Observations from Cisco Live, Amsterdam 2024
As a premier industry event for customers and partners to gain knowledge and to build community, Cisco Live was well attended.
There was good booth traffic. Part of the draw to the Hitachi both was the basketball data game which was always busy. Also, with industry leaders challenged to navigate the complexities of hybrid cloud while enhancing operations, we had many discussions with partners, clients, and Cisco sellers around the Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud solution. Watch our short recap video.
Taking Hybrid Cloud to the Next Level
As navigating the intricacies of more distributed environments continues to pose significant struggles, it’s evident that a reevaluation of cloud strategies is not just a consideration but a necessity. By taking a proactive and informed approach, you can create a Hybrid Cloud environment that delivers true value and success. Customers can benefit from advice such as the top eleven tips for refreshing their data center infrastructure.
The combined Hitachi and Cisco compute, storage and networking, Infrastructure as a Service, platform-focused solutions bring an additional layer of value to hybrid cloud, by offering end-to-end operations management of the integrated solutions. This also inherently drives committed Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings to the customer, as it is built into the model/pricing.
The integrated demo of Cisco Intersight with Hitachi Adaptive Solutions was well attended with three themes resonating throughout the show: Observability, AI, and Remote Operations.
Observability
Observability is a real focus with Cisco Thousand Eyes and the Cisco Observability platform. Integration, built in workflows and a platform approach that partners could build on to for verticals like facilities management, oil and gas and healthcare. Emphasis is on tracing the entire communication path to isolate where issues are occurring and starting workflows to fix them. Most platforms in this area were only public cloud based, giving our Hitachi Infrastructure Orchestration as a Service an advantage as we can also install on-premises. The combined Hitachi Vantara and Cisco solutions have the advantages of greater ROI, expanded interoperability and observability with existing systems and reduced deployed power and footprint requirements over other offerings on the market today.
AI
AI was a focus, as it is with most IT industry shows these days. AI-driven software was highlighted as very important- with the expanded role of IT and IT-enabled business users. AI-enabled computer vision is part of Cisco solutions. Cisco announced partnerships with Nvidia for AI and with Nutanix for Hyperconverged AI in the general session. Eighty percent of security breaches come from e-mail, where AI can detect suspicious activities.
Hybrid Cloud continues to prove beneficial in helping organizations drive efficiency and optimize resources Simultaneously, AI, working behind the scenes, enhances efficiency and agility through AI-driven task automation.
Remote Operations
In Cisco products, cyber security standards are enabled through highly secure access to edge and application resources, with mobile enablement provided for administrators and IT managers. Cisco devices have built in firewalls and secure access platform bootstraps. There is a move to integrated platforms for things like security. Remote secure access is a focus with single sign-on. Zero trust focus with zero friction to get access if you require it. There is also movement away from firewalls that give access to many sources replaced with zero trust access for single applications, as well as cloud portable policies.
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