With an exciting line up of sessions on topics including “Transforming Security”, “Secure Agile Networks”, and “The Journey to Net Zero”, this year’s IT Leadership Program promises to be one of the best yet, and our 2022 Roaming Reporter Crew is here to give you an exclusive backstage pass to the great minds that are shaping the IT industry today. A dynamic team of professionals from across Cisco, we will combine our diverse skillsets to bring you key insights from Cisco leadership and share the unique experiences of attendees.

We can’t wait to see you all there. Keep an eye out for these faces!

2022 IT Roaming Reporters

Emma

Emma is a Data/Business Analyst who’s been working at Cisco almost 4 years across workforce experience, such as employee devices and now, in the heart of Cisco, our network.

Emma is looking forward to hearing about customers’ previous experiences with Cisco and how we can improve, as well as, attending breakouts to further understand our own tech landscape.

Hibah

Hibah is a technical undergraduate intern in a team that looks after the networking infrastructure and, primarily, deals with data cleansing and automating data discovery processes.

From Sydney, Australia, Hibah would like to learn about the innovation that takes place at Cisco and network with people from around the world to understand their outlook on the future of automation.

Vi

Vi is an SRE undergraduate intern who works hands on with network devices and controllers to secure access to the Cisco network from our offices all around the world.

From Sydney, Australia, Vi is excited to be attending her first Cisco Live, where she hopes to gain the deeper insight into the pillars in the IT industry and witness the latest in network security and automation.

Caitlin

Caitlin is a technical undergraduate intern who uses her data science and programming skills to help deliver innovative solutions to improve workforce and client experience alike.

She’s excited to explore the latest technology and trends emerging in world of Cisco IT and glimpse how they will shape the future of the industry.

Michael

Michael is the creative director for Cisco IT and the producer of the Roaming Reporter program. Fresh from his first Cisco Live experience in Las Vegas earlier this year, he’s excited to see the unique approach we bring to things down under!

Based in sunny Los Angeles, he’s been working remotely to help the reporters get ready for this amazing event.

Fasten your seatbelt and check your baggage is stowed in the overhead locker – Cisco Live Melbourne 2022 is about to take off!

While traveling to Vegas for Partner Summit 2022, I had a few thoughts of what I thought I might hear in keynotes and breakout sessions based on conversations with senior leadership.  At that point I didn’t know one single line could so perfectly wrap up what I feel this year is all about.

“Together, we own our customer’s experience.”
Thimaya Subaiya, Cisco Chief Customer Experience Officer

Our theme in Americas Distribution, Fueling Partner Success, hasn’t changed. It hasn’t and won’t change because that’s why we are here. But in order to truly fuel partner success, we must be customer experience focused. Everything that was so flawlessly shared at Partner Summit pivots around this central message.

I know you have probably seen many excellent blogs, articles, social posts, and even reviewed what was shared by going to the partner launch experience, so I won’t reinvent the wheel there, but I’d like to highlight a few things that match up with our Americas Distribution pillars for fiscal year 2023.

Pillar: People and Culture

Chuck Robbins in his keynote address shared, “Simplify everything, offer choice, deliver amazing experiences.” In this hyper-speed, multi-device, hybrid world we live in, to give customers the best experience we need to continue investing in Managed Services, Cisco+, and other programs like Partner Lifecycle Services. By providing our partners with solutions and choices, we are helping to simplify not only their buying experience but the user experience too.

Pillar: Alignment

We know the future is hybrid. We have been working toward a hybrid working, living, and community experience for years before the pandemic required it of us. In the business world, we know our customers are rethinking how they work and the primary areas for this evolution are: IT, human resources, and facilities. Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM, Security and Applications shared with the audience, “98 percent of meetings in the future will have at least one participant who won’t be in the same physical space as everyone else.”  How our customers want to experience life has changed and we are here to make those changes a reality.

Pillar: Enhanced Distributor and Partner Experience

Jeff Sharritts, the new EVP, Chief Customer and Partner Officer, shared his focus on you and your partners. He wants us to have bold ambition, commitment, and responsiveness. That means we are meeting our customers where they are in their digital transformation by offering them more choice and flexibility, redefining what winning means through realizing when customers win, we all win, and improving our selling and partner experience by reducing complexity and working to make it easier to do business with Cisco.

2T Growth and Sales

I saved the best for last, and I don’t think anyone could’ve said it better than Fran Katsoudas, EVP and Chief People, Policy, and Purpose Officer. “As a business, our choice is not between pursuing profits or positively impacting communities. Purposeful partnership is good for the world and for business.” We want our partners to see increased growth and sales, but we also want them to see all the incredible things they are doing for the communities, people, and cultures around them.

I hope you enjoyed Partner Summit this year and look forward to seeing you next year, in person, in Miami on November 7-9, 2023. Our commitment to owning the customer experience, together, will not only strengthen our goal of Fueling Partner Success, but will also help you, our distributors, see a greater level of achievement as well.

See what was shared in the keynotes and breakout sessions here on the
Cisco Partner Launch Experience! 

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

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The Cisco Black Belt Academy is a simplified enablement framework consisting of carefully curated content. Allowing Cisco Partners to enhance their competitive advantage, the Cisco Black Belt Academy gives Cisco Partners the opportunity to learn more about the broad spectrum of Cisco ecosystem solutions, engage more confidently with customers, and ultimately execute sales.

A Cisco Solutions Plus Partner since April 2020, VQ Communications provides the recommended management software for the Cisco Meeting Server platform. Used and trusted in a variety of verticals globally including Federal, Finance, Defense, Health, and Education, VQ Conference Manager allows users to unlock the full power of the Cisco Meeting Server, enabling customers to deliver high quality, secure and scalable video- and audio-conferencing services. Together, VQ Conference Manager and Cisco Meeting Server can deliver conferencing services at truly mind-blowing scale through its complete solution offering.

VQ’s inclusion in the Cisco Black Belt Academy has been a resounding success. As a result, Stages 1,2 and 3 have been updated and now include content for those needing to migrate from Cisco TelePresence Management Suite (TMS) to VQ’s replacement—VQ Conference Manager DMA (Device Management and Automation).

Designed as a replacement for Cisco TMS, VQ Conference Manager is deployed on-premise as a part of the Cisco Meeting Server and Cisco video-conferencing devices ecosystem. To date, VQ Conference Manager DMA includes One Button to Push and Directory Services, with Device Configuration scheduled for the end of 2022.

Recommended by Cisco, VQ Conference Manager is used by customers globally to support today’s flexible working models.

