BACK

Cisco Meraki is excited to announce that we have achieved FedRAMP® Moderate and StateRAMP® Moderate Authorization. Built on our reliable and scalable Cisco Meraki cloud networking platform, trusted by 75% of the Fortune 500, our Cisco Meraki for Government solution addresses the unique security and cloud-first needs of government agencies.

Sponsored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), our Cisco Meraki for Government platform meets the rigorous security standards required by U.S. federal, state, and local agencies. Organizations looking to modernize their operations can take advantage of secure cloud solutions across wireless, security, SD-WAN, switching, and cellular gateways.

A secure cloud platform

Cisco Meraki for Government enables a cloud networking platform that has a robust security posture with key features:

  • Telemetry data stays on U.S. soil with rigorous physical security at data centers
  • FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography for data at rest and data in transit
  • All external communications secured using TLS 1.2 and 1.3 based on the hardware devices
  • Continuously monitored security and compliance processes

To help with FIPS 140 compliance, we have released a new FIPS 140 summary page in the Meraki dashboard where you can:

  • See your network’s compliance status at a glance
  • Flexibly adjust your FIPS 140 configuration settings to meet your organization’s security posture and risk tolerance
  • Enable seamless security audits by downloading FIPS 140 reports to show how you’re meeting compliance over time

As you look to enhance your security framework, you can deploy additional Cisco FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorized solutions, such as Cisco Umbrella for Government and Cisco Duo, for zero-trust cybersecurity solutions tailored to the needs of your agency.

“Cisco Meraki MX allows us to control our devices at a granular level, meaning that the public can have continuous access to internet resources while we help keep malware threats out of our network.”
—Todd Wiler, Network Engineer, Columbus Metropolitan Library

Simplifying government operations

Modernizing government operations is grounded in simpler, automated, and scalable operations.

Our Cisco Meraki for Government platform allows your agency to:

  • Manage and monitor the entire network stack from one interface
  • Enjoy effortless zero-touch deployment with remote cloud management from anywhere
  • Scale IT teams and resources with a simple UI accessible by anyone
  • Converge networking and security in one dashboard

Ultimately, this provides cost savings and time back to focus on critical tasks that create seamless experiences for your constituents.

“We don’t have enough people on the IT team to be at every branch, so having a remote system allows us to do way more with fewer human resources, and without the ability to do that, the branches wouldn’t have these programs or the proper tools to host them.”
—Selvon Smith, Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Brooklyn Public Library

Remediating with network visibility

Proactive network insights make monitoring and troubleshooting faster and easier across our Cisco Meraki for Government offerings.

  • Wireless: Proactively detect, diagnose, and remediate issues with a single view across your networks and pinpoint connection problems with device-level details.
  • Switching: Enable faster mean time to resolution (MTTR) with built-in application layer visibility and visualization of the connection path of each endpoint to the internet.
  • Security and SD-WAN: Get unmatched threat visibility from Cisco Talos, the world’s largest threat intelligence group. Talos powers Meraki MX firewalls and SD-WAN and blocks 20 billion threats daily—20x more than any other vendor.
  • Cellular gateways: Prevent network downtime with real-time proactive cellular insights, from signal strength to quality, as well as detailed network performance reports.

“What I need is total visibility from endpoint to endpoint under a single pane of glass. It’s the ease of administration—having a command line system and dedicating a sole resource to that is just not possible. Meraki has created an environment where we can do more with less, have visibility into where our pain points are, and fix problems immediately.”
—Mike Hojnicki, Chief of Technology and Administrative Services, New Castle County

Getting started with Cisco Meraki for Government

We’re committed to helping federal, state, and local agencies reshape their operations by providing a secure, simple, and scalable cloud platform. Stay tuned as we continue to innovate and expand our government solutions.

Visit our federal government page to learn more and our Cisco Meraki for Government documentation for a complete list of our supported offerings.

BACK

How is your current physical security deployment doing?

We consistently hear about cybersecurity threats looming in our increasingly digital spaces. Yet the breaches happening in our physical spaces—breaches that directly affect our people, places, and things—are just as prominent. In fact, 23% of chief security officers rate theft of company physical property as one of the top four external threats, up there with phishing, social engineering, and the number one threat, fraud.

