Cisco Shows Breakthrough Innovation Towards AI-First Security Cloud

News Summary:

Cisco launches new security service edge (SSE) solution to enable superior hybrid work experiences and dramatically simplify access across any location, any device, and any application.

Cisco is previewing the first generative AI capabilities in the Security Cloud to simplify security operations and increase efficiency.

New innovations across Firewall, Multicloud, and Application Security further deliver on Cisco's Security Cloud platform vision.

LAS VEGAS, June 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cisco LIVE -- Cisco (CSCO), the leader in enterprise networking and security, is delivering on its promise of the AI-driven Cisco Security Cloud to simplify cybersecurity and empower people to do their best work from anywhere regardless of the increasingly sophisticated threat landscape. Cisco is investing in cutting-edge innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning that will empower security teams by simplifying operations and increasing efficacy.

Secure Connectivity to All Applications and Resources, AnywhereToday's IT environment has dramatically shifted. Cloud adoption is accelerating. Remote and hybrid users are now the majority.  Most organizations rely on a complex web of point products that weren't designed to support today's highly distributed environment. Users are forced to navigate inconsistent access experiences and reauthenticate throughout the day—disrupting productivity. With Cisco Secure Access, Cisco's new SSE solution, decisions about how users connect to applications are handled behind the scenes, so they get to what they want more quickly.  The result is users who are more secure with less hassle.

"With Cisco Secure Access, we are removing the burden from the user and providing a superior experience with frictionless access to all applications—not just some—to enable secure, hybrid work," said Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. "Our unmatched visibility of the network gives us an advantage that no other company has—and we truly believe that where security meets the network, Cisco is the best in the world."

Highlights of Cisco Secure Access include:

Common Access Experience: Delivers a single, easy way to access all applications and resources (not just some) by intelligently and securely steering traffic to private and public destinations without end-user intervention.

Single, Cloud-Managed Console: Simplifies security operations by converging multiple functions into one easy to use solution that protects all traffic. Instead of managing a broad set of tools, administrators, and analysts can go to one place to see all traffic, set all policy, and analyze security risks. This translates into efficiency gains, cost reductions, and a flexible IT environment.

Faster Detection and Response: Provides analysis to speed up investigations and is backed by Cisco Talos AI-driven threat intelligence to detect and block more threats.

Cisco is collaborating with leading mobile device vendors to create the safest and best user experience no matter where users work. Cisco collaborated with Apple to incorporate Zero Trust Access (ZTA) capabilities

"At Apple, we believe deeply in providing privacy and security that is built in from the ground up," said Susan Prescott, Apple's Vice President of Enterprise & Education Marketing. "Later this year, iPhone, iPad, and Mac will have native support for network relays. Together with Cisco Secure Access, enterprises will have a secure and seamless remote access solution, to do their best work from anywhere, on the best devices for business."

Cisco Secure Access is taking a hybrid Points of Presence (POP) approach with Cisco Data Centers and public cloud providers to rapidly extend global reach for our customers. As part of the Cisco Security Cloud, it leverages capabilities from the rest of the Cisco security and networking portfolio, including embedded network visibility from Cisco ThousandEyes, and can be easily integrated with solutions from third-party vendors. Cisco Secure Access will be in limited availability starting in July 2023 and will be Generally Available in October 2023.

"Organizations are deploying SSE for a variety of reasons, but improving security outcomes is arguably at the top of the list. Achieving this requires an emphasis on users to create a frictionless experience and simplifying security team processes to improve efficiency and ensure consistency," said John Grady, Principal Analyst Enterprise Strategy Group. "Security teams making plans for SSE should prioritize integrated solutions that focus on simplicity, scale, and user experience."

"At WWT our goal is to provide security solutions and services that help our customers achieve their business goals. As a Cisco partner, we are really excited about the direction Cisco is taking with the launch of their Cisco Secure Access solution," said Neil Anderson, Area Vice President, Cloud & Infrastructure Solutions at WWT. "With Cisco Secure Access our customers gain a simplified way of accessing both private, cloud, and SaaS applications private and internet resources, while transparently securing against threats and boosting user productivity while reducing frustration."

Generative AI to Improve Threat Response & Simplify Security Policy ManagementFurther delivering on its strategic vision, Cisco is previewing the first generative AI capabilities in the Security Cloud. Today, most organizations have a patchwork of security products, forcing teams to set and maintain extremely complex security policies as well as track and remediate threats across numerous solutions.

Reduce Policy Complexity: The Cisco Security Cloud will leverage a generative AI-powered Policy Assistant that enables Security and IT administrators to describe granular security policies and evaluate how to best implement them across different aspects of their security infrastructure. For the first implementation, customers will be able to reason with Cisco's AI Assistant to evaluate and produce more efficient firewall policies. It will leverage customers' existing rulesets in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center to drive unmatched efficiency without sacrificing granular control and will be available later this year.