“We’ve been delighted with partner engagement in the Black Belt program to date.
The market response to VQ Conference Manager DMA has been amazing. The Black Belt Academy is an excellent way for our partners to learn more about our product, understand the customer problems it solves and be confident including it in sales opportunities.”
– VQ’s CEO, Mike Horsley’s thoughts about this program

Check out Black Belt VQ Communications – Presales Stage 3

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

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Throughout my career, I have noticed the way we “futurize” technology. Often, we are thinking of technology in five-to-ten-year increments. But the fact of the matter is – technology is moving faster than we can keep up. The minute we think we understand it, it’s already onto something new. That’s why here at Cisco, we’re focused on what’s NEXT. We all know technology will continue to grow at a rapid pace, our goal is to remain at the forefront of these changes.

After much anticipation, it’s finally here! I am excited to present the first episode of “NEXT” by Cisco Secure! “NEXT” is a video series illuminating simple conversations about complex topics. Our mission is twofold: First, we want to humanize cybersecurity. Second, we want to build a bridge between Cisco Secure and the ideas of the future.

CTO of Cisco Secure, TK Keanini and I sit down with Michael Ebel, CEO of Atmosfy. If you saw our preview, then you know Atmosfy is on a mission to help inspire others and support local restaurants through live videos.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How an ex-bartender turned Air Force Captain took the turn to become a tech founder.
• What it means to be resilient in one’s security practice.
• How security isn’t just the security team’s responsibility, it’s everyone’s responsibility, including marketing, PR, business operations, even your customers.

Want to learn what’s NEXT for Michael Ebel and Atmosfy? Check out our episode!

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!

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When you think about the most resilient creatures in the animal kingdom, what comes to mind?

Perhaps the camel, which can survive for 6 months with no food or water. Or maybe it’s the honey badger, which tends to drink snake venom like cranberry juice.

Or how about the immortal jellyfish? This is one of the most fascinating (and oldest) creatures on Planet Earth. Not only are they immortal, but they also live their lives in Benjamin Button-esque fashion. Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish live to the age of 50 and think, “Well that was fun, but what if I did all of that again in reverse?” When they get back to the beginning, they age forwards again…kind of like the David Fincher film playing on an endless loop, which, I must be honest, felt rather reminiscent of my watching experience.

Those are all fine contenders. But I think the award for the most resilient animal goes to the Tardigrade.

A Tardigrade is a water creature – it needs water to survive. But if there’s a shortage – say, they made their home in a lovely bunch of moss which has unfortunately dried out, they have a plan B.

A Tardigrade will curl up, slow down their metabolism by a factor of 10,000, and can go without a drop of water for decades. Then, when conditions are better, they reboot, rehydrate, and carry on as if nothing has happened. Take that, evolution.

That’s not all. They can also survive temperatures of up to 150 degrees centigrade, without so much as a flinch. How about colder temperatures? Snow problem. (Sorry.) Turn the temperature down to minus 272 centigrade (pretty much Sub Zero), and you’ll defeat the atom, but you won’t make a mark on the Tardigrade.

This one is my favorite: They can survive space travel. In 2008 European scientists sent a colony of 3,000 tardigrades into low grade orbit for 10 days. The majority were able to withstand both cosmic radiation, and the power of the Sun’s UV light.

I guess one question you might ask is, “Why?” Why does a tardigrade need such a robust defense strategy when it’s only a millimetre in size and looks like a cuddly bear under a microscope?

It comes down to adaptation. Tardigrades are water creatures who needed to adapt to occasional droughts. Sure, they may have overshot it a little by including the potential for space travel too. But, they addressed their main threat, and set a more positive course for the future. I think that’s a nice sum up of what being resilient means.

Which brings me to my main reason for this post. I’d like to talk about security resilience, and how it can be the baseline for plotting a stronger future for your organization.

I believe, as with most things, that security resilience starts with people – looking after them, giving them what they need to flourish, and in most cases, getting out of their way.

That all sounds basic. However, the scale of what our people and security teams need to protect within the enterprise and the internet as a whole, keeps getting bigger. Not everything’s in the data center, and not everything’s in the cloud. Addressing the core challenges, and adapting as needed, is central to a security resilience strategy.

This involves moving away from a siloed security policy that is only focused on threat prevention and treats all alerts and threats equally. Not only is this way inefficient – it wears defenders out. We can’t prevent everything, so we must prevent what will affect us most from a security standpoint, while increasing detection and response for anything else that may come our way.

That’s where a detection, response and recovery strategy comes into play. This strategy is underpinned by risk-based contextual analysis (i.e., “Exactly how concerned do we need to be with this new vulnerability?”) and continuous trust assessments.

For your people running daily analysis, this is crucial to help them move from the overwhelming environments that often stem from alert fatigue. Dealing with the latest headline threats is reactive, exhaustive, and is a large component as to why burnout is so prevalent in security. Context-centric security is a key factor to moving away from this.

We explore this concept and more, in our new e-book: Adapt and Overcome: Your guide to building security resilience with Cisco Secure.

In this e-book, we identify the key steps to implementing security resilience. We help you to find the priorities, so you can drive resilience faster, and more efficiently. You will also be able to see this in action, in our case study with the NFL (National Football League).

Later on, we get into some specifics about how Cisco can help you build security resilience across four key areas: risk reduction, visibility, mitigating insider threats, and what to do with actionable intelligence.

Plus, we share some security resilience success principles from other organizations around the world.

Please check out the e-book when you have a moment. I hope the stories, videos and words have meaning for you, and can help your organization as it prepares to meet its current challenges and opportunities.

And finally, remember that with the right security partner, your organization can adapt to change with speed and precision, making informed decisions with the right context at the right time.

Learn more about how Cisco Secure can help you build your resilience strategy.

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!

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It’s been only a few years, but 2019 feels like a lifetime ago. In some ways I view it as the “before times” — before remote working became ubiquitous and hybrid work became the way of the future, before the world and the workplace were forever transformed. Business will never be the same. And neither will we.

Now with our first in-person event since then fast approaching, I’m reminded of how much I’ve missed the energy of Cisco Live, the stage, the lights, the rooms filled with customers, partners, and colleagues. I am counting the days to reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones.

This will be my first Cisco Live with Cisco Customer Experience (CX) in APJC. But along with this new lens, I bring my experience and insights as Cisco’s original customer zero, global CIO, and loyal customer.

Get ready to rock and roll.

Now is the time to Embrace Your Possible

A new world requires new solutions and fresh strategies. That’s what Cisco CX has in store for you. Take it from someone who has been in your shoes and knows what keeps IT leaders up at night — Cisco CX is here to make your life easier and help you sleep better.