In today’s fast-paced world, ensuring the security of your people, places, and things requires a proactive approach to continually improve threat detection and critical incident management. Depending on your spaces, this can involve a variety of smart camera types, from fisheye lens and multi-imagers to fixed dome and bullet-lens cameras. Each plays a specific role in effectively monitoring indoor areas, entrances, exits, or parking lots and other open, outdoor spaces. 

Faster than a siloed bullet camera

Most businesses already have some variety of physical security cameras in their spaces. However, a lack of integration can make it difficult to deploy and manage newer generations of devices. Network video recorders (NVRs) and video management systems (VMSs) are distinct tools that work together to form a traditional physical security solution. NVRs are dedicated devices that record security footage in a digital format onto a hard drive. On-premises infrastructure supports these devices, while a VMS manages video feeds from security cameras. These components may come from different vendors and require manual configurations to install. Moreover, siloed on-premises solutions may inhibit your ability to respond to an incident quickly enough.

Say a hit-and-run incident has occurred in a parking lot you manage. All you are told is that one of the cars affected was red. You have a bullet lens camera—the form factor best suited for large, open outdoor spaces—that should have captured the footage you need to assess the details of this incident.

Next, you need to locate that footage. With traditional physical security or on-premises solutions, searching through footage can take hours. Bandwidth issues could cause the video to load slowly. Once located, the resolution might not be sufficient for you to ascertain insightful details. In addition, the risk of failing is greater, as on-premises video management systems often comprise multiple components that increase the possibility of multiple points of failure. Diagnosing such issues would further delay your response.

Let’s compare this scenario to one with a cloud-managed physical security solution. Adding a new bullet camera to your existing deployment would be very easy. Typically, all that’s needed to install is power and internet. With Meraki, installation is done right on the camera itself, saving bandwidth. All cameras are connected to your Meraki dashboard for simplified management.

Mounted overlooking your parking lot, a bullet camera like our MV53X can monitor areas as far as 100 feet away (approximately the length of a basketball court) with up to 4K resolution. When that hit-and-run occurs in your parking lot, you can then use our AI-powered tool, attribute search, to filter through all the recorded video to only show clips of red cars. This process is extremely easy and saves a lot of time, allowing you to focus on what comes after: providing the incident footage to the appropriate teams.

Banish blind spots with a single deployment

What about a different scenario? Let’s say you have been tasked with deploying a physical security solution for a retail aisle with multiple entry points. You could opt for several varifocal lens cameras to monitor these entrances and exits. However, deploying multiple cameras roughly side by side requires four separate drilled holes and four sets of arm brackets or mounting plates—in total, four distinct and complete camera installations. Additionally, the cabling required for multiple deployments can become excessive.

Once installed, you’d then have to manually set the field of view (FOV) of each camera, one by one, to capture what you are looking for and account for blind spots across your deployment. Why not just bundle that deployment process with one camera? A valuable type of form factor, where both deployment and management of the camera solution become far easier and more effective in a cloud-managed platform, is a multi-imager. Built with four individual cameras within a single camera body, it is ideal for monitoring and safeguarding areas with multiple streams of people and vehicles coming towards the camera’s FOV. 

The Meraki MV84X multi-imager offers not only the capabilities you need but also the differentiating performance characteristics that make it easier to capture and locate essential footage in the case of an incident. It attaches to your network and deploys as easily as the bullet camera described above, delivering 4 TB of storage and four 5 MP sensors to monitor your space—fully eliminating blind spots. Its 1080p/24fps resolution and 120-day retention limits allow you to document a trove of visual details. And with intelligent tools such as AI-powered motion search and motion recap, the MV84X accelerates your ability to pinpoint the details that matter in an investigation.

Simplification: The real hero of your physical security story

Integrating bullet cameras, multi-imagers, or any other security camera form factors into your current deployment should be easy. Meraki takes that even further.

Our Meraki dashboard simplifies the management and configuration of your cameras, and makes it easy to monitor them, adjust user permissions, or discover when a camera has gone offline, all with just a few clicks. Real-time alerts and analytics are readily accessible, helping you make informed decisions quickly. This ease of use not only saves time but also enhances the overall efficiency of your physical security operations.