Quickly Detect and Remediate Threats: Cisco's SOC Assistant will support the Security Operations Center (SOC) to detect and respond to threats faster. When an incident occurs, the assistant will contextualize events across email, the web, endpoints, and the network to tell the SOC analyst exactly what happened and the impact. Analysts can then interact and reason with the assistant to determine the best remediation approach leveraging an extensive knowledgebase of potential actions while also taking into account the analysts input. Cisco first shared the concept at RSA Conference 2023 and is excited to share that the event summarization feature will be available by the end of calendar 2023 with the remaining capabilities in the first half of calendar 2024.

Network Security Bolstered for Hybrid WorkThe world is hybrid, and users require seamless connected experiences at the office and on the road.

As the demands of the firewall as the foundation of the security stack continue to expand, the new Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series raises the bar for performance and flexibility with cryptographic acceleration, clustering and modularity.

Running the new 7.4 version of the operating system, Secure Firewall 4200 features:

AI and ML-based encrypted threat blocking without decryption.

An evolution of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) with complete threat inspection and policy for each individual application.

Simplified branch routing that brings security, control, and visibility to traffic from remote offices to applications in hybrid datacenters.

Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series appliance will be generally available in September 2023 supporting the 7.4 version of operating system. The 7.4 OS will be generally available for the rest of the Secure Firewall appliance family in December 2023.

Cisco is also proud to announce Cisco Multicloud Defense following its recent acquisition of Valtix. Multicloud Defense extends the traditional firewall concept into a service-oriented, multicloud world.   SecOps teams can now manage security across AWS, GCP, Azure, and OCI with a single policy, in real-time, from a single SaaS platform. In addition, teams can rapidly spin up security for any cloud environment, leading to increased security and efficiency. Cisco Multicloud Defense is available today.

Cloud Application SecurityCisco is delivering an integrated approach to secure cloud native applications from code to cloud with new capabilities in Panoptica, Cisco's cloud native application security solution. Adding to the Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) that Panoptica currently provides, Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) will be available starting Fall 2023 to deliver continuous cloud security compliance and monitoring at scale, giving customers visibility into their entire inventory of cloud assets, including Kubernetes clusters. In addition, a new attack path engine that uses graph-based technology to deliver advanced attack path analysis will help security teams quickly identify and remediate potential risks across cloud infrastructures. Further, Panoptica's integration with Cisco's Full Stack Observability portfolio provides real-time visibility to prioritize business risks. These integrated capabilities will help security and developer teams alike gain the visibility, control and actionable intelligence required to protect dynamic cloud applications and infrastructure.

To learn more, visit Cisco.Com/go/security.  

Additional Resources:

About Cisco Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that securely connects everything to make anything possible. Our purpose is to power an inclusive future for all by helping our customers reimagine their applications, power hybrid work, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on Twitter at @Cisco.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. And other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.Cisco.Com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

Media contactsCarro HalpinPublic [email protected]

 

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From Edge To Cloud: The Critical Role Of Hardware In AI Applications

The rise of generative artificial intelligence

In this new blog series, we explore artificial intelligence and automation in technology and the key role it plays in the Broadcom portfolio.

This Easter, I tasked Midjourney, the AI tool that generates art from text, to create a futuristic egg basket that showcased the concept of being digitally connected. What I saw blew my mind away. The artwork I received was not only visually stunning but also showed how AI is capable of bringing new ideas to life. I was experiencing first-hand, as a creator, the transformative nature of generative AI with Midjourney, chatGPT, and other tools.

Midjourney

AI is quickly becoming ubiquitous now. The world has woken up to the power of generative AI and a whole ecosystem of applications and tools are quickly coming to life. It is becoming increasingly important in various industries, including healthcare, finance, and transportation.

All this has a tremendous impact on the digital value chain and the semiconductor hardware market that cannot be overlooked. The apps and tools have to gather, process and deliver back data to the consumer with minimal latency. This also has to happen at scale given the rapidly emerging ecosystem.

Hardware innovations become imperative to sustain this revolution. As I think about AI growth and its impact on hardware systems and silicon roadmap, my own journey as a content creator using Midjourney for art or chatGPT for editorial help (like for this blog), certainly helps with the big picture.

So what does it take on the hardware side?

An increased demand for high-performance computing for cloud data centers

AI workloads require specialized processors that can handle complex algorithms and large amounts of data. This has led to the development of new processors, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and custom AI silicon, that are optimized for AI workloads.

