Cisco Data Center Goes Anywhere Your Data Is - Cisco Certifications

“Enterprises should be able to deploy applications based on the needs of their business, not the limitations of their technology,” said Roland Acra, senior vice president and general manager, Data Center Business Group, Cisco. “Customers want to deploy applications and manage data across a range of diverse platforms, from on-premises to cloud-based. That is why we are taking the ‘center’ out of the data center. Today, Cisco is helping our customers expand their reach into every cloud, every data center, and every branch.”

“BT adopted Cisco ACI as the basis for our newly launched SD-Fabric managed service to extend SDN capabilities into the data center. With ACI, we can offer customers full automation, central policy control and built-in security,” said Adrian Comley, general manager, Dynamic Network Services, Global Services, BT. “We’re working with Cisco as it extends ACI policy to AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud services. With Cisco we’re enabling customers to rapidly deploy fabric extensions and provision applications anywhere with a repeatable, proven design for operational simplicity and better security.”

New Data Center Innovation

Cisco is delivering on its new data center vision in three ways:

• ACI available in AWS and Azure: Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is Cisco’s intent-based networking solution for the data center. It delivers operational simplicity, application agility and protection in the data center — all delivered in a uniquely open approach that integrates with all hypervisors and container frameworks on which applications are deployed. With ACI Anywhere, that journey extends ACI to any workload, any location, any cloud. Virtual ACI already supports bare metal clouds and remote edge locations. And now with the new Cloud ACI capabilities, Cisco extends automation, management, and security to AWS and Microsoft Azure by fully integrating with their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environments. Read the blog.  
• HyperFlex for Branch: Deploying hyperconverged infrastructure to multiple sites in order to provide distributed computing at a global scale can be a complex task. HyperFlex with Cisco Intersight now allows customers to seamlessly extend computing and storage from their core data centers to the edges of their operations. It does this with flexible scalability and the unmatched ease-of-use of cloud-powered systems management. HyperFlex now delivers data center-class application performance for digital innovation in branch offices and remote sites, enabling analytics and intelligent services at the enterprise edge. Read the blog.
• CloudCenter Suite: The operational complexity and burgeoning cost of managing applications across multiple public and private clouds is a growing challenge for IT teams. The new CloudCenter Suite now features full application lifecycle management, greater workflow automation, and significantly enhanced cost optimization and governance.  Finally, the new suite is also much easier to consume, with simplified deployment, tiered pricing and a new SaaS offering.

New Data Center Enterprise Agreement

Cisco is making it easier than ever for customers to buy its data center technology with the new Cisco Enterprise Agreement. Customers can now take advantage of a single standardized three- or five-year licensing agreement across seven suites, including ACI, HyperFlex, Intersight and Tetration. The Cisco EA provides customers with choice in deployment models and license portability across physical, virtual or cloud deployments. It lets customers have access to what they need, when and where they need it, available from their preferred channel partner. Read the blog.

Cross-domain Integrations

Cisco is integrating ACI with the application layer and the campus. Now, ACI integrates with AppDynamics to correlate app performance with network health. It also integrates with Cisco DNA Center and the Identity Services Engine to deliver end-to-end identity-based policy and access control between users or devices on campus and applications or data anywhere. These integrations are the latest step on Cisco’s journey to create the industry’s first multi-domain architecture. The goal is to reinvent enterprise infrastructure as a unified system that unlocks innovation by simplifying the unprecedented complexity of modern IT. Read the blog.

 Availability, Services, and Support

• Virtual ACI and Cloud ACI will be available in Q2CY19
• HyperFlex 4.0 with Cisco Intersight will be available in Q2CY19
• Cisco CloudCenter Suite subscription on-premises will be available in Q1CY19; SaaS version is planned for availability in Q1CY19 in North America, and Q2CY19 in Europe.
• New Cisco Enterprise Agreements will orderable mid-March.

• Cisco and its partners offer a full lifecycle of services to help customers streamline the journey to modernized data center architectures.

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How Much Will Security Actually Change in 2019 - Cisco Certifications

If we look back at the security landscape of 2018, there were some interesting highs and lows.  There were a number of large-scale breaches in the news attributed to hackers, involving notable companies. All indications for 2019 don’t show any signs of this activity stopping or slowing down. In fact, if you’re one of 7.6 million users that play the online game “Town of Salem” you may want to check your account.

Last year we saw the announcement and enforcement of new regulatory controls for identity and data protection, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), New York: Department of Financial Services Cybersecurity Regulation (NYDFS) and Australia’s Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme.

Given that there is so much attention on security in this digital age that must mean that the threat landscape is changing, right? Based on the various 2019 market and industry predictions published so far, things don’t appear to be changing drastically.

If we consider the reality of the cybersecurity threat landscape there is a lot of effort to garner fear, uncertainty and doubt, pushing organizations to adopt solutions that may not provide a holistic approach to security.  The fact is that attackers are still using the tried, tested, and true approaches of phishing, malware, botnets and ransomware, focusing their attacks on the weakest links of the IT security chain.

With the workforce on the go, workloads in many clouds, and devices outside corporate controls, knowing who and what to trust are still the biggest IT security challenges. Organizations need to shift their focus to protecting their entire environment and should look for solution providers that can be trusted security partners, not just a vendor.

With all of this in mind what is the outlook for 2019? It is clear that the C-suite and IT security teams need to have strategies in place to address the influx of bring your own device (BYOD) policies, shadow IT, platform decentralization and the migration to the cloud. Which means that not only do these teams need to effectively reduce the threat surface of their organization and meet industry compliance regulations, they need to balance risk reduction with usability – to eliminate user frustration and cause minimal disruption to workflows.

The concept of zero trust security, originally proposed by Forrester in 2010, is re-emerging as the methodology to address security risks and tackle these challenges. This approach to security has been leveraged by Google as part of their BeyondCorp initiative and Gartner has their framework called Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust Assessment (aka. CARTA). Learn more about these various approaches here. These trust-centric approaches shift access decisions based on network topology to authorized users and devices, but often these approaches are regarded as an arduous undertaking due to the vast number of moving parts and aspects that need to be addressed.

The New Era of Trust

Cisco Trusted Access makes it easier and safer to grant and restrict access by establishing trust and software-defined perimeters based on dynamic context, not just static credentials or network topologies. The union of Cisco and Duo Security in 2018 means that IT and security teams have a comprehensive solution available to address the challenges being faced as we go into 2019, and helps organizations meet components of compliance and regulatory requirements with a secure, easy-to-use zero trust security platform.

The first step in successful implementation in our Trusted Access approach is to verify user identity with strong multi-factor authentication (MFA). Being able to assess device hygiene and have endpoint visibility before granting access to cloud and on-premises apps should also be factored into the initial phase of deployment. Knowing what is accessing applications and their health helps reduce the risk surface of these devices.  To balance security and usability the adaptive authentication and policy enforcement  options that Duo has to offer means that organization can effectively protect remote access and offer a secure single sign-on solution protecting both cloud and on-premises applications.

You can read more about how you can move towards a zero trust approach in an earlier post from this year. It is recommended that a robust solution should help you leverage the resources and technologies you already have in place to keep changes and costs to a minimum.

So as you embark on all of the excitement and adventures that 2019 has in store, feel free to give us a try to see how easy it can be to rapidly deploy a security solution that can help you establish a level of trust and start your own journey towards a zero trust environment.

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