New bundles make it easy to start your Cisco Full-Stack Observability journey

In the last few months, Cisco has launched a lot of new capabilities around Cisco Full-Stack Observability (Cisco FSO) that activate important use cases around observability.

Cisco Full-Stack Observability Innovations

It started  with the launch of application security for hybrid applications with business risk observability  back in January, that brings business context to Cisco’s application security solution. The business risk score enables your security and application teams to have expanded threat visibility and intelligent business risk prioritization to respond instantly to revenue-impacting security risks and reduce overall organizational risk profiles.

Then in May, Cisco launched a pre-built, bi-directional integration of Cisco AppDynamics and Cisco ThousandEyes that activated customer digital experience monitoring and application dependency monitoring. These use cases bring application observability and network intelligence data together and help in reducing friction between AppOps and NetOps team. They provide end-to-end insights among application, network, and data teams. They optimize joint operations for triage and troubleshooting application issues while helping teams understand how applications, network and multi-cloud environments affect digital user experience.

Most recently in June, Cisco announced the general availability of an open, extensible and API-driven platform, called Cisco FSO Platform. It is focused on OpenTelemetry and anchored on metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT). It provides AI/ML driven analytics  so that you can do dynamic baselining, anomaly detection, root cause analysis and prioritization. You can build custom use cases based on your needs and create an observability ecosystem that will help you to deliver relevant and impactful business insights. Using the platform, Cisco has activated cost and resource optimization use cases that can help you to understand your cloud spend and how you can optimize your workloads and reduce costs.

Last month, Cisco has extended application security and business risk observability to cloud native application environments. With all these new innovations, you can now observe, secure and optimize applications and create custom observability use cases  using Cisco Full-Stack Observability solutions.

Cisco Full-Stack Observability Bundles

With all these new capabilities, we are also simplifying how you can buy our solutions. Instead of buying separate software licenses for Cisco AppDynamics, Cisco ThousandEyes and Cisco Secure Application individually, you can buy Cisco Full-Stack Observability bundles to solve multiple use cases. We provide discounts for buying these bundles. And attaching Cisco services to these bundles increases your overall discount.

Cisco Full-Stack Observability bundles

FSO Essentials Bundle

Observe, secure and extend your observability by bringing together application performance and security data. This bundles together the following use cases:

◉ Hybrid Application Monitoring

◉ Modern Application Monitoring

◉ Application Security

◉ Extend observability with custom use cases on Cisco FSO Platform

FSO Advantage Bundle

Observe, secure and extend your observability by bringing together application performance, network intelligence and security data. This bundles together all the use cases in Essentials with the following additional use cases:

◉ Customer Digital Experience Monitoring

◉ Application Dependency Monitoring

FSO Premier Bundle

Observe, secure, optimize and extend your observability by bringing together application performance and cost, network intelligence and security data. This bundles together all the use cases in Advantage with the following additional use cases:

◉ Hybrid Cost Optimization

◉ Application Resource Optimization

Accelerate business outcomes with Cisco Services

With Cisco Full-Stack Observability capabilities, you may be wondering how to implement such a powerful solution. You don’t have to do it alone. To help you accelerate your outcomes, Cisco CX delivers the expertise and guidance to help you best leverage your existing monitoring and observability tools with Cisco Full-Stack Observability to remove blind spots, move beyond siloed domain monitoring, and take advantage of full stack visibility, insights, and actions. Through a variety of service offerings such as the , we can help you innovate at each step of your full-stack observability transformation journey. And by showcasing results through real-world use cases, you’ll see how Cisco FSO services and the value of CX expertise can help you confidently and continuously transform and optimize the application experience for your customers and employees, anywhere.

Source: cisco.com

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Driving a Successful Sustainability Agenda – A Deep Dive into a Holistic Approach

Driving a sustainability strategy comes with incredible complexity and a spectrum of expectations. With the stakes being as high as it gets – the preservation of our planet – this is one we need to get right. The question is: HOW?

In Cisco CX we have designed a coherent and holistic framework to help you synergize different aspects of sustainability into a unified strategy. This enables a strategic alignment between sustainability & business goals, and a comprehensive stakeholder engagement – integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics into business performance indicators and optimizing the allocation of resources.

