Cisco launched six new pieces of software to help global service providers run their large-scale networks and prepare for the next wave of connected devices.
According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast, more than 27 billion devices and connections are expected to be running on service provider networks by 2021, and Cisco wants to help those networks predict change and react to them in near real time, the company said Tuesday.
“Our primary goal for network automation is to help our customers turn growing pains into growing profit, and streamline operations so they can spend less time on tactical ‘firefighting’ and more time on identifying and trialing new revenue streams,” said Jonathan Davidson, senior vice president and general manager for Service Provider Networking at Cisco.
In short, networks must change the way they manage their operations because the status quo won’t work with the shear number of incoming devices. Another Cisco report says traditional operations staff won’t be able to keep up with a 10 per cent annual increase of connected devices unless they change the way they work. The new portfolio announced today by Cisco allows service providers a single point of integration with zero-touch telemetry, machine learning intuition, open APIs and automated actions that offer a simpler experience. It is backed by Cisco Services to assist customers with planning, customization and implementation, according to the company.
The six new pieces of software are:
- Cisco Crosswork Change Automation: Automated operations application that allows for large-scale change and closed-loop control.
- Cisco Crosswork Health Insights: Smart sensors, smart alerts and smart remediation to monitor and optimize networks.
- Cisco Crosswork Data Platform: Featuring both an open source and commercial-class data analytics platform.
- Cisco Crosswork Network Insights: Cloud-based analytics solution for solving large-scale routing issues.
- Cisco Crosswork Situation Manager: Machine learning-based event correlation featuring social tools such as chat functions to solve repair issues quickly.
Cisco says the list of additions will reduce human error, better identify lapses in network qualities and resolve network outages much faster.