We are so excited about DevNet Create 2020! This event gives us a chance to meet developers and technology partners and explore real solutions teams (and individuals!) are building from API services and leveraging in their organizations. We are also looking forward to congratulating the first round of developers that passed the newly released DevNet exams and upleveled their careers with these new certifications.
This year our biggest developer advocate, CEO and Chairman Chuck Robbins will be in attendance for a fireside chat with Susie Wee, SVP and GM of Cisco DevNet. There is also a fantastic line up of presentations, panel discussions, and workshops, including our “must-see” list below:
Starbucks: Radical Automation
We are really looking forward to this presentation! Listen in as Dexter Park, Lead Application Developer at Starbucks explains how his team leverages APIs to automate the process of full-stack network provisioning – reducing the deployment process from hours of manual touch and troubleshooting to 3 minutes per site. This approach and end solution has provided the business with a solution to manage infrastructure across 10,000 locations – it has been an incredible process to witness.
Cisco Meraki: Designing the Cisco Meraki Python SDK with OpenAPI Specification
Releasing the latest Python SDK (Software Development Kit) has been an engaging and rewarding experience for our team at Meraki. Join us in this session as our own, Shiyue Cheng, covers the lessons learned in creating this incredibly popular API SDK for our developer ecosystem.
Cisco Meraki: Applying Machine Learning Techniques to Detect Objects with a Meraki MV Camera
Join Merakian Rafael Carvalho as he demonstrates how Machine Learning (ML) techniques can be applied to detect objects in images for anomaly detection in manufacturing, customer engagement in retail, object counting in a public facility, and other use cases. Attendees in this hands-on workshop will use a Meraki camera to perform live object detection on what they are seeing right in front of them.
Whether you are a developer or thinking about ways to program your network to be more automated, data-driven, or integrated – this event offers a lot of thought leadership and industry expertise to help you explore what’s possible! We hope to see you there.
Hot on the heels of the recent product release, we have two more features to share. These latest features are designed to give users more of what they want – more detail in snapshots, and more video retention by increasing the relevancy of motion-based retention. We’re doing this by enabling full sensor resolution snapshots via the API, and by adding regions-of-interest to the motion-based retention tool.
Full Sensor Resolution Snapshots
If you have used the Sensor Crop feature on MV12 series, MV22, or MV72 models, then you may already be aware that the cameras capture raw video at the full sensor resolution (4MP or 2688×1520) before downscaling the video to 1080p or 720p resolution for streaming and storage. Now, users can take “full-frame” snapshots using the Snapshot API. The resulting snapshot will have a 4MP resolution, regardless of the configured video quality settings.
The additional detail in the full resolution snapshot can be helpful for identification, or improving the accuracy of results returned by third-party computer vision services. It’s important to note that full frame snapshots are only available via the API on live video; snapshots on historical video are only available at the configured video recording quality. This feature is available on all second generation cameras running the MV 4.2 beta firmware.
Fine-Tune Motion Based Retention with Areas of Interest
Our next feature is designed to make Motion-based retention more intelligent. When Motion-based retention was first released in 2017, it offered users a way to dramatically increase the retention of video stored on the camera. With Motion-based retention enabled, the camera retains the most recent 72 hours of continuous video, after which time it trims footage that contains no motion. The original Motion-based retention eliminated the majority of “empty” footage for most users, but what about instances where the camera detects near constant motion in part of the frame, from a spinning ceiling fan or always-on displays? Adding regions of interest — an option already available for Motion Alerts — allows users to specify where they care about motion, say at an entrance or exit. Motion that occurs in other areas of the scene will be discarded for the purposes of Motion-based retention.
To add an area of interest, navigate to the camera, then settings, and quality and retention. Once Motion-based retention is enabled, click and drag on the video frame to select your desired regions of interest. Multiple areas can be selected to allow for fine-tuning. Once set, only footage that contains motion within the selected area of interest will be retained after 72 hours when Motion-based retention is enabled.