Importantly, our framework recognizes the inherent diversity among stakeholders and their varying priorities and value drivers in the realm of sustainability. It can be a common scenario where initiatives aimed at sustainability are often confined within silos, resulting in different parts of the organization operating at different maturity levels.

By acknowledging this reality, our framework helps organizations align their capabilities and benchmark themselves against industry leaders. This entails a comprehensive approach that takes into account the distinct perspectives and objectives of different stakeholders. By integrating their efforts and fostering collaboration across departments, organizations can bridge the gaps in maturity levels and ensure a more cohesive and holistic approach toward sustainability.

Moreover, this integrated approach promotes a more unified organizational culture, where sustainability becomes an intrinsic part of the overall business strategy.

In part 1 of this 2-part blog series, I want to share with you our signature approach, developed by Cisco CX to drive a successful sustainability agenda.

Six Dimensions to driving a holistic approach to sustainability

We take a structured approach in assessing the technology maturity across six key dimensions: Strategy, Governance, Execution, IT for Sustainability, Sustainable IT, and ESG Data Management. By evaluating each dimension, we help our customers gain valuable insights into their current state, identify areas for improvement, and translate them – leveraging our expertise – into a roadmap.

• Strategy: Focuses on evaluating your approach to sustainability within your overall business strategy. It assesses how effectively sustainability goals are aligned with your vision and mission. This also considers the level of integration of sustainability into strategic decision-making processes and the establishment of clear objectives and targets.
• Governance: Examines your governance structure and processes regarding sustainability. It evaluates the presence of dedicated sustainability governance bodies, the level of senior leadership involvement, and the effectiveness of oversight mechanisms. This dimension also takes into account the organization’s commitment to transparency, accountability, and risk management related to sustainability initiatives.
• Execution: Assesses your ability to translate your sustainability strategy into action. It evaluates the presence of well-defined implementation plans, the allocation and skills of resources, and the engagement of relevant stakeholders. This also examines your capability to drive change, implement more sustainable practices, and monitor progress effectively.
• IT for sustainable business: Focuses on your utilization of technology to support sustainability initiatives. It assesses the integration of sustainability considerations into IT strategy and the use of technology solutions to optimize resource consumption, reduce environmental impact, and enhance operational efficiency. This also examines your capability to leverage emerging technologies for sustainable innovation.
• Sustainable IT: Evaluates your internal IT infrastructure and operations with a sustainability lens. It assesses your efforts to minimize energy consumption, reduce e-waste, and adopt environmentally friendly practices in IT procurement and asset management. This also considers your commitment to sustainability-related IT standards and certifications.
• ESG data management: Focuses on your ability to collect, analyze, and report ESG-related data. It assesses the quality, accuracy, and completeness of data collection processes, as well as your capability to derive meaningful insights from the data. This also evaluates your transparency and reliability in reporting ESG performance to stakeholders.

Focus on Measurable Outcomes: Turning Data into Action for Progress on Sustainability

In Cisco CX we love turning data into actionable insights.

It’s time for organizations to move beyond data collection and analysis and focus on translating those insights into tangible actions and committing to implementing practices designed with sustainability in mind. Energy management offers a great example; Access to data allows us to evaluate consumption, optimize usage, implement energy-efficient technologies, and explore renewable energy sources. Taking action can result in reducing emissions, reducing costs, and improving operational efficiency.

Let’s not forget, that measurable outcomes play a vital role in progressing the sustainability agenda; we all need to set quantifiable goals, track progress, monitor performance, identify gaps, and take corrective actions as needed. In other words, we need to be able to report on our progress and milestones transparently. Not only to be accountable and build trust but also to benchmark our performance against industry peers and further improve.

Be more sustainable with Cisco CX

Leveraging our years of experience, Cisco CX’s comprehensive approach to guide you through your sustainability transformation journey can help you achieve measurable outcomes.

Sustainability can be a competitive differentiator in today’s fast-changing business landscape.

Source: cisco.com

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When it Comes to Compliance Requirements – Topology Matters!

When I look at the evolution of network security and how IT and security practitioners have protected the network for the last 30 years, I can’t help but notice how traditional network security enforcement points (insert your favorite firewall here) are still used to secure networks and workloads. They have evolved to offer a diverse set of features (i.e., IPS, decryption, application detection) to deeply analyze traffic coming in and out of the network to protect workloads. However, while firewalls are very capable appliances, it has been proven that they are not enough to keep malicious actors at bay, especially if those actors manage to breach the firewall defenses and move laterally in the network. But why is this?

