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Today’s keynote featured:

• Chris Dedicoat, EVP Worldwide Sales & Field Operations, Cisco
• David Goeckeler, SVP/GM Networking & Security Business, Cisco
• Rowan Trollope, SVP/GM, IoT & Applications, Cisco

The three C-Level Cisco executives discussed Cisco’s next generation of networking, including new hardware and software. These new products and technologies are fundamentally changing how networks are configured, managed and secured.

Chris Dedicoat took the stage first giving more insight to Cisco’s new Network. Intuitive. He recapped the three primary focus areas the new Network that Chuck Robbins introduced during his keynote, Monday:

• Scalability is key
• Complexity – every customer would like to reduce complexity of network. How do we make it simple and cost effective?
• Security – big focus for Cisco. Network is paramount from a security perspective. Min cost of a breach is estimated to be 4million

Dedicoat also highlighted the importance of analytics and a the need for the network of the future to be intuitive – must constantly learn to keep up with ever changing threat landscape.

David Goeckeler took the stage after Dedicoat and was joined on stage by ScentsyNetwork Architect, Kevon Tompkins. Scentsy has been running on Cisco’s new Digital Network Architecture for 7 months. While on stage Kevin shared that the problem today as network admin is implementing policy on hundreds of devices and keeping up with today’s mobile workforce. He shared that Cisco’s new intent-based networking allows Scentsy’s IT team to focus on strategic aspects of business and new innovative solutions.

Sachin Gupta, Vice President, Product Management, for Cisco Switching, also joined Goeckeler on stage for a live demo of the new Digital Network Architecture! He showed the audience DNA Center hosts all devices and users on network and segments. He also demonstrated how easily administrators can create and manage segments and assign segment policy. Before leaving the stage he also showed off the new New Catalyst switch – 9000 series, highlighting it’s new design features:

• Programmable ASIC
• Better data and telemetry
• Host applications on box
• Extend cloud all the way to the edge
• Design
• More user friendly

To conclude his segment of the keynote, Goeckeler highlighted Cisco’s new Encrypted Traffic Analysis (ETA). This new program identifies suspicious behavior within encrypted traffic without decrypting it, using machine learning and analytics. As hackers adapt, so do you – keeping you one step ahead!

Rowan Trollope concluded today’s keynote. He came out with an opening statement about how “Facebook and Google would not be possible if Cisco had not created the internet first”. He then outlined today’s “data economy”. Traditionally the customer experience in retail has been very transactional. Today companies care about connecting to customer. Clover is changing the traditional retail customer experience – transforming retail from transactional experience to deep customer experience.

Trollope also shared the features of the new platform Cisco Kenetic. This new platform is designed for getting data off applications and devices. It runs on all the new Cisco hardware that sits on the edge.

To conclude his keynote segment, Trollope, discussed Cisco’s collaboration platform, Cisco Spark. Spark is designed to help employees move faster. It’s great that we can have these automated systems, but we must help our employees move faster too, says Trollope. It is also designed to connect companies to their customer.

The afternoon featured more showcase sessions:

• Redefining Access and Campus Networks: Sachin Gupta, VP Product Management, Cisco discussed digitization and the importance of the network for businesses today. He shared Cisco DNA design around security, mobility, IOT, and Cloud with full fabric-control. This new network will “shift how you build and manage networks with a logical policy-based approach that deploys and secures services faster and adapts to changes more quickly”.
• Take Advantage of Pervasive Data in Your Data Center: Ryan Brotherton, Senior Domain Architect, Enterprise Technology Services, Spectrum Health and Ish Limkakeng, VP Product Marketing Insbu, Cisco discuss how using the powerful combination of Nexus Cloud Scale Switches, ACI, CloudCenter and Tetration Analytics provides you the real-time insight to take action in your data center - on premises or in the cloud. Giving you agility, scalability, operational simplicity and security for your data center.
• Meraki Simplicity Driving Nimble IT: Todd Nightingale, SVP/GM, Meraki discussed how Meraki customers are using their management dashboard to experiment with policy and architecture changes, and securely connect to their cloud resources, without requiring large, funded projects or complex equipment.
• The Security Voyage to 2020: David Ulevitch, SVP/GM Security Business, Cisco shared the direction in which security is going, the role does automation plays in today’s business, and how the cloud fits into it all.
• Think your Network is IOT Ready? Think Again: Shaun Cooley, CTO of IoT and Industries, Cisco discussed the Internet of Things. He shared the expected growth in the number of connected devices, the impact this growth will have on IT administrators, and how Cisco is addressing the future of IoT networks. Cisco is leading the charge creating a network that is scalable, simple, intelligent, automated, and secure.
• Hyperconverged Infrastructure Redefined: Liz Centoni, SVP/GM Computing Systems Group, Cisco shared Cisco’s new an overview of Cisco’s purpose–built, ground–up hyperconverged infrastructure, including a next–generation data platform, networking fabric and cloud connected management. Examining how networking, hardware and software stacks must adapt for HCI use cases.
• Enabling Digital Business with Meraki: Simon Tompson, Meraki Product Marketing Lead, Cisco shared the foundational elements of Cisco Meraki and the ways in which customers and partners can build value on top of that foundation with both built-in and extensible developer tools.

We are half way through Cisco Live 2017 and are excited for what the next 2 days have in store!

Written By: Eden Penman, LookingPoint Marketing Manager