the mountain of vulnerabilities in your environment. It leads to a lot of headaches and not a lot of progress to show.

Even more, it negatively impacts the working relationship between Security and IT, especially when one team is passing over a laundry list of vulnerabilities to the other with minimal context and understanding of business impact.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) takes a risk-based approach to vulnerability prioritization that is fueled by data science, enabling Security and IT teams to focus their limited resources on real risk and remediate more efficiently. ​

An April 2023 Total Economic ImpactTM study conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Cisco found that Cisco Vulnerability Management delivered a 125% return on investment (ROI) over three years, and a payback period of just 6 months for that investment.

Customers Interviewed for This Study

Forrester interviewed five Cisco Vulnerability Management customers (Figure 1) and formed a composite organization based on their characteristics to analyze the financial and operational impacts of Cisco Vulnerability Management. The composite organization is a global organization with $10 billion in annual revenue, 100,000 assets covered by Cisco Vulnerability Management, and 10 security analyst FTEs.

Figure 1: Characteristics of Cisco Vulnerability Management Customers Interviewed for the Total Economic Impact of Cisco Vulnerability Management, an April 2023 commissioned study by Forrester Consulting for Cisco

The study uncovered that, after adopting Cisco Vulnerability Management, customers transform their vulnerability management programs by streamlining their security and IT operational efficiency and reducing the likelihood of data breaches.

Let’s dig into the findings.

20% Reduction in Risk of Breach

Breaches. No one likes them, but they exist. Forrester found that Cisco Vulnerability Management reduced the risk of breach by helping the composite organization’s security and IT operation teams prioritize their efforts and focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. In doing so, these teams reduce the time it takes to remediate vulnerabilities and implement automation to proactively address potential security issues. Over three years, the composite organization reduces the risk of breach by 20%, with savings worth $1.5 million.

A senior manager of enterprise vulnerability management in entertainment and media explains, “When you’ve got 100 things to look at and they are all critical, nothing is critical. With [Cisco Vulnerability Management], we are able to say, ‘No, focus on these 10 to 15 things, not 100.’”

12% Increase in Security Analyst Efficiency

With Cisco Vulnerability Management, security analysts focus on the most critical vulnerabilities, optimize how they allocate resources to manage vulnerabilities, and better communicate the importance to their IT teams and leadership. As a result of these benefits, security analysts for the composite organization increase their productivity by 12%, worth about $276,000 over three years.

As stated by the global head of cyber vulnerability management in a financial services organization, “The benefit is not just about reducing [vulnerability] volume, it’s about shifting attention to what really needs to be focused on. The business also understands the criticality and is pushing those remediations. [Cisco Vulnerability Management] helped us improve maturity, reduce risk, and help focus on what’s important.”

Additionally, security teams experience stronger cross-functional communication and collaboration with their IT and leadership teams when using Cisco Vulnerability Management.

“We’ve seen about 14 hours a day of time savings spread out amongst the whole team after you factor in all the back-and-forth explanations through emails, meetings, and leadership briefs,” says senior manager of enterprise vulnerability management, entertainment and media. “Now, we just point people to a dashboard that leverages the vulnerability intelligence from [Cisco Vulnerability Management].”

7,800 Hours Saved Annually by IT Operations

Oftentimes, Security and IT teams are faced with competing priorities. And when not a lot of context is being shared with IT that explains why certain fixes are needed, remediation can slow down.

The Forrester TEI reports that Cisco Vulnerability Management helps the composite organization’s IT teams prioritize the most critical vulnerabilities, saving them time in remediation. Cross-team collaboration between security and IT groups improves, which streamlines operations and empowers IT resources to own more of the vulnerability management process. This saved IT Operations 7,800 hours annually and saved the composite organization $514,000 over three years.

The director of security surveillance and vulnerabilities management told Forrester: “Of the vulnerabilities that are [Cisco Vulnerability Management] related, [our remediation teams] spend at least half the time that they used to spend on vulnerability management. I’d say if they [previously] spent 15 to 20 minutes to understand the vulnerability, open the file, look for the target host, with [Cisco Vulnerability Management], they probably cut that time by half.”

More Benefits Beyond the Numbers

In addition to the quantified findings uncovered, the composite organization saw several unquantified benefits, including improved leadership visibility and communication, as well as improved collaboration between security and IT.

What’s more, Forrester also found that Cisco Vulnerability Management improved the employee experience by helping teams tie their efforts to business impact and reduce manual effort on tedious tasks. “The benefit is not just about reducing [vulnerability] volume, it’s about shifting attention to what really needs to be focused on. The business also understands the criticality and is pushing those remediations, says a global head of cyber vulnerability management in financial services. “[Cisco Vulnerability Management] helped us improve maturity, reduce risk, and help focus on what’s important.”

Forrester Proves Cisco Vulnerability Management’s Value with 125% ROI Over 3 Years

Forrester’s financial analysis of Cisco Vulnerability Management highlights savings of $2.32 million for the composite organization over a three-year period, and a 125% return on investment (ROI).

Cisco Vulnerability Management uses data science to take a risk-based approach to prioritization and it’s working. Customers today are no longer guessing where to focus their remediation efforts. They can easily identify the areas of significant risk and take action, leading to quicker time to value.

Source: cisco.com

Continue reading