We are in the digital era, where the concept of the perimeter is no longer contained to a location or a network segment. To offset this new reality and provide a more tailored-based policy control for protecting workloads, vendors have moved security closer to the workload.

There are two approaches to do this -, using agent or agentless techniques to build a micro-perimeter around the workloads.

Which approach is the correct one to take? Well, this depends on multiple factors, including organizations, type of application, or team structure. So, let’s start untangling this.

The challenge(s)

The most direct approach to protect applications is to install software agents on every workload and call it a day. Why? Because then every workload has its own micro-perimeter, allowing access to only what is necessary.

However, it is not always possible to install a software agent. Perhaps it is a mainframe application or a legacy operating system that requires fine-grained policies due to a compliance mandate. Or application workloads that are in the cloud and the agent installation is simply not possible due to organizational constraints.

And this is not the only challenge or consideration for choosing your approach. The teams or groups that comprise any company often have different security requirements from each other, leading to the triad challenge: people, processes, and technology.

Let’s start with people (policy owner) and process (policy execution). Usually, each organization has its own set of unique requirements to protect its application workloads, and a defined process to implement those requirements in the policy. To support this, a tool (technology) is required, which must adapt to each organization’s needs and should be capable of defining a common policy across agent and agentless workloads.

To start unwrapping this, you need to ask yourself:

◉ What are we protecting?

◉ Who is the owner of the policies?

◉ How is policy execution done?

As an example:

Say you want to protect a finance application (what) using an agent-based approach (how), and the owner of the policies is the App Team/Workload Team (who). In this scenario, as long as the application doesn’t break and the team can continue to focus on coding, this is generally an acceptable approach. However, when implementing the common policy, the translation from human language to machine language tends to generate extra rules that are not necessarily required. This is a common byproduct of the translation process.

Now, let’s assume that in your organization the protection of a legacy application (what) is tasked to the Network/NetSec team (who) using an agentless enforcement approach with network firewalls (how) because in this case, it is not possible to install software agents due to the unsupported legacy operating system. As in the first example, extra rules are generated. However, in this case, these unnecessary extra rules create negative consequences because of firewall rules auditing requirements for compliance mandates, even though they are part of the common policy.

Topology as the source of truth – pushing only what is required

Cisco Secure Workload has been addressing the people, process, and technology challenges since its inception. The solution embraces both approaches – installing software agents on workloads regardless of form factor (bare-metal, VM, or container) or by using agentless enforcement points such as firewalls. Secure Workload adapts to each organization’s needs by defining the policy, such a zero trust microsegmentation policy, to effectively apply micro-perimeters to application workloads in support of the zero trust approach. All within a single pane of glass.

However, as explained in the example above, we still needed to align our policy to the compliance needs of the Network/NetSec team, only using the policy rules that are required.

To tackle the additional rules challenge, we asked ourselves, “What is the most efficient way to push policies into a network firewall using Secure Workload?”

The answer boiled down to a common concept for Network/NetSec teams – the network topology.

So how does it work?

With Secure Workload, the term topology is intrinsic to the solution. It leverages the topology concept using a construct named “Scopes”, which are totally infrastructure agnostic, as shown in Figure 1.

It allows you to create a topology tree in Secure Workload based on context, where you can group your applications and define your policy by using human intent. For example, “Production cannot talk to Non-Production” and apply the policy following the topology hierarchy.

The Scope Tree is the topology of your application workloads within the organization, but the key is that it can be shaped for different departments or organizational needs and adapted to each team’s security requirements.

The concept of mapping a workload Scope to a network firewall is called “Topology Awareness.”

Topology Awareness enables the Network/NetSec teams to map a particular Scope to a specific firewall in the network topology, so only the relevant set of policies for a given application is pushed to the firewall.

So, what does this execution look like? With the Scope mapping achieved, Secure Workload pushes the relevant policy to the Cisco Secure Firewall by way of its management platform, Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC). To maintain compliance, only the required policy rules are sent to FMC, avoiding the extra unnecessary rules because of Topology Awareness. An example of this is shown in Figure 2:

Key takeaways

Operationalizing a zero trust microsegmentation strategy is not trivial, but Secure Workload has a proven track record of making this a practical reality by adapting to the needs of each persona such as Network/NetSec admins, Workload/Apps owners, Cloud Architects, and Cloud-Native engineers – all from one solution.