Interested in learning more about video retention, snapshots or MV smart cameras? See our documentation for more information on video retention, or the Meraki Devnet site for more information on our APIs. Check out an upcoming webinar for an overview of our MV smart camera line. Let us know what you think about the new features on the Meraki Community page.
This March is shaping up to be a big month for events featuring Meraki APIs! We will be in full-force at DevNet Create this year on March 10-11, and immediately following that we’re excited to partner with other Cisco teams and Capital Factory to present the Cisco Innovation Hub at South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, TX!
From March 13–23, SXSW will host approximately 432,500 people from over 102 countries participating in the SXSW Music, Film, and Interactive Events. SXSW Interactive is deemed the World’s largest gathering of creative professionals with 4,967 conference speakers and 2,147 conference sessions. Many tech giants have launched their early or beta versions at this conference, including Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Highlight, and Meerkat, and while Uber “didn’t launch at SXSW, it was conceived here”, according to Fast Company. Interactive has even hosted speakers such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Ferris, President Barack Obama, Mark Cuban, Braaam Cohen, Biz Stone, and several worldwide tech leaders.
During the Interactive Festival part of SXSW, innovative companies from all over the world meet, market their innovations, attend pitch sessions, learn from a huge variety of events, and make critical connections. This year, Cisco Webex, DevNet, Meraki, AppDynamics, DNA Spaces, CDA, and Cisco Investments have joined forces with Capital Factory to present the Cisco Innovation Hub at SXSW!
Meet us there to network with some of the most exciting and interesting people in the industry, check out new product launches, and explore our Independent Software Vendor (ISV) demos. We’ll also have Whisper Suites, Meetups, a Customer Briefing Center, and talk tracks from Cisco acquisition founders, product managers, Cisco Investments, and our partners. Here are some of the sessions and activities you won’t want to miss:
Sat, March 14th at 11am: Keynote Session with Todd Nightingale, SVP/GM, Cisco Meraki
Sat, March 14th at 2pm: Cognitive Workspaces Panel with API Product Manager, Tony Carmichael
Sun, March 15th 5pm:Hot Pepper Pitch where contestants pitch their ideas for startups under the influence (of very hot peppers) to win cash and product prizes! This is sure to be a good time for contestants and spectators alike.
Organizations across industries are eager to build their Wireless WAN infrastructure on the Meraki platform and some of them already have a head start with our new product line – MG Cellular Gateway. MG provides a solution for optimal cellular signal strength. It gives our customers the flexibility of pairing MG with any Meraki or Cisco ISR/vEdge router or 3rd party router to provide another uplink for SD-WAN, or as a failover or primary link.
MG was only launched a couple of months ago and we’re already releasing new features. There is no better way to see these features in action than to try it out for yourself.
Quick network diagnosis
We’re always seeking to provide capabilities that truly add value to our customer’s business. For cellular troubleshooting, customers have frequently told us how challenging it can get without any visibility into the signal characteristics at their site. This lack of control leads to them taking a hit on business functions that rely on cellular signals.
MG users can now take advantage of this data within the Meraki platform to quickly diagnose what’s affecting cellular connectivity, or what led to performance degradation, through historical stats— signal strength, latency, and loss—that are visual and easy to interpret. By knowing how cellular connectivity is at certain sites at any given time, it’s simple to get to the root cause of network issues. Easy monitoring of live data along with the signal level, signal quality, and connectivity data could potentially save hours of troubleshooting.
It gets even better with an API-driven architecture. MG can be managed completely through APIs, giving customers the flexibility of custom reporting and integrations that they need. Stay tuned for more updates!
How to access
From your Meraki dashboard, go to Monitor->Cellular gateways; select the MG for which you’d like to get the health data, and then go to Uplink from the menu bar. Scroll below to view the historical and connectivity data as far as 30 days in the past.
Test out the new capabilities for yourself. To learn more about the MG Cellular Gateway, you can refer to these additional MG resources:
The MV22X and MV72X models share the same form factor as the MV22 and MV72, but with 512GB of storage. Organizations have two ways to take advantage of this extra storage – longer retention, or higher resolution. For customers interested in longer storage duration, the new MV22X and MV72X can store up to 90 days of 24/7 video.
