It’s great to be back at another action and innovation-packed Cisco Live 2024. Continuing our tradition of posting Cisco Live announcements and highlights (catch Cisco Live 2023 Highlights here), I am putting together my thoughts and perspective on the Top-10 Cisco Live 2024 Announcements and Highlights. This year, I also had the pleasure of representing CloudFabrix at the event, which helped gain deeper insights on customer needs and expectations on Observability, Asset Insights and AIOps.
Cisco Live 2024 took place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV, from June 2nd to June 6th, with over 20,000 attendees. This year’s key themes focused on:
Theme 1: Go Beyond
Cisco is making significant strides in three core domains: modernizing infrastructures/networks, improving security, and gaining actionable insights through observability.
Theme 2: Digital Resilience
Last year’s focus on digital experience has shifted to digital resilience, integrating security into the mix. A notable emphasis was placed on integrating Splunk into Cisco’s portfolio to enhance analytics and endpoint/network security visibility, thereby reducing downtimes.
Theme 3: AI Everywhere and Embedded
Cisco aims to incorporate AI into all aspects of its operations, including AI infrastructure (especially edge computing), AI for security, and AI for observability. The company also announced a $1 billion fund for investing in AI companies.
Now, let’s dive into the Top-10 Announcements and Highlights from Cisco Live 2024:
1. Splunk Integration Across Cisco’s Portfolio
Cisco’s integration with Splunk extends beyond security and observability to other business areas. Jonathan Davidson, Executive Vice President, hinted at Splunk-networking integration, which is expected to be a strong differentiator for Cisco networking. Additionally, Cisco CX (services) leverages Splunk data to manage customer environments and deliver performant AI infrastructure.
2. The Comprehensive AI Stack
Mark Patterson, Chief Strategy Officer, unveiled Cisco’s “AI stack,” including core infrastructure such as compute, networking, optics, security, observability, and services. Cisco’s partnerships cover data, models, other infrastructure, and storage, showcasing a complete picture of how it plans to support AI initiatives.
3. Security Innovations
Cisco has significantly accelerated its security innovation, introducing updates like Hypershield support for AMD DPUs, XDR integration with Meraki MX, new firewall series, and security cloud control. Cisco’s collaboration with Microsoft for security partnerships marks a pivotal move towards better customer solutions.
4. ThousandEyes Integration
ThousandEyes, acquired by Cisco in 2020, has become a key element of Cisco’s differentiation. The integration spans Cisco video endpoints, AppD, and the Meraki Dashboard, providing a unique view into business networks.
5. Cross-Cloud Solutions
Cisco’s cloud offerings for observability, networking, security, and Webex enable faster and more consistent innovation. Future integrations are expected to create cross-cloud experiences, enhancing management layers and customer experiences.
6. Connect and Protect Everything
Cisco’s Hyperfabric initiative emphasizes AI security and aims to improve operational management within an open ecosystem. Collaborations with NVIDIA and VAST Data enhance data insights and expedite AI projects while maintaining security protocols.
7. Digital Experience Assurance
Powered by ThousandEyes, Cisco’s Digital Experience Assurance platform integrates AI to provide comprehensive visibility throughout the digital journey, helping businesses increase operational speed and reduce downtime.
8. Cisco Workflows
New Workflow solutions aim to streamline service deployment processes, offering visibility across the global area network and addressing security complexities with AI-driven insights.
9. Reimagined Cisco Security Cloud
The enhanced Security Cloud, now fortified with Splunk, combines telemetry, design language, policy objects, and infrastructure integration, providing a zero-trust, zero-friction security environment.
10. Tackling Cloud Protection Challenges
Cisco introduced new solutions leveraging AI, kernel-level visibility, and hardware acceleration to address cloud protection challenges. These solutions enhance response efficiency and proactive threat management.
CloudFabrix @ Cisco Live 2024
CloudFabrix had an impactful presence at Cisco Live 2024, where we engaged with industry professionals and showcased our innovative solutions. Our booth featured detailed demos and discussions on the CloudFabrix Robotic Data Automation Platform (RDAF), highlighting our new integration with Cisco Splunk platforms. We demonstrated two key applications: Asset Intelligence Analytics (AIA) and Unified Network Observability and Automation (UNOA). AIA helps organizations manage IT assets across hybrid clouds, providing insights into asset visibility, compliance, usage, and risk. The newly introduced Splunkify feature allows these capabilities to be easily enabled on Splunk, impressing many attendees. UNOA, designed for enterprises, service providers, and public safety organizations with complex networks, aims to unify different domains and enhance network operations efficiency. This solution was well-received by attendees from the network domain, as well as by Cisco and Splunk teams.
As a Cisco Live 2024 sponsor, we connected with partners, customers, and new acquaintances, sharing our expertise and gathering valuable feedback. We also presented two sessions: “How to Get More Out of Splunk with Applications,” co-hosted by Subarno Mukherjee from Cisco Systems and Raju Penmetsa from CloudFabrix, and “CloudFabrix Unified and 360 Network Observability Now Available on Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud,” presented by our Chief Marketing Officer, Shailesh Manjrekar. Both sessions were well-received, sparking engaging discussions on network observability, data correlation, and AI-driven network operations.
Our AI-driven end-to-end network operations solution, integrating with Cisco and Splunk platforms, addresses challenges like data silos, normalization, and correlation, offering comprehensive visibility and reducing MTTI and MTTR. The collaboration with Cisco and Splunk ensures a robust ecosystem for network observability and automation. Additionally, our Generative AI assistant, Macaw, enhances AIOps and observability with conversational queries, integrating securely with local LLMs or Azure OpenAI. We demonstrated Macaw’s capabilities, showcasing its transformative impact on network operations with AI-driven insights and automation.
The Final Event:
By sunset on the 5th of June in Las Vegas, Cisco Live 2024 had captured a fervor that was far from winding down. After several days of informative sessions and networking, the guests were thrilled with a magnificent musical event to close out the conference. This year, Cisco pulled out all the stops by partnering with the legendary Sir Elton John for an unforgettable performance.
Held at the incredible Allegiant Stadium, the Cisco Live Celebration gave it an absolutely perfect ending. The atmosphere around us became electric as we approached the stadium. Sir Elton John, a member of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Songwriters Hall of Fame, and an acclaimed winner of countless awards such as Oscars, Golden Globes, Tonys among others took over from there with his usual electrifying show.
Sir Elton John’s performance was spell binding; his legendary songs made it feel like magic. He got everyone singing and dancing along to “Tiny Dancer” through to “Your Song.” This energy within the stadium was viral making it a memorable night.
This musical extravaganza was the perfect way to conclude Cisco Live 2024, leaving attendees with unforgettable memories. If you couldn’t make it to the event, you missed out on an extraordinary experience, but don’t worry—there’s always next year!
Wrap-Up
Cisco Live 2024 showcased remarkable advancements in AI, security, and network observability. Please share your Top-3 announcements in the comments, and feel free to mention any major announcements I may have missed. If you’d like to know more about how CloudFabrix complements Cisco solutions, Contact Us.