With topology awareness, you can:

◉ Meet compliance and audit requirements for firewall rules

◉ Protect and leverage your current investment in network firewalls

◉ Operationalize your zero trust microsegmentation strategy using both agent and agentless approaches

Source: cisco.com

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Cisco Contact Center Delivering Visibility to Improve the Banking Experience

“If you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know what’s happening” is powerful statement about the missing knowledge that can complete an ideal banking customer experience. It is a reminder of the critical role the contact center plays in the evolution of digital channels and modern cross-channel customer journeys in the financial services space. This is especially true in banking where the adaptability of contact centers ensured the continuity of financial services for consumers and small businesses in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Customer feedback

I realized a few weeks earlier that I was in the ‘you don’t know what’s happening’ camp after participating in BAI’s 2023 Banking Contact Center Executive Roundtable, sponsored by Cisco. Since 1924, BAI has helped financial services leaders prepare for what’s next through thought-leadership, training, business intelligence, and collaborative engagement including executive roundtables. This two day event was a great opportunity for me to learn from industry practitioners and I was particularly interested to hear how banking contact centers were supporting the increasing cross-channel customer journeys that result from ongoing digitization in financial services.

Listening to contact center leaders representing ten regional and super-regional banks raised my awareness of the unique value of contact centers, their challenges, and the ability of these leaders to manage what is possibly the most dynamic workforce and technology environment inside a bank.

‘Customer experience correlates with agent experience’ was a recurring theme throughout the roundtable, reflecting the importance of agent onboarding and training and the increasing significance of agent technology. The frequency and breadth of customer interaction often results in agents developing institutional knowledge faster than new bankers, but agent workloads also lead to high turnover. Leveraging technology to optimize agent workloads and providing advancement opportunities into other bank sales and service roles helps improve execution, talent retention, and growth. Notably, the roundtable institutions were satisfied with their ability to measure agent productivity whether agents primarily worked from home or are back in the office.

Contact center leaders are looking to take advantage of the next generation of self-service capabilities such as intelligent IVR’s, chatbots, and virtual agents to optimize customer experience, agent workload, and interaction costs.

Throughout the discussions, leaders highlighted the need for continued efforts and investments to reduce operational complexity, drive efficiency, and elevate the agent experience. The shared experience among these contact center leaders is that a world-class customer experience requires a world-class agent experience. To achieve this, a few north star objectives were identified:

• Streamlining the agent desktop – fewer discrete apps and better app data integration
• Extracting intelligent insights from full visibility of cross-channel customer journeys
• Providing agents with the best guidance and options in real-time
• Utilizing best-in-class workforce management and automation

Cisco expertise

The group also heard from my colleague Jono Luk – VP, Product Management for Webex who shared his knowledge about technology advances in contact center solutions that address these needs, notably the advantages of a unified CX platform, the flexibility of the cloud, and the power of AI across a broad scope of opportunities.

Jono highlighted the capabilities that agents need in order to support banking customer journeys that are increasingly personalized, cross-channel, and almost certainly involve the contact center at some point in the journey.

The banking industry, and safe to say most of financial services, currently have limited visibility of a customer’s journey prior to reaching a contact center agent. Part of the challenge is the need for more capable contact center platforms and continuing to consolidate the number of applications on the agent desktop.

Webex by Cisco

But it’s also clear the banking industry must continue to improve collaboration between LOB’s and the contact center to create awareness of the importance for holistic journey insights and to accelerate investment. Responsibility for the primary contact center is now with the Retail LOB, but many leaders cited the need for better coordination. Jono shared Cisco’s perspective on the benefits of a unified CX platform built specifically to support connected customer journeys across a customer lifecycle.

Webex by Cisco is designed for exactly that – a suite of integrated cloud-native capabilities that support a broader range of interactions (calling, video, messaging, SMS, Social, and more), with advanced AI functionality, business workflow integrations, mobile app integrations, and a robust contact center with a composable agent interface.

Financial institutions often have several contact centers supporting different LOB’s such as Credit Card, Wealth Management, and Mortgage, or even internal functions like the help desk. In my experience, it’s not that uncommon to find teams that still use spreadsheets to manage inbound and outbound calling. These represent good opportunities for institutions to quickly discover the transformative capabilities of a unified CX platform like Webex and to understand it’s potential for primary banking contact centers.