Memory and storage

The vast amount of data generated by AI workloads requires high-capacity storage solutions that can handle both structured and unstructured data. Solid-state drives (SSDs) and non-volatile memory express (NVMe) enable faster data access and processing.

Wired connectivity as the binding thread

Computing speeds loosely measured as a function of Moore's Law does not scale with the burgeoning data needs from AI. This means that the interconnects between computing units processing in parallel become critical. Wired connectivity is also the lynch pin between the computing devices, the GPUs, storage, and memory. The rise of AI means that the network is the computer, and connectivity is its lifeline.

Wireless at the edge

It goes without saying that our digital experiences today are wireless. To this end, it is important that our wireless broadband networks are capable of handling high-speed low latency data at scale. Cellular technologies and Wi-Fi work in a complementary manner to meet this demand.

5G deployments continue to improve cellular network capacities and provide top speeds. Wi-Fi innovations, together with the newly available 6 GHz band, have culminated in Wi-Fi 7 that directly addresses the issue of edge latency while ensuring top speeds.

Cybersecurity

With the increasing use of AI, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important to protect against cyber threats and attacks. This requires specialized hardware and software, such as intrusion detection systems and encryption technologies.

At Broadcom, we've always sought to connect everything. That's our mission—to have a world connected by Broadcom. We are very proud of the fact that 99% of the world's data passes through at least one Broadcom chip. For us, the AI hardware needs are in the continuum of what we do every day. Our wired connectivity powers hyperscalers' data centers and operator networks. At the edge, our wireless broadband solutions power your homes and bring data to your hands. Our software solutions provide the layer of security required. We love that AI is disrupting the status quo, and are proud to provide critical hardware to enable this.

Before I close, let me also briefly preview some of the innovation we focus on.

Advanced manufacturing processes: These are vital for the production of AI hardware. The use of 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer manufacturing processes creates smaller and more powerful chips. Our chips carry higher data loads, and deliver the low latencies needed for AI.

Custom designs: We innovate data center storage and connectivity solutions that are optimized for specific AI workloads.

Power efficiency: Complex workloads require larger amounts of power, which can lead to increased energy costs among other things. This is an area of focus for both our wired and wireless chips. For example, on our Wi-Fi chips used in phones, we steadfastly work on radio optimizations and architectural modifications, each generation with an eye to disruptively lower power consumption.

These are just a few examples of our innovation focus. In a series of follow-up blogs, we are hoping to further delve into what Broadcom has to offer as AI takes off. We will keep you updated on how AI shapes the software and semiconductor hardware market and how our innovations are geared to keep pace with the demands of AI applications.

Read more about Broadcom's innovations here.

The 10 Hottest Google Cloud, Workspace Tools Of 2023 (So Far)

Cloud News Mark Haranas June 06, 2023, 02:30 PM EDT

CRN breaks down the 10 hottest new Google Cloud and Workspace products launched in 2023 so far, with the majority based around AI.

If Google Cloud's innovation strategy in 2023 could be summed up in two words, it would be: artificial intelligence.

The nearly $30 billion Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud giant unleashed a slew of new AI and generative AI products, tools and services across its portfolio—spanning from Google Workspace to Vertex AI.

"Seven years into our journey as an AI-first company, we're at an exciting inflection point," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in May. "We have an opportunity to make AI even more helpful for people, for businesses, for communities, for everyone. We've been applying AI to make our products radically more helpful for a while. With generative AI, we're taking the next step."

[Related: The 10 Coolest New AWS Tools Of 2023 (So Far)]

Google Cloud And Workspace AI

Although Google Cloud did enhance some of its flagship products this year, such as BigQuery, the vast majority of big new Google and Workspace tools came in the form of AI.

AI was top of mind for Google in 2023 for both Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, specifically around generative AI and Workspace.

"Developers and businesses can now try new APIs and products that make it easy, safe and scalable to start building with Google's best AI models through Google Cloud and a new prototyping environment called MakerSuite," said Kurian in March. "In Google Workspace, we're introducing new features that help people harness the power of generative AI to create, connect and collaborate."

CRN breaks down the 10 hottest Google Cloud and Workspace new tools launched in 2023 so far that are important for channel partners, customers and Google's future in AI.

* Duet AI For Google Workspace

* Generative AI App Builder

* BigQuery Revamped

* Gmail Gets Generative AI

* Google MakerSuite

* PaLM API

* Built With Google Cloud AI

* Duet AI for Google Cloud

* Vertex AI

* RaMP Deck

Mark Haranas

Mark Haranas is an assistant news editor and longtime journalist now covering cloud, multicloud, software, SaaS and channel partners at CRN. He speaks with world-renown CEOs and IT experts as well as covering breaking news and live events while also managing several CRN reporters. He can be reached at [email protected].

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