At Cisco Live 2023, Cisco unveiled a range of solutions for SSE, network management, observability, and a new cloud-native application security solution called Panoptica. The event, which includes a performance by comedian Jim Gaffigan, highlighted Cisco’s focus on simplifying user experiences and addressing the evolving needs of organizations. The security service edge (SSE) solution aims to streamline access and enhance hybrid work experiences, while the integration of generative AI into the Security Cloud improves security operations and efficiency. Cisco Networking Cloud offers a unified platform for network management, addressing challenges of complexity and fragmentation. The Full-Stack Observability (FSO) Platform brings together data from multiple domains, enabling comprehensive insights, while Panoptica provides end-to-end lifecycle protection for cloud native applications. We’re getting more details on all of these products as part of Tech Field Day at Cisco Live, which included presentations from Cisco Security, ThousandEyes, and Enterprise Networking yesterday and cloud and compute, secure policy, and IoT today.
1:03 – Riverbed Technology to be Acquired by Vector Capital
Private Equity firm Vector Capital has announced its agreement to acquire Riverbed Technology, a familiar name in the world of network performance management, WAN optimization, and more. Given the history of private equity in the IT sector, it is likely that Riverbed will be split up, with some product lines acquired by others in hopes of unlocking the mythical beast known as shareholder value. Is this the end of Riverbed as we know it?
Read More: Vector Capital to Acquire Riverbed Technology
2:36 – China Cyber Actor Living Off The Land
Cybersecurity authorities in the United States and other countries have issued a joint Cybersecurity Advisory to address the concerning activities of a state-sponsored cyber actor known as Volt Typhoon, said to be operating on behalf of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This advisory, released by the NSA and CISA, emphasizes the actor’s utilization of a technique called “living off the land” to evade detection. By leveraging built-in network administration tools and blending in with normal Windows system activities, the actor can operate covertly, targeting networks in critical infrastructure sectors across the United States and potentially worldwide. How seriously should we be taking Volt Typhoon?
Read More: Joint Cybersecurity Advisory
6:30 – NetApp and Pure Storage Report Declines
NetApp announced a decline in quarterly revenues, down 6 percent year-on-year, and a 5.4 percent decline in profit. The company cited macroeconomic challenges, a slow demand environment, and headwinds from large enterprises as factors affecting its performance. NetApp’s public cloud operations and new product introductions have not significantly contributed to its fortunes, and it is managing its business tightly to control costs and deliver profits. At the same time, Pure Storage experienced a 5 percent decline in revenues compared to the previous year, marking its first decline after eight consecutive growth quarters. The decline was attributed to slowed buying activity from enterprise and cloud customers due to the uncertain economic situation. Is there trouble in the world of enterprise storage?
Read More: NetApp’s sales slide, with no relief in the outlook
9:43 – Cisco to Acquire Armorblox
Cisco has announced its intention to acquire Armorblox, a company that specializes in using Large Language Models (LLMs) and natural language understanding in cybersecurity. This acquisition is a significant step towards Cisco’s AI-first Security Cloud strategy, as emphasized during their Cisco Live conference this week. By leveraging Armorblox’s expertise in Predictive and Generative AI, Cisco aims to transform the way customers interact with and understand their security control points. We expect that this technology will enable better attack prediction, threat detection, and policy enforcement, leading to improved security experiences for customers.
Read More: Furthering the AI-First Security Cloud: Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Armorblox
12:53 – NVIDIA $1 Trillion Valuation
Nvidia briefly reached a market value of $1 trillion, joining the elite club of U.S. companies with such a valuation. The surge in Nvidia’s stock reflects the increasing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications. The company’s shares have tripled in less than eight months, driven by the advancements in generative AI technology. While Nvidia’s valuation has surpassed that of its peers, analysts believe the AI boom indicates that the stock could still be worth more. Nvidia’s focus on AI, its dominance in the GPU market, and its expansion into the data center market contribute to its growth prospects.
Read More: Nvidia briefly joins $1 trillion valuation club
16:04 – BlueCat Acquires Indeni
BlueCat Networks has announced its acquisition of Indeni, a network infrastructure monitoring and automation platform, just a month after the company announced the acquisition of Men&Mice, which we covered on May 24th. Both acquisitions are designed to bulk up BlueCat’s offerings beyond DDI (DNS, DHCP, and IP address management), providing customers with improved network resiliency and proactive network health assessment. Indeni’s platform analyzes device configurations and metrics, alerting administrators about existing and potential issues and recommending remediation steps using automation.
