At Cisco Live 2023, the Cisco Cloud Networking Platform was announced. At WWT, we have been providing feedback to Cisco that a simplified, predictable, consistent experience needs to be available across the campus, data center, and cloud. Cisco has heard this message from WWT, other partners, and customers and is moving in this direction.
Simplification includes how tools are used, naming conventions, and licensing simplification. The goal of simplification includes simplifying the tools used to manage Cisco products through APIs and user interfaces (UI). Currently, in the Cisco portfolio, there are 21 subsets of operating systems which are managed using different platforms. Cisco plans to reduce the number of platforms utilizing cross-domain automation and workflow. The end goal is to have one cloud platform and one on-prem platform. This new platform will be called Cisco Networking Cloud. This journey will not happen overnight; it will take several years. Cisco has promised cross-domain architecture for several years. However, because of the complexity, customers have not implemented cross-domain solutions. With Cisco now focused on automating the process, it will be much easier for customers to realize cross-domain integration.
Simplification includes a unified hardware portfolio and operating system. Simplification will come in the form of fewer interfaces to log into. Cisco Cloud Networking policies set on-premises will be able to be used on the public cloud. Single sign-on across all Cisco platforms has just been announced, and it is the first step to unifying the platforms.
The term “Merakified” or the Meraki Experience was used often at Cisco Live. The Meraki experience can be summed up as a simplified, predictable, and consistent experience. The idea is to take the simplicity of managing Meraki and initially bring that to the Catalyst portfolio. The data center portfolio UX will also be updated to provide a consistent UX experience for ACI, Nexus Dashboard (ND), and ND product suite.
After hearing these announcements, it is clear that Cisco has heard the voice of the customers and partners. The complexity of networking has increased 1000-fold in just the past ten years. The only way we can continue to manage the infrastructure is through simplicity.