This year due to the ever increasing importance of contact centers in supporting cross-channel customer journeys we added it as a use case in the Cisco Portfolio Explorer for Financial Services. We annually review the use cases in it to make sure we are providing the latest trends and focuses we are hearing from our clients. As you have read the contact center is where it is at deliver exceptional client service and engaged and informative employees.

Source: cisco.com

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Evolutio FinTech module on Cisco FSO Platform gives visibility to financial transactions

We’re all aware that user experience has become the most important KPI for today’s digital businesses. Applications are the engines that power these experiences, and if a digital interaction is sub-par, customers are unforgiving.  Consider the situation of a prominent bank that recently suffered a series of downtimes on its mobile applications. Their users were not happy and  rival credit unions were advertising, highlighting their level of service compared to the “mega-bank.”  Churning customers due to digital blips is a NO-NO today. Organizations need visibility, context and control, so they can ensure that their customers are empowered with the best experiences possible. But true observability requires more than a “one size fits all” approach. Today’s application environments are highly specialized, built to support specific industries and business processes.

Observability tailored to fit specific use cases

Given the diversity and complexity of today’s modern apps, how can organizations fully align their technology to specific use case needs? Cisco FSO Platform brings data together from multiple domains including application, networking, infrastructure, security, cloud, sustainability, and business sources. It is an open and extensible, API-driven platform focused on OpenTelemetry and anchored on metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT), providing AI/ML driven analytics.

The Cisco ecosystem of partners plays a key role in enabling this flexibility by creating custom observability solutions that help customers drive business outcomes with specific use cases. Let’s take a closer look at the Evolutio Fintech module, built by a key Cisco technology partner.

Evolutio Fintech gives holistic visibility to online financial transactions

Every moment matters in financial services, especially in online and point of sale transactions. Financial services organizations need to be able to see the full picture—and take action with insight.

The Evolutio Fintech module correlates infrastructure health with credit card authorization data. It helps organizations reduce revenue losses resulting from credit card authorization failures by figuring out the impact of infrastructure health on the credit card authorization.

“We developed a Fintech solution for the banking sector, around credit card processing,” said, Laura Vetter, CTO and Co-Founder of Evolutio. “It looks at credit card processing, how much money is running through, and the number of transactions, split by customer region data centers, which is most relevant to the business. If someone calls in and has an issue with processing, it’s easy to look at that specific company’s data and determine whether the issue involves the whole company, or just one region.”

Evolutio lets financial organizations view credit card authorization projects by region, to spot issues like falling numbers of authorizations, or regions that have stopped reporting data.

Evolutio lets organizations view KPIs and insights grouped and aggregated based on metadata like region, schemas, infrastructure components, and merchant name, to understand how their system is behaving as a whole.

A powerful partnership for technology innovators

For our technology partners, Cisco FSO Platform presents an excellent opportunity to bring new solutions to market fast, supporting specific domain and vertical use cases.

“Cisco has provided a very easy way to interact with the platform,” said Vetter. “It’s basically just a schema that you interact with and extend to make it happen. My team keeps telling me about the tight partnership that we have had throughout this entire journey.”

Our customers win, too, gaining the interoperability, agility, and flexibility of an adaptable, highly modular platform.

Together, Cisco FSO Platform and its partner modules deliver a comprehensive solution that scales as businesses scale—and easily extends everywhere, across the infrastructure and the application life cycle.

Source: cisco.com

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CCNP Enterprise 350-401 Certification: The Road to Success

Greetings, fellow networking enthusiasts! Prepare to embark on a journey that not only promises to unlock a world of exciting career opportunities but also validates your prowess in networking. This comprehensive guide is your trusted companion, offering insights into the coveted Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 certification. We'll explore its advantages and provide invaluable study tips to ensure a pass and excellence in this prestigious examination.

Know the Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 Certification

Let's begin by unraveling the essence of the Cisco 350-401 ENCOR certification. CCNP, or Cisco Certified Network Professional, Enterprise, is a prized accolade for networking professionals aspiring to showcase their mastery in enterprise networking solutions.

