The power of intent-based networking for the IoT edge

I talk to so many of our 50,000 Cisco IoT customers across various industries like manufacturing, energy, transportation and smart cities and what do I find? They struggle with the same three challenges in deploying IoT — project complexity, scale, and end-to-end security.

Take one of our customers — Germany’s leading energy company. They have an ambitious vision to eliminate the CO2 footprint of Germany’s energy system. To accomplish this lofty goal, they need a network that can reliably and securely connect tens of thousands of renewable energy sources across an entire country.

Initiatives like this need a new approach to deploying and managing IoT networks. One that directly addresses these key customer challenges.

That is why I am proud to announce new network capabilities and tools to help IT and operations alike, deliver on the promise of IoT. Today, at Cisco Live Barcelona, we unveiled:

The industry’s first integrated network architecture that extends intent-based networking capabilities to the IoT edge.

So, what is intent-based networking (IBN)? IBN simplifies network deployment and management by automating key IT functions and providing centralized visibility and control over everything from network performance to security, analytics and operations.

By extending IBN to the IoT edge, customers like the German energy company can easily control and manage the network connecting their carpeted offices as well as all their solar parks and windmill farms — from a single dashboard.

Next generation IoT networking product lines

To deliver the power of IBN, we are introducing two new next generation IoT networking product lines — Cisco Catalyst IE3x00 Series of Switches and Cisco IR1101 Integrated Services Routers — that are built for IBN, programmable, modular and edge enabled today.

I am excited by the impact we can have on your IoT projects, large and small.

Deployment at scale

Now you can easily manage massive IoT deployments by using your existing IT skillset and familiar IBN management tools like Cisco DNA Center. We also built key product enhancements to help with scale. Our new Catalyst and ISR have fast boot-times with all the capabilities of IOS XE. Our new switches also offer zero-touch provisioning and higher PoE capacity in a compact form factor. When deploying and troubleshooting thousands of devices these capabilities makes a huge difference.

And we did not just stop at product innovations. We are providing the right tools and services to make sure all deployments, no matter how big, are successful. I am happy to share that we have created three new Cisco Validated Designs. These are IoT deployment blueprints of complete solutions from Cisco and leading industrial companies. The blueprints come with bill of materials, configurations, security best practices and system design — all comprehensively tested by Cisco. These designs remove deployment risk and ensure more reliable and predictable outcomes.

Unmatched flexibility

For many of you, the cost and effort of ripping and replacing IoT infrastructure can be prohibitive and cause significant downtime. Both our new product lines have a modular design, which means you can easily upgrade to new technologies, like 5G, without replacing the infrastructure. The IR1101 is one of the industry’s first 5G-ready industrial router and IE3x00 switches offer modularity of interfaces for fiber, copper and PoE ports.

And for customers with evolving needs and requirements, we are making our IoT infrastructure open and programmable. We are turning our community of over 500,000 developers into an innovation engine. A rich set of app development resources and tools are now available at the new Cisco DevNet IoT Development Center and newly developed apps can be purchased directly from our ecosystem exchange program.

Built-in security

Security is one of the key barriers to IoT adoption and we don’t think it needs to be so. That is why we have pioneered a multi-layered security approach. Security is built into every layer of our IoT stack, from the networking hardware to the operating software and the edge computing apps. Since Cisco provides a multi-domain architecture from the Data Center to the Campus and now to the IoT Edge, we are uniquely positioned to deliver a fully integrated security architecture without any gaps in coverage. And with IBN, you can go a step further and enforce unified security policies throughout your extended enterprise, from the core to the IoT edge.

Customer-first innovation

Serving so many customers across a broad range of industries and use cases, gives us a unique vantage point to deeply understand and address our customer needs.

This is just the beginning and I can’t wait to share the next big innovation with you.

In the meantime, you can learn more about Cisco IoT and our new product lines with these additional resources below.

Cisco IoT Announcement

IoT Partner Hub on Cisco SalesConnect

Cisco IoT Switches

Cisco IoT Gateways

Cisco IoT Portfolio