We are here to help you Embrace Your Possible with a fast-track to business value through three driving forces:

1. Simplify and automate to optimize for today’s challenges
2. Transform with agility for tomorrow’s changes
3. Innovate for a future redefined

This is just a glimpse of what’s to come. I have much more to share about all that I’m seeing and learning, including how we are bringing the best of human+digital intelligence together to accelerate business outcomes. Let’s continue the discussion at Cisco Live!

Join Customer Experience at Cisco Live in Melbourne!

Join my colleagues and me for the Keynote on Wednesday, December 7 at Cisco Live in Melbourne! Learn more about Ride to Possible, where you can attend sessions, see demos, and learn about CX to earn raffle entries to win an incredible prize package. Check out our CX innovation session that will highlight the latest innovations to help you now and in the future. Visit our CX stand at the World of Solutions to learn more about how to Embrace Your Possible!

Unable to join us in Melbourne? You can still attend Cisco Live 2022 online

Get your front-row seat to Cisco Live 2022 and tune in Dec 7-8 for the live event broadcast. Learn how Cisco is combining technology and people to fuel the future of hybrid work, sign up now.

What do Devvie and the DevNet Zone at Cisco Live Melbourne have in common? Easy! Both love to explore developer topics, partying, and having fun. The DevNet Zone at Cisco Live Melbourne is brought to you by the Cisco Developer Relations team. We can’t wait to see you in-person or online! For each Cisco Live we do our best to bring you top-notch technical sessions and speakers you can connect with. Let’s dig into what we’ve got lined up.

Step 1: Get Registered

Join us in-person or enjoy the broadcast straight from Melbourne. The broadcast is free, check out the buzz, the updates and share the excitement virtually. Register here.

Step 2: Let’s Inspire Each Other

• Do you live on the edge? Join Grace Francisco, Vice President of Developer Relations Strategy and Experience, for her session, “Living on the Edge: From Developers to Ops” INTDEV-1250. You’ll learn how Cisco is engaging developers with new tools, hands-on experiences, and code designed for hybrid environments. See first-hand how we are enabling and empowering our growing developer community as we stand on the edge of a new era of innovation. Join Grace in-person or catch the broadcast.
• I’ve never met anyone as passionate, committed, and inspirational to Women in Tech as Grace Francisco. WOCL-2000 is your chance to talk to Grace and other amazing advocates as they unpack the “Power of We” with panel host Karen Schuman. Everyone is welcome to join. Learn how we can be stronger together – when that happens we all win!

Step 3: Let’s Party Together

Who doesn’t love a technical party full of developer topics, code, eats, and a chance to win awesome prizes (e.g., wireless headphones or a SmartMug)? Join us in the DevNet Zone theater for these special sessions to hear directly about new releases, to talk tech, and have fun with the following:

Tuesday – it’s all about Meraki

• Tech Session: Grab some eats and don’t miss Product Architect, John Kutcha, and Developer Advocate, Shweta Palande, for DEVNET-1338, from 12-1pm in the DevNet Zone theater. They will show you how you can innovate with Meraki APIs and its partner marketplace.
• Giveaway & Fun: Enter to win a Smart Mug and grab some special snacks! Go here to read more and enter to win.
• Experts: Have a Meraki question? Find Meraki experts in the DevNet Zone all day, showcasing the latest features. You can also find Meraki experts in the DevNet Zone on Friday – all day!

Wednesday – Cisco Networking is where it’s at

• Tech Session: Yousuf and Thomas bring you the latest new capabilities designed to simplify network operations and change the way customers configure, operate, and analyze cloud networking. Join DEVNET-1420 from 12-1pm.
• Giveaway & Fun: Not only can you get answers to your questions, but you can also enter to win Bose headphones. We are giving 2 away! (Must be present to win.)
• Eats?! Did someone say snacks? Don’t miss out on treats in the DevNet Zone. Fuel up and then dig into the demos with Cisco Networking.
• Experts: It’s Cisco Networking all day in the DevNet Zone demo pod. Have a question? Experts will be standing by!

Thursday – power hybrid experiences with Webex for Developers

• Tech Session: From 12-1pm let Ian Hawkins tell you more in DEVNET-1735 in the DevNet Zone theater where you’ll explore some hero use cases, partner stories, and developer resources to help you build and shape these experiences. Learn more about how different partners are enabling these possibilities using the Webex platform.
• Giveaway & Fun: Enter to win a Smart Mug and you can also grab snacks! Learning, eating, and winning is the perfect trifecta!
• Experts: Want to dig into the details? Swing by the Webex for Developers demo booth to ask your questions, swap code and collaborate.

Step 4: Let’s Learn Together

• We went all out to deliver 49 hands-on workshops, each with 12 seats each – hurry to reserve your spot to code along with an instructor. There is never a better time to learn how to get started with an Intro to Git, challenge yourself with Advanced Python or how you can supercharge your wireless network with programmability. What if the workshop I want to attend is sold out? We have expanded seating available and don’t forget you’ll earn 1 Continuing Education Credit (CE) for attending.
• There are 26 theater sessions, register to secure your spot. Find all DevNet Zone Track sessions.

Step 5: Let’s Have Fun Together

It’s Devvie’s Developer Dash – wait, is that Devvie driving a car down the track? Close! It’s a competition where the faster you answer questions correctly, the faster your car will cross the finish line. Fastest racer each day wins a prize and bragging rights.

Devvie stickers! Join the Cisco Live Gamification game and find custom Devvie stickers at the DevNet Zone welcome desk, post a picture to social and earn points via the Cisco Live app to win. Best part? These awesome stickers are yours to keep.

Step 6: Let’s Keep Talking

Throughout the DevNet Zone, you’ll see a QR code where you can give us your thoughts and be entered to win a stuffed Devvie or a DevNet Hoodie! We’d love to learn more about you, what you are working on and how we can develop together. Scan the QR codes scattered across the DevNet Zone to tell us more. Whether it’s on-site, online, or even post event – let’s keep connected!

It is no secret that the global pandemic has accelerated our customers’ digital transformation and shifted how they consume and purchase technology. And there is no sign that this transformation is slowing. Regardless of the economic climate, our customers continue to invest in technology to extend unique capabilities to their users, deliver distinct business outcomes, or drive new experiences to their customers.