Cisco 350-401 Exam Details:

• Exam Name- Implementing and Operating Cisco Enterprise Network Core Technologies
• Exam Price- $400 USD
• Duration- 120 minutes
• Number of Questions- 90-110
• Passing Score- Variable (750-850 / 1000 Approx.)
  

Cisco 350-401 Exam Topics:

• Architecture- 15%
• Virtualization- 10%
• Infrastructure- 30%
• Network Assurance- 10%
• Security- 20%
• Automation-15%

Benefits of Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 Certification

Expansive Career Horizons

Acquiring the Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 certification opens various career opportunities. Organizations worldwide seek professionals capable of designing, implementing, managing, and troubleshooting advanced enterprise network solutions. You become an invaluable asset in the job market.

Industry Recognition

Cisco certifications, including CCNP Enterprise, are synonymous with excellence in the field. Employers and peers recognize them as symbols of top-tier networking expertise. This certification instantly bestows credibility and underscores your commitment to staying at the forefront of networking technology.

Elevated Earning Potential

CCNP Enterprise-certified professionals typically enjoy enhanced earning potential—the specialized skills and knowledge acquired through the certification process position you for higher-paying roles in the industry.

Skill Mastery

Cisco's CCNP Enterprise certification equips you with in-depth knowledge of critical networking topics. This mastery enhances your problem-solving abilities and bolsters your confidence in effectively managing enterprise networks.

Why Should You Pass Cisco 350-401 ENCOR Exam?

Preparing for Success: Study Tips for 350-401 ENCOR 

Now that we've established the perks let's dive into the core aspect of attaining CCNP Enterprise certification: preparation. Follow these study tips to ensure you conquer the 350-401 ENCOR exam with flying colors.

#1. Grasp the 350-401 Exam Blueprint

Before you commence your preparation, familiarize yourself with the exam blueprint. Cisco provides a detailed breakdown of the topics and subtopics covered in the exam. Use this blueprint as your roadmap to guarantee comprehensive coverage.

#2. Source Quality 350-401 Study Materials

Invest in reputable study materials, such as Cisco's official certification guides and practice exams. Additionally, consider engaging with online forums and communities where you can collaborate with fellow candidates, share insights, and access valuable resources.

#3. Craft a Study Schedule

Effective time management is paramount. Create a study schedule tailored to your daily routine, allowing consistent, focused study sessions. Allocate specific time slots for different topics to ensure thorough preparation.

#4. Hands-On Practice

More than theoretical knowledge is required. Establish a lab environment using tools like Cisco's Packet Tracer or other network simulation tools. Hands-on practice solidifies your understanding of networking concepts and reinforces your practical skills.

#5. Join Study Groups

Consider joining or forming study groups with like-minded individuals pursuing the same certification. Collaborative learning can be remarkably effective, enabling discussions on complex topics, joint troubleshooting, and exposure to diverse perspectives.

#6. Regularly Take 350-401 ENCOR Practice Tests

Periodically take practice exams to gauge your progress and identify areas needing improvement. Cisco offers official practice exams that closely mirror the actual exam format. These practice tests are invaluable in boosting your confidence and readiness.

#7. Annotate and Summarize

While studying, take notes, annotate textbooks, and create concise summaries of key concepts. This reinforces your understanding and provides quick references during the final stages of preparation.

#8. Stay Informed

Stay abreast of the latest networking trends and Cisco technologies. The field constantly evolves, and exam questions may reflect these changes. Subscribe to Cisco blogs, newsletters, and forums to stay informed.

#9. Seek Expert Guidance

When confronted with challenging topics or concepts, feel free to seek guidance from seasoned professionals or certified trainers. They can offer valuable insights and clarify any doubts that impede your progress.

The Final Push: Cisco 350-401 ENCOR Exam-Day Strategies

Prioritize Relaxation

The night before your exam, prioritize a restful night's sleep and relaxation. Avoid last-minute cramming, as it can heighten anxiety and hinder performance. Trust in your preparation and maintain confidence.

Read Carefully

During the exam, meticulously read each question to ensure a clear understanding of the requirements before answering. Cisco exams often feature scenario-based questions that demand a profound grasp of the subject matter.

Master Time Management

Effective time management is paramount. Allocate specific time limits to each question, and if you encounter a particularly challenging one, move on and return to it later. Don't let a single question consume excessive time.

Review Your Answers

Once you've completed the exam, revisit your answers if time permits. Check for errors or omissions and make necessary corrections.

