Cisco’s “network intuitive” will enable the scale, complexity, and security required by the billions of devices to be added to the internet in future, according to CEO Chuck Robbins.
“We are going to build the secure, intelligent platform on which you can run the business of the future,” Robbins said during his keynote at Cisco Live Las Vegas on Monday, adding that in order to do so, Cisco will reinvent networking, enable a multi-cloud world, unlock the power of data, and deploy security everywhere across the network.
“Last week, we announced the network intuitive, which is the start of this new network for this new era powered by intent and informed by context.”
According to Robbins, as many as 1 million new connections per hour will be added to the internet by 2020, with Cisco’s network intuitive comprising three parts: Encrypted traffic analytics; the DNA-Center, which is the command centre and analytics platform of the new network; and a series of programmable, IoT-, cloud-, and mobile-ready switches called the Catalyst 9000 series.
The network intuitive is based on iOS and Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture (DNA), which marks a strategy of “intent-based networking infrastructure”, with Cisco labelling the new network as its most significant achievement in the last 10 years.
“The network actually has insight and context … there is so much context in the network, and we’re going to unleash that for you,” Robbins said.
“We’re going to build security deep into the network … and then all of this over time creates this adaptive system that understands your intent, has a level of trust built in, that then gets informed by context and constantly adapts.”
According to Robbins, Cisco had to completely rewrite 25 years of software in order to develop its DNA-Center — including undertaking a modernisation of iOS.
“We had to rewrite iOS to a modern data model, API-structured operating system … that was foundational for us to do any of this,” he explained.
“That then allowed us to launch DNA-Center, which is fundamentally the command centre for the network. This is where you will declare your intent that will be automated, defined by the policy that you’re trying to implement — software-defined everything.