Throughout this digital transformation, Cisco partners have been able to meet these dynamic customer demands by building solutions on top of Cisco’s industry leading platforms. By leveraging Cisco’s development tools, technical resources, and programs, partners have been able to extend the capabilities of Cisco platforms to deliver the solutions customers require. Whether driving new data insights, solving specific industry challenges, or delivering phenomenal user experiences, partners are finding the new opportunity potential is boundless.

So how can the Cisco Ecosystem Partner Acceleration & Experience team help?

Our commitment is to deliver industry leading experiences, simplify solution development, and increase your profitability. This commitment had led us to understand that it can be challenging, and time consuming, to find, retrieve, connect, and properly utilize all the resources across Cisco to build, showcase, and sell your solution. With this understanding, and through your feedback, we are creating best-in-class capabilities to meet your needs.

The first step in our commitment is to help you build and showcase your solution.

From solution ideation to technical enablement, to the build and validation process, to routes to market, to developing a go-to-market plan, the Build on Cisco journey has been specifically designed to simplify your experience. This simple, straight-forward, one-stop shop, will guide you through everything you need to take a solution from ideation to revenue.

But our commitment does not stop there. Providing you with opportunities to create awareness of your solution has never been more important. With Cisco’s Ecosystem Exchange, you can showcase your solution to customers, partners, and Cisco sales teams. With up to 11,000 visits per month, buyers search 1,500 partner solutions and use cases to discover the right solution for their business. Through further investments we plan to create even greater value with new lead capture and intuitive search and filter capabilities for customers to easily find the best solution and act.

Cisco SolutionsPlus places a select set of “Cisco Compatible” partner solutions on the Cisco global price list. SolutionsPlus provides immense value to our partners by making it faster for customers to order validated solutions. We all know Cisco seller alignment is critical, so with SolutionsPlus we make that possible as they are compensated on these solutions. While SolutionsPlus is invitation only and requires Cisco Business Unit sponsorship, we can help orchestrate this.

It’s time we talk about partner growth and profitability!  Partner-built solutions meet the changing demands of our customers.  Through Cisco’s co-selling model, you can leverage Cisco sellers and our partner-built solutions to reach new buyers and IT to generate deal sizes up to 4x larger!

As you can see, ensuring you are successful is the most important work we do within the Cisco Ecosystem Partner Acceleration & Experience team. If you need help or guidance on anything we covered, please do not hesitate to contact us.

So, grab your tool belt and let’s get started!

Build on Cisco!

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With computing resources extending well beyond the tightly controlled confines of a data center, countless organizations are seeking increased levels of network automation and security.

They need the ability to more efficiently manage thousands of switches spanning multiple sites. They need policy consistency across data center, colocation, cloud, and edge environments. They need greater speed and agility to address continually changing business requirements. And they need to protect users and data no matter where they are located.

For Turkcell, which operates the biggest data center environment in all of Turkey, this meant establishing a zero-touch, zero-trust network. One that can be automated via APIs instead of manually configured through CLIs. And one that can be extended to internal teams and external customers, with full isolation and self-provisioning capabilities that adhere to predetermined security policies.

As they looked for the highest levels of network visibility, automation, and control, Turkcell conducted an exhaustive evaluation of available options. They found cloud-based solutions to be too expensive and too disconnected from their on-prem systems. And all of the data center-based solutions they evaluated required some form of manual orchestration via CLIs – with one exception.

The combination of Cisco ACI and Cisco NSO provided the automation and security Turkcell was seeking. And they put the solution to the test before deploying it across four data centers.

As part of a formal bake-off, Turkcell simulated their entire managed services environment in a lab to see how quickly each vendor solution could be deployed. The combination of ACI and NSO was the only solution that met their goal of 30 minutes or less. In fact, it shattered that goal and was fully operational in 15 minutes.

That was more than two years ago. Turkcell has been successfully scaling its Cisco network and providing new capabilities to internal and external teams ever since. And their multi-pod solution has been replicated by many others wanting to deliver a managed data center-as-a-service with high levels of automation and isolation.

To learn more about Turkcell’s zero-touch, zero-trust network,

read the full case study.

Resources

Data Center and Cloud Networking customer stories

Data Center and Cloud Networking solutions

Turkcell – Full Case Study

Co-Author: Frank Lento, Sr. Director, Global Security Sales, Partnerships & Ecosystems

Cisco Partner Summit has ended, but we continue to build on the momentum and excitement around our security innovations and announcements. Jeetu Patel, Emma Carpenter and Shaila Shankar took the stage to highlight our partner profitability programs and the opportunities around the firewall refresh cycle.

New Security Global Marketing Campaign
If it’s connected, it’s protected

Alongside our product and profitability announcements, our marketing team launched a new global marketing brand campaign. Carrie Palin, unveiled our latest video highlighting how Cisco security delivers a complete set of security solutions, all designed to integrate seamlessly with third party technology to deliver resilient, end-to-end protection.

Click here to watch our video!

Cisco is unleashing the firewall

We believe that the firewall is more than a box. It is the advanced capabilities that yield the outcomes to protect data and applications, no matter where they may roam.

You heard from Emma Carpenter and Shaila Shankar that we continue to innovate and prioritize the firewall. Our customer’s business depends on the hybrid and multi-cloud reality. The need for security resilience is paramount to protect the integrity of your business amidst unpredictable threats and change, and it starts by securing the core of your cloud with Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual.

As a Cisco partner, you can help your customers move beyond the traditional concept of a firewall and embrace a new model. We have refreshed our Reimagine the Firewall campaign in Marketing Velocity Central (MVC) to help you generate demand during this refresh cycle.

Click here for Firewall Campaign Materials

Our partner commitments: Simplification & Profitability

Cisco Security is committed to delivering more value and creating innovative experiences for you our partners. Our strategy and our innovation roadmap are all focused on you our Partners. We are committed to help you deliver more value to customers and to help you become more profitable.

• Simplifying how you do business with Cisco: We are taking active steps to simplify the ease of doing business with Cisco Security in ways that accelerate your velocity and scaling your growth. We are continuing to invest in our partners’ programs, offers, and expanding our routes to market so that our partners can be more profitable.
• Always register your deals: Security Deal Registration remains critical for Partners to gain significant discount differential and increase their profitability. Always Register your deals and be sure to bookmark this link for the latest offers and promotions.
• Compelling offers and promotions: Recent examples include “One Year on Us” that we expanded to include the complete SaaS and recurring software subscription portfolio. Please visit and bookmark this page to keep up-to-date on the latest offers and promotions.

While on the topic of new offers, we are about to launch several new Partner-led cross-architecture attach offers. They are designed help you Connect and Protect your customers and will provide extremely compelling front-end discounts and very seductive backend rebates. Jeetu shared a sneak peek at Partner Summit and the feedback has been very positive.

