Join the delegates from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Virtual Cisco Live Experience as they dive into the latest intent-based networking announcements from Cisco. Listen in as they discuss the importance of network policy, user-defined networks, location tracking, and SD-WAN. Tom Hollingsworth leads the expert panel of Phil Gervasi, Shala Denise, Jonathan Davis, John Herbert, and Jody Lemoine.
Microsegmentation With Meraki Adaptive Policies
When it comes to networking and user based security policies in a Cisco environment, a lot of people will immediately point to Cisco ISE and its process of creating policies based on a wide range of factors. Now when you think of Meraki, a lot of people still have the mindset that Meraki is built around simple network management and easy of deployment, which it is. They look to other Cisco products for the larger scale, more in depth, and customizable security features. That is a view that a lot of “old-school” engineers still keep. Meraki is now once again pushing boundaries and bridging the gap, bringing their product forward as a true enterprise option. This post by Kevin Blackburn breaks down the details of Meraki Adaptive Policies, which the company is using to make sure they are a viable enterprise option for the more security minded environments. Kevin recently heard from Meraki at the Tech Field Day Cisco Live Virtual Experience, so he has details on all their latest.
Meraki Health – Your Wireless User Watchguard
Troubleshooting is an inevitable part of IT, especially when it comes to wireless networking. As Kevin Blackburn points out in this piece, unfortunately, many organizations lack the staff to have 24/7 help or even large daytime staffs. At Tech Field Day Virtual Cisco Live Experience, he saw Meraki Health as a potential solution for this problem. This provides a health snapshot of all connected devices and shows where users might be experiencing performance issues. This information is stored in the cloud for 30 days, giving an additional way to get historical context to these issues, and help track down root causes to larger issues. Kevin was impressed to see this monitoring didn’t just stop at the wireless component, showing the experience from APs to switches and to backing application servers.
Cisco SecureX – A Single Security Pane of Glass
Cisco is not unfamiliar to the world of network security solutions, but Kevin Blackburn thinks SecureX is a recognition that the company could do more from the standpoint of a consolidated security interface. Rather than being a tool that only works within the Cisco ecosystem, SecureX allows admins to take advantage of data from devices across your infrastructure. Cisco has a number of direct integrations with other vendors, as well as a general API that you can plug into. This really helps SecureX standout, not just from Cisco’s other security minded solutions, but within the industry at large. For Kevin, this allows you breakdown silos and get more visibility into possible security issues.
Insightful Fabric Management With Cisco Network Insights
What is your network fabric trying to tell you? Are you missing out on important updates about the status of patches and updates? How can you learn more about what you need to accomplish? Tom Hollingsworth looks at Cisco Network Insights Advisor and how it can help you decipher what you need to be listening to. Cisco showed off NIA at Networking Field Day, and Tom sees it as a support tech dedicated to doing nothing but update you on what the latest issues are that could affect things and how you can mitigate or remove those problems. And for the times when you can do neither, NIA can help you get your ducks in a row when you need to call TAC.
Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020
Tom’s Corner at Cisco Live US have become an almost legendary part of Cisco Live US lore. If you’re ever met Tom, you know he’s a people person and love making connections, especially with networking folks. Just because in-person conferences are on hold for a while, doesn’t mean that Tom can’t bring it back. That’s why he’s doing Tom’s Virtual Corner at Cisco Live US 2020. Be sure to join Tom on Zoom any time during meeting running from about 8:00am PT through 1:00pm PT. Check out the post for how to get the invite and we’ll see you there!
My Journey Into Cloud Networking
Nicola Arnoldi shares his journey into cloud networking in this blog post. For Nicola, this isn’t a hard break into a brave new networking world, rather an extension of all that has come before. This started during network disaggregation planning while working at a large telco, but really accelerated as Nicola started getting comfortable with automation. He sees the hardest part for a lot of network engineers on this journey is being able to trust a lot of the cloud networking abstractions, rather than worrying about all the underlying specifics. We’re glad that Nicola’s conversations with Ivan Pepelnjak at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe a few years ago was considered a significant milestone on his journey with cloud networking.
Cisco HyperFlex Application Platform – Cisco’s Kubernetes Service?
In this post, Max Mortillaro shares some of his thoughts from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020. Max has been to the event a number of times, and knew that HyperFlex updates would more than likely be on the table. At the event, Cisco shared encouraging news about the evolution of HyperFlex called HXAP, or HyperFlex Application Platform. The HCI solution is now capable of supporting container-based application modernization initiatives. He digs into why organizations might want containers on top of hyperconverged infrastructure, and who could benefit from the HXAP approach.
Cisco’s Service Provider Powerful Trio
At Tech Field Day Extra a Cisco Live Europe, David Penaloza Seijas got to hear details about Cisco’s plans for custom silicon. This came in the form of a new ASIC, focused on meeting the needs of service providers. For David, this seemed like natural focus for the company. He breaks down how this integrates into the Cisco 8000 series routers, what kind of features customers should expect, and how it fits into Cisco’s broader ambitions for IOS XR. Overall David is bullish on the approach, and suggests it’s never been a better time to learn some Linux!
IoT Calls for Security!
During Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020, David Penaloza Seijas heard a session with Tim Szigeti and the Cisco IoT folks, showing their Innovations in Cyber Security and Edge Data, addressing the concerns of the operational technology and enterprise spaces. IoT offers a lot of opportunity to enterprises, and usually offer a fairly low floor of investment to get started. But as David points out in this piece, the true costs and challenges of IoT from a security standpoint are often unknown until they are out in the wild. During their presentation, Cisco showed how they can offer security, isolation, endpoint analysis, and network readiness in a single platform.
CLEUR and Other Updates!
David Peñaloza Seijas was one of the new delegate faces around the table at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020. We’re glad he was excited to join the delegate ranks, and add a new wrinkle to an event like Cisco Live. Tech Field Day Extra adds in unique technical presentations that help to flesh out many of the major announcements from the show. As part of the experience, he was interviewed by Gestalt IT, so be sure to check that out to get to know David better!
Cisco HyperFlex Interview – Differentiators and Customer Benefits
If you missed Cisco’s presentation videos from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020, you should definitely check out their deep dive into Cisco HyperFlex Application Platform and Intersight innovations. Aniket Patankar, the Principal Product Manager for Cisco’s HyperFlex platform, led the discussion, and he recently sat down with Max Mortillaro for a TECHunplugged interview. They dig into how Cisco HyperFlex differentiates from other HCI solutions and the benefits the platform has for customers.
What Is Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform? Interview With Aniket Patankar
Max Mortillaro got to sit down with Aniket Patankar, the Principal Product Manager for Cisco’s HyperFlex platform, in a recent interview for TECHunplugged. They discussed if Cisco is jumping into the bandwagon of Enterprise-targeted Kubernetes platforms and what exactly is Cisco HyperFlex Data Platform? Be sure to check out all of Cisco’s presentation videos from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020 for all the technical details.
The Power of Communities – An Interview With David Penaloza Seijas
Your community defines who you are. But for some, the community is defined by who they are as well. In this video, Tom Hollingsworth interviews David Peneloza Seijas and discusses his role in Cisco Live, Cisco Champions, and Tech Field Day. The passion that David has for this community shines through the entire interview, and Tom really found him to be a beacon for new members to latch on to. David is definitely a champion that Tom wants to try to emulate with his own work in the Tech Field Day community.
Why a Change of Mindset in the IoT Space Is Needed
Dominik Pickhardt thinks that the mentality around IoT security needs to change. He’s seen conversations more concerned about the concept of safety, rather than security conversations, with an all too common site of all IoT devices on one flat L2 networking. At Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020, Dominik and the other delegates got to hear from the Cisco IoT Group and what they are doing to address the challenges. They showed how their new Cyber Vision solution is adding critical visibility to the IoT security picture. Cyber Vision understands protocols used in industrial settings and automatically builds an inventory of devices that includes running software versions. This creates a topography of what devices are talking to each other in an easy to understand interface.
TECHunplugged Videocast – Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer
Arjan Timmerman and Max Mortillaro are covering a lot of the announcements and presentations from Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020 in their video series with TECHunplugged. In this video, they dig into Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer. This is an impressive new addition to the management interface used for HyperFlex and UCS. Both of them thought it was a really interesting announcement. This lets an admin hook almost everything in a data center into Intersight, that can be used for monitoring and capacity tool for the entire environment.
TechUnplugged VideoCast: CiscoLive Barcelona HyperFlex Application Platform
The TECHunplugged crew was about in Barcelona for Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020 and got to hear about HyperFlex Application Platform. In this video, Arjan Timmerman and Max Mortillaro discuss the evolution of HyperFlex as Cisco’s HCI solution, something Max has been following for a number of years. HXAP is a standalone add-on running on top of HyperFlex which gives the ability to run containers. This complete new cluster builds on top of a Linux KVM environment with a Kubernetes environment. They dig into how this fits into the overall container landscape and the implications for organizations in the video.
Meraki Is Almost an Enterprise Solution
In the past, Tom Hollingsworth has not thought that Meraki was an appropriate wireless solution for the enterprise. But that perception seems to be shifting after hearing an update from them at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020. They showed off how they are now adding in easier scaling with things like integrating rule groups into their firewall platform, something that’s critical for enterprise scale deployments. They are also testing native IPv6 support, which is a key signal to Tom they are serious about the enterprise. It’s a feature SMB’s generally don’t generally care about, but has been supported on Cisco’s IOS for years. Tom has been following the company for years, and thinks this signals they are almost ready to be a true enterprise-class solution.
Cisco Live Europe 2020 – Introduction and Expectations
Arjan Timmerman and Max Mortillaro from the TECHunplugged crew were delegates at Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020. They recorded a slate of videos breaking down their favorite announcements and most important parts of the event. They break down Cisco UCS and HyperFlex updates, innovation around Industrial IoT, as well as overall Data Center and Security announcements. Be sure to watch them all, then dive into the full video coverage we have on our YouTube page.
TECHunplugged Videocast – Cisco Threat Response
At Tech Field Day Extra at Cisco Live Europe 2020, Arjan Timmerman and Max Mortillaro got to hear from the Cisco Threat Response team. They enjoyed seeing Cisco ability to dive into threats to your networking environment as they are being monitored, and how this is integrated into a further online knowledge base to better educate about emerging threats. With security teams traditionally understaffed, Cisco Threat Response is vital to gather together all the threats facing your organization in a manageable interface and provide further context for how this will continue to impact your organization. It’s not a traditional metrics-based dashboard, but an excellent way to get a security overview.