Read More: BlueCat acquires network infrastructure monitoring and automation platform Indeni
19:06 – Cisco Live Announcements
At Cisco Live 2023, Cisco unveiled a range of solutions for SSE, network management, observability, and a new cloud-native application security solution called Panoptica. The event, which includes a performance by comedian Jim Gaffigan, highlighted Cisco’s focus on simplifying user experiences and addressing the evolving needs of organizations. The security service edge (SSE) solution aims to streamline access and enhance hybrid work experiences, while the integration of generative AI into the Security Cloud improves security operations and efficiency. Cisco Networking Cloud offers a unified platform for network management, addressing challenges of complexity and fragmentation. The Full-Stack Observability (FSO) Platform brings together data from multiple domains, enabling comprehensive insights, while Panoptica provides end-to-end lifecycle protection for cloud native applications. We’re getting more details on all of these products as part of Tech Field Day at Cisco Live, which included presentations from Cisco Security, ThousandEyes, and Enterprise Networking yesterday and cloud and compute, secure policy, and IoT today.
Cisco has unveiled its new security service edge (SSE) solution, aiming to simplify access and enhance hybrid work experiences across any device, location, and application. The company is integrating generative AI capabilities into its Security Cloud, allowing for simplified security operations and improved efficiency. Cisco’s innovations in firewall, multicloud, and application security align with its vision for the Security Cloud platform. The new offerings include Cisco Secure Access, which provides a common access experience and a single cloud-managed console, as well as enhanced threat detection and response capabilities. Cisco is also collaborating with mobile device vendors like Apple to ensure secure and seamless remote access. Additionally, Cisco is previewing generative AI features for reducing policy complexity and expediting threat response, while also introducing the Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series and Cisco Multicloud Defense to bolster network security for hybrid work environments. The company’s integrated approach extends to cloud application security, with new capabilities in Panoptica offering enhanced protection for cloud-native applications.
Read More: Cisco Shows Breakthrough Innovation Towards AI-First Security Cloud
Cisco introduces Panoptica, a Cloud Native Application Security solution, to provide end-to-end lifecycle protection for cloud native application environments. Panoptica includes code and build protection, an Attack Path Engine for securing modern hybrid cloud applications, and Security Insights for Cloud Native Observability for real-time visibility and continuous risk management. The solution aims to help organizations address the challenges of securing application development and deployment in hybrid and multicloud environments. Panoptica offers a visual dashboard experience, scalability across clusters and multicloud environments, and coverage for APIs, containers, serverless environments, and Kubernetes clusters. Additional capabilities, such as Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and API Logic Protection, will be added in September. The integration of Panoptica with Cisco’s Full Stack Observability Platform provides real-time visibility, prioritized insights, and recommendations for addressing security issues across critical applications based on business risk. Cisco’s Cloud Native Application Security strategy reflects the company’s commitment to delivering comprehensive security coverage for networks, IT infrastructure, user management, cloud applications, and more.
Read More: Cisco Accelerates Application Security Strategy with Panoptica
Cisco has unveiled its vision for Cisco Networking Cloud, an integrated management platform designed to simplify network management and provide a unified experience for customers. The platform aims to address the challenges of network complexity, fragmentation, and lack of visibility by offering cloud-driven automation, rich network insights, and collaboration with partners. Cisco is introducing components such as single sign-on, API key exchange/repository, cross-platform navigation, and a common user interface to enhance operational simplicity and reliability. Additionally, Cisco is expanding its network assurance capabilities with Cisco ThousandEyes for end-to-end network visibility and automation, as well as introducing improvements to data center networking and AI data center blueprints. The goal is to streamline IT operations, improve user experiences, and drive measurable business outcomes for customers.
Read More: Cisco Showcases Vision to Simplify Networking and Securely Connect the World
Cisco launches a new Full-Stack Observability (FSO) Platform that brings together data from multiple domains to deliver contextual, correlated, and predictive insights. The FSO Platform enables an observability ecosystem and supports use cases in application, networking, infrastructure, security, cloud, sustainability, and business. The platform is focused on OpenTelemetry and collects and analyzes Metrics, Events, Logs, and Traces (MELT) data from any source. The premier solution on the FSO Platform is Cloud Native Application Observability, which helps optimize digital experiences, prioritize risks, and secure workloads. Other modules on the platform include Cost Insights, Application Resource Optimizer, Security Insights, and Cisco AIOps. Cisco is collaborating with partners such as CloudFabrix, Evolutio, and Kanari to develop solutions and expand the platform’s capabilities. Partner solutions include vSphere Observability and Data Modernization, Evolutio Fintech, and Kanari Capacity Planner and Forecaster. The FSO Platform advances Cisco’s FSO strategy and enables AI-driven root cause analysis, experience optimization, and incident management tied to business context.
Read More: Cisco Launches Full-Stack Observability Platform
30:10 – The Weeks Ahead
Pure Accelerate June 14-16, 2023
Security Field Day June 28-29, 2023
Edge Field Day July 12-13, 2023
The Gestalt IT Rundown is a weekly look at the IT news of the week. You can catch it as a YouTube video and on your favorite podcast application every Wednesday. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