Details will be announced in early December, so stay tuned…

Check out our Firewall Campaign Materials here!

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

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Communication service providers (CSPs) are being challenged to deploy 5G in dense urban and high traffic environments while trying to optimize for cost and simplify capacity expansions. Centralized radio access network (CRAN) architectures are becoming critical as CSPs adopt mid-band and high-band spectrums to address 5G opportunities. CRAN architecture lowers capital expenditures (CapEx), simplifies operations, and enhances RAN performance with spectrum sharing technologies. CSPs need to look at their existing transport architecture to ensure that they realize these benefits by adopting CRAN.

Evolving the transport network is a first important step in adopting 5G on an existing 4G RAN network. The decision to either stay with distributed RAN (DRAN) architecture by expanding backhaul capacity or migrating to CRAN architecture with fronthaul investment is something every CSP must consider.

Cisco’s Converged SDN Transport architecture and product innovations are addressing these challenges with a unified transport architecture design. This way CSPs can adopt any deployment scenarios (CRAN, DRAN, or both) without changing the underlying transport protocols, management, and infrastructure services definition.

5G CRAN explained

4G is traditionally deployed with DRAN architecture, where radio baseband processing for each site is done locally (figure 1a). In CRAN, a large part of the radio baseband processing is done at a hub for multiple radio sites (figure 1b). In DRAN architecture, the RAN transport toward the mobile core is referred to as backhaul. In CRAN the transport network between the radio antenna and baseband processing units is referred to as fronthaul. Fronthaul has much more stringent latency, jitter, and synchronization requirements compared to backhaul.

There are several benefits with CRAN architecture, such as:

• Cost optimization: CRAN improves hardware utilization with centralized processing for multiple radio sites. It also reduces radio site footprint and optimizes power and cooling requirements.
• Spectrum gains: By processing multiple radio sites from a centralized hub location, it’s easier to process related functions like coordinated multipoint reception to remove inter-signal interference and implement carrier-aggregation techniques.
• Expansion and scale: CRAN simplifies capacity expansion, site acquisition, and deployment of heterogeneous networks to meet different business needs.

The benefits of CRAN are realized in dense urban and high traffic scenarios whereas DRAN is often more appropriate for rural and moderate traffic scenarios. CSPs need to consider their networks and traffic patterns in deciding between CRAN and DRAN adoption.

Building efficient RAN transport

CSPs are focused on building an xHaul transport architecture that allows them the flexibility to adopt DRAN or CRAN without worrying about the requirements of fronthaul, midhaul, or backhaul transport. They demand an architecture that meets the latency, jitter, and synchronization requirements of each of these transports – a flexible, programmable, and scalable 5G xHaul transport architecture.

As shown in figure 2, Cisco Converged SDN Transport, with Cisco NCS 540 and NCS 5700 series platforms, allows customers to build a 5G RAN transport that’s both scalable and flexible and can converge Layer 2 and Layer 3 services from the edge of the network. The architecture allows customers to offer various public and private 5G services covering eMBB, FWA, URLLC, and enterprise services.

Extending segment routing to the cell site not only simplifies the protocol stack and allows intelligent traffic steering, but also enables service slicing, programmability, and automation capabilities on the architecture. Fronthaul traffic, which is mostly Layer 2, can be carried over an EVPN slice with a low latency path while non-latency sensitive traffic can be carried over a L3VPN slice to meet 5G ORAN specifications. Built using timing best practices, the architecture allows adopting any access topology without impacting time synchronization accuracy.

Cisco’s Converged SDN Transport architecture simplifies adoption of DRAN and CRAN with a deployment that’s independent of network level protocols, infrastructure services, or synchronization architecture.

5G xHaul transport with NCS 540 and NCS 5700 series

Cisco NCS 540 and NCS 5700 series deliver performance, density, and exceptional efficiency to address transport pre-aggregation as well as 5G CRAN deployments. Powered by the IOS XR network operating system, the architecture focuses on simplified operations with programmability, manageability, and automation to meet key characteristics of 5G xHaul transport.

High Density Interfaces for 5G CRAN

NCS 5700 platforms offer high density 10G, 25G, 50G, 100G, and 400G interfaces to aggregate access transport links as well as 5G DU or CU servers at 5G CRAN or far-edge.

At cell sites, NCS 540 platforms offer high density 1G, 10G, and 25G interfaces to connect mid-band and high-band radios over CPRI or eCPRI interfaces with 100G or 400G options for uplink connections.

Optical Support

Broad support of 400G and 100G QSFP-DD ZR/ZR+ optics across the NCS 540 and NCS 5700 portfolio enables CSPs to address bandwidth demand and scale through simplified network architecture.

ORAN Characteristics

The NCS 540 and NCS 5700 portfolio meets 5G xHaul ORAN specifications to support fronthaul, midhaul, or backhaul deployments on a converged architecture.

With consistent performance that meets stringent microsec latency, accurate Class C timing and support of advanced segment routing features, EVPN, and integrated GNSS, the solution helps customers deploy any use case scenario under a single plane of management.

Programmability and Automation

Starting with segment routing v6 and microSIDs-based programmable routing, the solution offers zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) and advanced streaming telemetry as well as YANG model support.

Platforms support modern protocols like gRPC, gNMI, protobuf; and tools based on Chef, Puppet, and Ansible to help customers integrate management layers and simplify operations across access transport and 5G CRAN/far-edge. Network operations teams can take early action, achieve faster remediation, and ensure guaranteed service level agreements (SLAs) for a better end-user experience.

Cyber security implies protecting the confidentiality, availability and integrity of computer systems and networks. Often security researchers and security teams focus on threats to software and the risks associated with authenticating and managing users. However, computing systems are built upon a tall stack of computing resources.  

Each layer within the stack is exposed to specific threats which need to be considered as part of a cyber security strategy. As the threat landscape evolves and exposure to risk changes, organizations need to review their threat exposure and consider if current mitigations are sufficient for their needs. 

The recent disruption of the Nord Stream submarine gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea by an apparent act of sabotage highlights the risks to infrastructure located beneath the waves. The telecommunications infrastructure that carries internet traffic between countries and continents is often provided by submarine cables. These cables are relatively few in number but carry vast amounts of internet and enterprise traffic, potentially from many different service providers. 

The seabed is a challenging environment for infrastructure. Sea water is corrosive, the pressure on the ocean floor can be extreme, while earthquakes, ship’s anchors and dredging provide additional risks to may result in the severing of a cable. Submarine cables are only expected to achieve a lifespan in the region of 25 years before failure.  