For those looking for higher resolution, the new MV22X and MV72X can record in up to 4MP resolution, which contains almost double the level of detail found in 1080P. The additional pixels can be useful for the identification of subjects or objects at farther distances, or when used by a 3rd party computer vision service for additional analytics.
Video Wall Enhancements for MV32
The MV32 is also getting new functionality, with support for dewarped tiles on video walls. This lets users see multiple views from a single MV32 camera at one time, making it easier to stay on top of what is happening. Users can also add in de-warped tiles from multiple MV32 cameras to a video wall, and mix in other camera views, allowing them to create highly customized video walls. For more information on video walls, and setting up dewarped tiles, please refer to the documentation.
Meraki as a Bluetooth Radio Platform
Finally, we will be enabling the Bluetooth radios on all second-generation MV smart cameras (the MV12 series, MV22 series, MV32, and MV72 series) in the first half of 2020. As part of this, we will be making Bluetooth scanning be available via API on MV cameras. For customers with both MR access points and MV smart cameras, this will offer improved BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) coverage. Stay tuned for more information!
Interested in learning more about these announcements, or MV smart cameras in general? Check out what’s new on the website, or join a webinar for an overview of the MV smart camera line. Let us know what you think about the new models and features in the Meraki Community!
The last decade has seen Wi-Fi grow to reach shocking milestones, with over $2 trillion of economic value delivered. This new decade is on track to be the era of Wi-Fi dominance, as 59% of all internet traffic will use the technology. The next 10 years will see new device types, and diverse high-density wireless environments, which is why we want to offer an expanded range of Wi-Fi 6 options. The Meraki Wi-Fi 6 portfolio, combined with Wireless Health and our recent security innovations, will help organizations prepare for a reliable and secure wireless future.
The MR56 is our best-in-class 8×8 Wi-Fi 6 access point, designed for ultra high-density, and ultra high-performance.
MR46 is our newest 4×4 Wi-Fi 6 access point, which will serve high-density, high-performance environments.
MR36 is Cisco’s first 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 access point, designed for high-performance requirements, and large scale deployments with an eye on value.
The three Wi-Fi 6 models feature all of the newest 802.11ax capabilities, including OFDMA and MU-MIMO for both downlink and uplink. These features are critical for environments with large amounts of wireless clients and high bandwidth requirements. For example, Meraki access points at the U.S. Open last year saw vast amounts of uplink traffic, as 200,000 attendees uploaded photos and videos to social media and iCloud.
The Meraki cloud will help deliver Wi-Fi 6 at scale across distributed sites and large quantities of mobile devices. Armed with Wi-Fi 6, IT admins can meet performance levels across a broad range of challenging Wi-Fi environments. For example, 4K video or new applications such as VR and AR require extremely low latency wireless. These new access points will provide an immersive wireless experience for those using these emerging technologies. Wi-Fi 6 delivers this performance, even in dense environments such as corporate headquarters, auditoriums, event halls, or retail stores.
We are excited to see what new possibilities await for device mobility across a broad range of use cases and environments. New decade, new possibilities!
To learn more, join us on an upcoming wireless webinar, or try out one of the new Wi-Fi 6 devices via free trial.
In the latest Meraki Unboxed podcast Episode 18: Meraki APIs + Technology Partners = new integrated solutions, we invite technology partner Armis to talk about a newly featured solution on the Meraki Marketplace focused on IoT security. Armis’ turnkey solution natively integrates with the Meraki platform to provide visibility into the devices and software on your network, analyze their behavior, and automatically block suspicious or malicious devices.
In this episode we discuss the proliferation of enterprise and industrial IoT devices such as forklifts, HVAC, medical devices, POS terminals or price scanners, printers, etc. Listen in to learn how these IoT devices pose security threats on the network and how Armis’ solution can help mitigate these risks.
We’re proud to showcase this example of how the open and extensible Meraki platform can power native integrations with other technologies. For more information about Armis or our other technology partners, visit the Meraki Marketplace.