Conclusion

The Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 certification is your ticket to a flourishing networking career. Its manifold benefits, including expanded career opportunities, industry recognition, and higher earning potential, make it a wise investment in your professional journey.

By adhering to these comprehensive study tips, you can confidently approach the 350-401 ENCOR exam and emerge triumphant. Remember, preparation is the key, and steadfast commitment to your studies will lead you to success.

So, gear up, embark on your certification, and unlock the gateway to networking excellence. The Cisco CCNP Enterprise 350-401 certification is within your grasp, and with dedication and determination, you can attain it. Best of luck on your journey to becoming a certified networking professional!

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How to run Cisco Modeling Labs in the Cloud

You might think one answer to these problems would be to use CML in the cloud. And you’d be right. However, up until recently, the only supported platforms to run CML were either on bare metal servers or on VMware vSphere.

We have heard requests to have CML Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and we’re working hard to make this a reality in the future. Our first step in this direction is to provide tooling and automation so you can deploy your CML instance into Amazon Web Services (AWS)! This tooling is available as of today on GitHub.

Setting expectations

With this first step of automation and tooling comes a few limitations, including:

• Tooling is currently only supported on AWS. We’re working on making this also available on Azure in a subsequent release.
• It only supports an all-in-one deployment. Subsequent releases could include deployment of multiple instances to form a CML cluster.
• This approach needs a bare-metal flavor to support all node types. Metal flavors are more expensive than virtualized instances; however, AWS does not support virtualization extensions on their non-bare-metal flavors. This is different from Azure.
• You need to bring your own AWS instance AND your own CML license. No pay-as-you-go consumption model is available as of today.
• CML software and reference platform files from the “refplat ISO” need to be made available in a bucket.
• Automation must run locally on your computer, particularly a Linux machine with Terraform.

Due to the nature of CML’s function, the ability to run it in the cloud will never be cheap (as in free-tier). CML requires a lot of resources, memory, disk, and CPU, which comes at a cost, regardless of whether you run it locally on your laptop, in your data center, or in the cloud. The idea behind the cloud is to simplify operation and provide elasticity but not necessarily to save money.

Meeting software requirements

The software requirements you’ll need to successfully use the tooling include:

• a Linux machine (should also work on a Mac with the same packages installed via Homebrew)
• a Bash shell (in case you use the upload tool, which is a Bash script)
• a Terraform installation
• the AWS CLI package (awscli with the aws command)
• the CML software package (.pkg) and the CML reference platform ISO from CCO/cisco.com

An existing CML controller satisfies the first two requirements, and you can use that to install Terraform and the AWS CLI. It also has the reference platform files available to copy to an AWS S3 bucket. You also must download the CML distribution package from the Cisco support website and copy it to the AWS S3 bucket.

Select the distribution package circled in the following screenshot (the version might be different, but it ends in .pkg.zip), and you’ll need to unzip it for the upload tool to recognize it

For more detail, refer to the “Upload script” section of the README.md that is included in the cml-cloud repository.

Getting up and running

Once you’ve installed the requirements and copied the files, you’ll find the actual procedure straight forward and meticulously documented in the README.md.

Here are the fundamental steps:

1. Configure the required S3 bucket, user, policies, secrets, and rules via AWS console (once).

2. Upload the binary files (images and software) into the created bucket (once or whenever new software is available).

3. Configure the tooling by editing the config.json file (once).

4. Run terraform plan followed by terraform apply to bring up an instance

5. Wait 5-10 minutes for the system to become ready; the address of the controller is provided as a result (“output” from Terraform)

6. Use CML in the cloud and profit!

Once you’re done, tear down the cloud infrastructure by executing terraform destroy.

Note: While no cost is incurred when you are not running CML instances, you’ll still need to pay for storing the files inside the created S3 bucket.

Taking the next steps

While CML AWS automation tooling is a first step toward CML SaaS, the tooling in its current form might not fit your needs exactly because of cost for bare-metal instances or the current dependency on AWS. Or you might want a pay-as-you-go service or something else. Let us know!

Just remember subsequent steps are ahead! Stay tuned, and tell us what you think in the meantime. We are extremely interested in how useful (or not) this first iteration of cloud tooling is to you and your organization and, going forward, what your specific requirements are.

Source: cisco.com

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