Repairing or replacing a submarine cable is expensive and time consuming. It may be many months before a failed cable can be repaired or replaced. In the absence of a functioning cable, internet connections must be rerouted to avoid disruption. However, this risks saturating the remaining infrastructure and adversely affecting the quality of connections.  

Organizations that require high availability international or intercontinental network connections should review their exposure to the risk of submarine cables failure. The nature of this risk will depend on how services are currently delivered.  

1. Services may be delivered by a single service provider with a guaranteed level of service. In this case, organizations should review their provider’s contingencies in case of loss of one or more submarine cables and verify that these meet requirements.
2. Piecemeal connections delivered by multiple providers may have been assembled to satisfy needs. Organizations should verify that this connectivity is able to support network requirements if one or more of the connections are unavailable. Organizations should seek to avoid single points of failure such as landing stations or conduits that may be shared by what otherwise appear to be independent connections.
3. Software-defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) is often used to route traffic in the most efficient manner to meet requirements. The flexibility of the approach implies that the loss of any single physical path would not lead to the loss of connectivity, but the increased flow of data within remaining paths may lead to a degradation in connection quality. Organizations should model how the loss of an undersea cable would affect their services and check if additional redundancy is necessary. 

At the time of writing there is no specific threat to undersea infrastructure. Other than attacks against terrestrial cables, no cable damage has been shown to be due to sabotage. Nevertheless, the Secretary General of NATO has stressed the importance of undersea cables to civilian society and military capability [1]. The British Chief of Defense Staff has warned how seriously intentional damage to telecommunications cables would be taken [2]. 

Physical infrastructure can not be taken for granted. Organizations would do well to review the impact of one or more submarine cables being taken out of service. Preparing response plans and contingencies in advance ensures that disruption is kept to a minimum in the event that such a scenario occurs.  

[1]. Press Conference (22 Oct 2020), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. 

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_178946.htm?selectedLocale=en 

[2]. “Chief of Defence Staff: Russia cutting underwater cables could be ‘an act of war’” (8 Jan 2022), Forces.net. 

https://www.forces.net/news/chief-defence-staff-russia-cutting-underwater-cables-could-be-act-war 

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The shift to virtual and hybrid teaching, learning, work, and services brought on by the pandemic (and which continues today) has accelerated cybersecurity risks for education institutions of all levels.

While data breaches are common across all industries, the risk for education is particularly acute given the sensitivity of students, faculty, staff, and research data. The increase in individuals accessing school systems outside of the campus and on personal devices has increased the threat surface exponentially. Adding in the fact that many institutions are understaffed and/or have insufficient security measures in place makes universities and schools attractive, lucrative, and easy targets for cyber criminals.

Cisco Thought Leadership in Education

Uncertainty has become the new normal for our customers, and they are making investments to strengthen their security resilience.

We encourage you to read our new thought leadership paper, titled “Why a new approach to security is needed in education,” where we explore:

• The education cybersecurity landscape
• How to focus on a strategy of security resiliency
• Points of consideration when assessing your cyber readiness
• Actionable next steps to address your education institution’s security needs

In recent years, retailers have been forced to be more agile, responding rapidly to quickly changing business landscapes and consumer expectations. Retailers rushed to bring curbside and home delivery services to market and send their knowledge workers from the headquarters and contact center home in some hybrid capacity. Security has always been of critical importance in retail. As digital technology continues to drive the industry forward, it has been accompanied by an increasing number of connections to secure and complexity to deal with. So, how do retailers go about protecting the data they now rely on? They need to ensure they maintain Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

I encourage you to explore our new thought leadership paper titled “The Security Risks of Digital Transformation for the Agile Retailer” where I explore some of the top components that make up an all-encompassing security strategy including:

• Confidentiality – Only those authorized should have access, and only to the data they need.
• Integrity – Data should be securely stored and transmitted, and no one should be able to tamper with it.
• Availability – Authorized personnel should have access to the data, whenever needed. A failure in availability is still considered a compromise.

Read the paper to see how as a leader in security, Cisco can help provide the tools you need to secure your retail organization.

This blog is a collaboration Co-Authored by Julie Fouque, Product Marketing Manager & Jeff New, Product Manager.

New User Interface Signals Milestone for Hybrid Cloud Operations Platform

Cisco Intersight, Cisco’s hybrid cloud operations platform, passed a major milestone with the recent release of its new user interface (UI). The UI introduces Cisco’s new branding for its Cloud Networking and Computing software portfolio, brings Nexus Cloud (Cisco’s cloud-managed platform for networking) into the Intersight platform, and improves readability and task findability.

Consistent User Experience

“One of our priorities for the software-as-a-service offerings in Cisco’s Networking and Computing portfolio is to provide a consistent and familiar user experience, no matter which product someone’s using,” said Jeff New, Cisco Intersight Product Manager. Intersight is the first platform to introduce Cisco’s common UI that will be rolled out across its data center computing, networking, and security solutions to provide a more consistent experience for customers.

Cloud Networking, Newest Intersight Platform Service

Intersight’s new UI also introduces cloud-managed networking as the platform’s newest IT operations service. This signals the next step in the platform’s vision to simplify IT operations through a cloud operations model that extends the principles of the cloud to the entire cloud/network IT stack. Nexus Cloud will debut as a service on Cisco Intersight following its current tech preview.

To easily access Intersight’s services, the new UI introduces a multi-service selector. From the selector, users can choose:

• Infrastructure Service – visualize, control, and automate Cisco UCS, HyperFlex, and third-party computing devices
• Cloud Orchestrator –automate workflows with a drag-and-drop designer to accelerate delivery of apps and infrastructure
• Workload Optimizer – ensure applications get resources when and where needed, at the lowest cost
• Nexus Cloud – deploy, manage, and operate your Cisco Nexus networks from the cloud
• My Dashboard – personalize a multi-service dashboard using widgets for capabilities across the services on the Intersight platform
• System – Claim devices, licensing, identity access management, and other account settings

Intersight users will have access to the functions they have licensed and their corresponding permissions. Once users are in a specific service, they’ll find capabilities in a familiar way.

Command Palette – Get to Actions and Information Quickly

Intersight is a comprehensive solution for hybrid cloud operations with a robust feature set. Intersight users have asked for a faster way to find specific objects in their environments as well as the actions they want to take.

