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Cisco Live 2022: A Kinder, Gentler, Cloudier Monster?

Drew Conry-Murray

Cisco Live 2022 in Las Vegas kicked off with executive keynotes, including an address from CEO Chuck Robbins. My takeaways from the keynotes from Tuesday, June 14th are:

  1. Cisco knows it has to work harder to keep customers
  2. Cisco has big cloud ambitions
  3. Meraki is one key to Cisco’s cloud & simplicity goals

Cisco Has Work To Do

Cisco understands it’s a big, unwieldy entity. The product portfolio sprawls across enterprise buying centers. Licensing is inscrutable and expensive. Customers are getting fed up.

On the keynote stage, CEO Robbins seemed almost chastened by Cisco’s situation. He called on the audience to talk with their Cisco reps and executives about what Cisco can do better. He acknowledged that Cisco has become too complex, which affects IT operations and makes for a poor customer experience.

“We have to simplify the things we do with you,” said Robbins. “We know that, and we’re working on it.”

Robbins also spoke of a “cranked up” threat environment and existing security infrastructures that aren’t up to the task. Security is a perennial vendor talking point, but to my ear Robbins was acknowledging the severity of the problem not to spur purchase orders, but to admit that Cisco alone can’t solve it.

This acknowledgement was bolstered by Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM of Security and Collaboration, who spoke right after Robbins. Patel declared that Cisco’s security strategy “has to be open and extensible with partners and competitors.” He said “The bad people aren’t our competitors, it’s the threat actors.”

To acknowledge on a keynote stage that Cisco alone isn’t sufficient for enterprise security struck me as honest self-assessment from a company better known for chest-thumping rhetoric.

Big Cloud Ambitions

One way  Cisco hopes to address product sprawl and poor customer experience is via the cloud. By delivering more services as SaaS, for example, customers don’t have to provision on-prem management gear, and software and feature updates can be more easily delivered. As part of its cloud strategy, Cisco is moving more monitoring and management capabilities to the cloud, including Nexus switches and Catalyst switches and APs.

Cloud enhancements were also touted for ThousandEyes and AppDynamics.

During his keynote address, Todd Nightingale, EVP, GM Enterprise Networking & Cloud at Cisco, repeatedly invoked the mantra of a cloud-driven user experience “that brings simplicity and power without compromise.” He was speaking specifically of the new cloud option for monitoring and managing Catalyst switches and APs, but the message of “cloud=simplicity” was threaded through every keynote address.

The most ambitious announcement—and the one least supported by detail—is Secure Cloud, a sweeping vision for a unified, cloud-delivered service that will integrate Cisco connectivity and security across hybrid and public clouds, all powered by AI and ML. Beyond the buzzwords however, Cisco has offered little on how it will deliver Secure Cloud.

The Meraki Model

Meraki is integral to Cisco’s goals around cloud delivery and ease of use. For example, Cisco dedicated significant time on the keynote stage to Cloud Management for Cisco Catalyst, which gives customers the option of using the Meraki dashboard to monitor, and eventually manage, numerous models of Cisco Catalyst switches and APs.

Bringing a flagship brand such as Catalyst under the Meraki umbrella is a sign that Cisco is relying on Merak to help deliver on its promise of enabling simplified operations across its portfolio.

The company also officially launched a cloud-managed, cloud-delivered SASE offering called Cisco+ Secure Cloud. Meraki SD-WAN is a key element of the service. Again, the message is that Meraki equals simplicity.

Kinder, Gentler?

A typical Cisco keynote is meant to rally the faithful, inspire employees and partners, and signal to investors that Cisco has a pathway for continued growth. Like Godzilla bashing across Tokyo, a traditional keynote shakes the ground and breathes fire.

There was a bit of fire-breathing in Tuesday’s keynotes, but I think Cisco realizes it can no longer just stomp and smash through the industry and get its way. Customers are frustrated, the financial markets are restless, competitors are surging, and the upheavals bedeviling so many of Cisco’s customers are also afflicting Cisco.

Tuesday’s keynotes were less Godzilla stomping through Tokyo, and more Godzilla pulling up a chair to ask earnestly about how it can help with digital transformation.

About Drew Conry-Murray: Drew Conry-Murray has been writing about information technology for more than 15 years, with an emphasis on networking, security, and cloud. He's co-host of The Network Break podcast and a Tech Field Day delegate. He loves real tea and virtual donuts, and is delighted that his job lets him talk with so many smart, passionate people. He writes novels in his spare time.