To do this, we’ve introduced the Command Palette. Based on a simple search approach, users can input what they want to do and select from the search results. (“Command K” for Mac users and “Control K” for PC users.) The command palette shows suggestions based on your current context and items you’ve used recently.

Users who took part in the tech preview of the new UI report being pleased with the shortcut to specific tasks they want to execute. This lets them launch operations and begin working in fewer clicks.

Cisco Intersight users can find actions fast using the Command Palette.

The new UI also improves readability. The classic Intersight UI presented information in a dense way with heavy text on a single screen. In the new UI, users will find that readability is improved with more relevant information on individual screens and more space that allows users to focus on what’s most important.

One UI, Multiple Benefits

“The new UI is more than an improved look and feel,” said New. “The release of the new UI marks the next significant milestone on our vision to deliver a flexible hybrid cloud operations platform to help customers simplify IT operations. Cloud networking joins the suite of Intersight services, with more to come. And through the common UI, we’re lowering the learning curve for customers of Cisco software so it’s easier to get up and running.”

Already a UCS customer?

Start using Intersight Infrastructure Service FREE today

at intersight.com or learn more.

Cisco Thought Leadership in Government

The need to protect critical government infrastructure is nothing new. And the desire/need to establish a zero trust environment for government operations has also been well articulated. But how does an organization get started on its zero trust journey? It can often feel like the proverbial challenge of “how do you eat an elephant”… one bite at a time. And although there is no “Easy Button” or “shiny object” that will deploy zero trust in a “click” – many organizations already have the tools necessary to get started on this journey.

For additional information on this journey – please take a few minutes to read Thought Leadership Piece on Security Resilience for Government, where we explore:

• Establish trust
• Enforce trust-based access
• Continuously verify trust
• Respond to change in trust

Understanding your applications and network in depth—how applications and infrastructure are performing, or not—is what observability offers to your business. Briefly defined, full-stack observability (FSO) is real-time observability across applications, software-defined compute, storage, services, network, etc. FSO offers in-depth visibility into the behavior, performance, and health of applications and infrastructure through metrics, events, logs, and traces (MELT)—providing visibility, insights and actions that help teams optimize customer experiences and deliver business outcomes.

The observability challenges

The digital transformation journey encompasses migration to a hybrid and multicloud ecosystem that is increasingly diverse, distributed, and complex. Both applications and operations must be more agile and responsive, and many organizations struggle with the skillsets and resources to manage this. In fact, 76% of 1200 interviewees in a recent survey regard skills as a critical factor in achieving their customer and employee experience goals.

Developers and IT are looking to partners that can provide outcomes—opting for a managed service model rather than simply deploying tools. Applications and operations are delivering vast amounts of data, so transforming that data into business value and operational context is a matter of urgency.

NTT 360 Observability Powered by Cisco

NTT’s newly announced offering, NTT 360 Observability Powered by Cisco helps customers develop an intelligent observability strategy, leveraging Cisco AppDynamics®, ThousandEyes®, and NTT managed services. NTT’s offerings help identify an organization’s pain around business and IT performance, clarify the impact on the business and operations, implement to optimize performance, and then proceed with ongoing monitoring.

• Observability Maturity Assessment: In-depth advisory engagement to help customers understand their current state of monitoring capability and improve performance management and operational maturity
• Multi-cloud Application Observability: Outcome-based, fixed-price plan to optimize use of existing monitoring tools and help customers to gain full observability for maximum business and operations value from them
• Observability Expert Advisory: Ongoing technical or consulting services to provide FSO through NTT’s central delivery platform and enable key stakeholders to see application uptime in operational context and receive business metrics on business operations

The benefits of NTT 360 Observability Powered by Cisco are powerful, particularly for organizations engaged in a digital transformation journey. NTT 360 Observability helps organizations deliver exceptional user and customer experience, while also optimizing performance, reducing costs, and maximizing digital business revenue.

IT teams can gain real-time visibility and a comprehensive view of distributed environments. This capability allows them to monitor all aspects of the system across applications, networks, and infrastructure—offering application and business insights; prioritizing remediations and optimizations; and correlating information to application performance metrics, business transactions, and KPIs.

In business, your technology decisions shape everything you do. You need the right solutions, the right advice, the right partners. And compromise is not an option. That’s why, for 30+ years, organizations around the world have been turning to NTT and Cisco.

Learn more about the Cisco and NTT Partnership

and how we are driving digital transformation for customers.

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

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I recently shared some key trends and challenges rail operators are navigating, as well as Cisco’s approach to strengthening and securing onboard network infrastructure in this blog series. For this post, let’s explore the building blocks of modern trackside networks.

As rail operators invest in Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC), they need trackside network infrastructure that supports ultra-reliable train-to-wayside wireless connectivity, resilience and high availability, and robust cybersecurity.

Cisco has designed an architecture that supports CBTC, vital signaling, level crossing, and other safety-critical applications. And because the same trackside infrastructure supports asset monitoring, video surveillance, passenger Wi-Fi, and other non-vital systems, the Cisco solution curbs the time and costs associated with implementation, operations, and maintenance. This unified infrastructure offers advantages that rail operators’ aging – and often siloed – networks simply can’t deliver.

Signaling resilience

Cisco’s solution uses a tiered architecture composed of an access layer with ruggedized IP switching infrastructure, a highly redundant and reliable service provider or large enterprise–grade backbone networks, and a data center connectivity layer. Together, these elements offer resilient communications paths – at scale – between trains, tracksides, stations, and operations control centers.

Solution highlights include Cisco ruggedized Catalyst Industrial Ethernet switches at the access and distribution layer. The resilient ring topology connects trackside and station equipment, such as wayside radio, axle counter, interlocking, and other CBTC equipment. At the aggregation and backbone layer, the Cisco solution helps achieve sub-50-millisecond fast reconvergence. It achieves that by migrating from legacy circuit-based transport infrastructure to Unified Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) backhaul with fast reroute protection, by simplifying existing MPLS infrastructure with Segment Routing (SR), or by deploying a Cisco Connected Communities Infrastructure (CCI) multiservice architecture.

Securing trackside

As with all industrial organizations, rail operators are concerned about cyber security. Many have experienced a security incident; most have expressed concern about the adequacy of their current security practices.

Cisco’s industrial security journey provides a step-by-step path toward information technology (IT)/operational technology (OT) convergence. It starts with building a security foundation by defining the IT/OT security boundary with Cisco secure firewall. From there, apply Cisco Cyber Vision to gain asset visibility, communication patterns, device security posture, and operational insight. Then use visibility to drive industrial network segmentation and integrate with Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE) for security policy automation. Lastly, investigate threats and orchestrate response with SecureX.

Autonomous operating systems could reduce rail traffic fatalities by up to 90%. In addition to saving lives, such a reduction would avoid US$900 billion annually in associated public health costs.[1] Resilient, secure trackside network infrastructure is a key to realizing those compelling outcomes – and it’s exciting to be part of that solution.

To learn more about the solution, please check out Cisco Connected Rail Solution Brief.

[1] McKinsey, “Signals for Growth—how OEMs can be successful in a digitalized infrastructure”

This blog is a collaboration between lead author Quinn Snyder, Developer Advocate, Cisco DevRel and Ravi Balakrishnan, Senior Marketing Manager.

Within the Developer Relations ecosystem, a lot of focus (both in terms of creation, as well as discussion with others) is on the content that allows people to explore and develop their skills. Naturally, this tilts outreach (and blogs like these) towards our amazing sandboxes and thorough learning labs. It is also completely understandable why we would bias ourselves towards these modalities; we are technical people, and we love to learn and teach people through hands-on exploration, whether its guided or self-paced. “See it, learn it, code it” has served the community very well and it is something we are proud of.

However, we want to write this blog rounding out the complete portfolio of work that supports our infrastructure developers and automation engineers, when the sandboxes and learning labs do not provide all the answers to the questions they have.

The Developer Centers

The Developer Centers (or DevCenters) for short serve a single source landing page for all things programmability related to a product or tool. From updates to product APIs, announcements from the business entity supporting that product, webinars and how-to, and documentation pages – everything needed by an infrastructure developer can be found here.

As part of our commitment to developer experience, these Decenter are kept up to date with any latest information or changes to the APIs to ensure that everyone has access to the relevant content they need, when they need it. We have DevCenters for data center technologies, such as ACI, NX-OS, Nexus Dashboard.  We also have specific DevCenters for Infrastructure as Code, including one specifically for cloud networking, as well as for each IaC tool supported within the DevNet ecosystem, Ansible and Terraform.  There is a ton of information that can be gleaned just from these resources – but this is just the beginning.

API Documentation

We have touched on this in previous blog posts, but still would like to dive a bit deeper into how we are making improvements to our API documentation, providing for a better developer experience. Every API-enabled product (and the cloud networking product lines are no exception) has an API documentation microsite. This microsite (an example for ACI is shown below) contains not only the API guide, but background and context about the APIs and their design principles, model references (where appropriate), and links to external pages, such as IaC modules/providers, sandboxes that can be used to explore the APIs, learning labs, and developer community support forums for questions that may arise during API exploration.  These documentation pages also support multiple versions of the API – meaning that regardless of the version you are running – you can find an API reference for it on our portal.

While these pages may not be as visually “flashy” as our DevCenters, they contain a wealth of information and provide lots of external links to other useful tools. Some of our most popular documentation pages include:

• ACI
• NX-OS
• Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC, formerly known as DCNM)
• Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator (NDO, formerly known as MSO)
• Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI)
• Nexus Dashboard

But continue to check back, especially as new products or services are released. If it exists – you can be sure we have API documentation for it!

The CiscoDevNet GitHub Organization

While not directly hosted on our own website, many of our links (especially to resources for Ansible and Terraform) redirect to our Github organization for that specific repository. Because we like to practice the principles that we teach to our customers and partners, our GitHub organization is the single source for all code samples, third party IaC resources, and sample projects within DevRel. These public-facing repositories can be forked to your own organization, modified, or improved upon, and submitted for merge into the main upstream branch via a pull request (PR). To top it off, it is not only DevRel advocates and engineers within these repositories, but members of the technical sales, engineering, and product management teams – enabling you to have unfettered access to the teams that are developing automation and programmability solutions.

The other added advantage of using our GitHub organization is that it allows us to use the “Issues” page as a reference for the changelog of our infrastructure as code resources. While TAC does support the resources, it is possible to engage with our developers to work through enhancements or bugs within Ansible modules or Terraform providers without opening a direct service request with TAC. These issues will be aggregated, fixed, and mentioned as part of a given release of the resource and the barrier to opening an issue is incredibly low – showcasing how using a VCS like GitHub can prove invaluable to a developer’s workflow.

Our current list of IaC resources on GitHub are:

• ACI Ansible modules and Terraform provider
• DCNM/NDFC Ansible modules and Terraform provider
• MSO/NDO Ansible modules and Terraform provider
• Nexus Dashboard Ansible modules

But again – keep checking – as we are constantly adding specific actions to those resources, as well as adding new resources all the time!

Code Exchange and Automation Exchange

One final (and often overlooked) component within the DevNet website is the Code Exchange and Automation Exchange platforms. Each of these platforms allow you to search for curated content relevant to your needs and use-case, each with a different bent: Code Exchange (CE) focuses on simple code samples that can be used as a starting point for creating a larger solution, while Automation Exchange (AE) focuses on driving a single use-case through to its automated completion.  Both CE and AE help developers, both novice and experienced alike, get started on a project by using other prior work as a source of inspiration or a building block for further tasks. I know that I have been inspired on several occasions to create something using someone else’s work as a starting point (with proper attribution to the original developer, of course). You can find Code Exchange and Automation Exchange by clicking on the embedded links in their names.

Putting It All Together

From the list above, you can see that there is more than the impressive learning and sandbox content that we create within DevRel. Everything that we do is meant to drive up the developer experience, lower the mean-time-to-API-call (MTTAC, something I just made up), and ensure that our cloud networking infrastructure developers are supported at every step of their journey and in every way possible.

We would love to hear about your experiences using any of the DevRel resources, not just the ones listed above. Good, bad, indifferent, or otherwise – we are here for it all. You can find Quinn on Twitter @qsnyder or on LinkedIn and we’d love to have a conversation about what is working for you, what isn’t, or how we can improve to drive the best developer experience possible.

Security has always been of critical importance in transportation. As digital technology continues to drive the industry forward, it has been accompanied by an increasing number of connections to secure and complexity to deal with. Transportation organizations need to safeguard the most vital aspects of their operations to not only protect their business but to ensure the safety of their passengers​. When it comes to security in transportation, it has always been paramount, but it’s become increasingly difficult to manage and execute effectively.

Cisco Thought Leadership in Transportation

We encourage you to explore our new thought leadership paper titled “Secure Transportation Operations” where we explore some of the top components that make up an all-encompassing security strategy including:

• Asset visibility​
• Risk mitigation
• Incident response

Read the paper to see how as a leader in security, Cisco can help provide the tools you need to secure your station, track, roadway, airport and port.