As for integration? We make it seamless, enabling you to incorporate the latest cutting-edge tech designed to protect your people and assets—without disrupting your operations. That’s a super outcome for any business, and it’s why we are so excited to introduce to our wider portfolio the MV53X bullet camera, orderable now, and the MV84X multi-imager coming in spring 2025.

To learn more, explore our physical security hub or join us at the International Security Conference and Exposition West (ISC) in April 2025!

Learn more about how to simplify your physical security solution

BACK

$121.6 billion was lost in 2023 to retail theft—also known as shrinkage or shrink. When we say that Black Friday is a busy shopping day, shrinkage is the elephant in the room. It’s not just busy for employees and customers—it’s peak season for loss prevention personnel who investigate the many theft incidents that happen amidst the Black Friday chaos and the weeks that follow.

Most, if not all, retail stores have some sort of physical security solution. But it’s not always as simple as it may seem to investigate theft.

How a shift to cloud simplifies physical security

Traditionally, conversations around physical security often include the term CCTV or closed-circuit television. Think: someone in a room full of black-and-white monitors. That is what we call legacy physical security or on-premises security. Solutions that rely on on-prem network video recorders can make it difficult to get an overview of the camera network’s health or even ensure their cameras really are recording.  

These systems often require a massive amount of space beyond the cameras themselves. To run an on-premises legacy security system, you need servers, video recorders, and software—and all of this is difficult to install. Plus, keeping the entire system up to date with security upgrades and patches is incredibly cumbersome for IT.

The cloud, in recent years, has not only revolutionized the way we communicate, store files, and conduct software development but it has also affected the way we do physical security. Cloud-based physical security brings centralized management and real-time alerts of multiple cameras through a single platform. This approach offers easier upgrades so you can take advantage of advanced functionality. It also enables you to view camera footage remotely.

Now, imagine that the person in that room with the black-and-white monitors received a call from a store manager about a critical incident that occurred the evening prior. No additional details were given, only that the manager thought the perpetrator had worn a green shirt. Having to go through all that black-and-white footage of the past day would be tedious, manual, and tiring. Without advanced search capabilities or variable playback speeds, it would require hours of viewing. Poor footage quality could make details difficult to discern. System storage capacity restrictions could even mean that the relevant footage would have been overwritten by the time the investigation took place.

Cloud-based security systems, on the other hand, allow you to have full visibility into your space while analyzing footage in real time from anywhere. Advanced functionality in these cameras drastically reduces the amount of time required for analysis. With Cisco Meraki MV cameras, for example, motion detected by the cameras is categorized into events. Through the help of edge computing and software features like motion search and attribute search, these events can be filtered out to ensure you find the footage you are looking for quickly and easily share it with law enforcement.

Building a solution that works for you

Selecting the right solution for your specific business needs can be a challenge. That’s why the Meraki MV portfolio encompasses cameras of all types—indoor, outdoor, fixed, fisheye, bullet, and varifocal lens. This allows you to pick a camera according to what works for your space to ensure maximum coverage. Likewise, the Meraki Marketplace is designed to facilitate your ability to use application programming interfaces (APIs) to solve business needs regarding physical security beyond just recording video.

No matter where you deploy MV cameras, you’ll be able to have all eyes on your space without needing to be present. Whether you’re viewing a large parking lot with our bullet camera or need an adjustable field of view for your store that our newest varifocal lens cameras offer, you can easily get coverage for every angle. Worried about estimating how much footage your MV cameras will retain? We make storage even simpler now with smart retention that allows you to choose your camera according to the days of retention you need rather than capacity.

Protecting your valuable assets is a year-round battle—but it’s important that you address this cost-effectively—and without taking attention away from your customers. From season to season, a cloud-based approach to physical security is the easiest way to reduce shrinkage, enhance safety, and focus on providing a delightful shopping environment.

To learn more about Meraki MV solutions for retail, explore our physical security hub or join us at the National Retail Foundation (NRF) in January 2025!

Sources
https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/shoplifting-statistics/

Learn more about

Cisco Meraki MV solutions for physical security

Related Posts

BACK

A (Re)introduction to AI and IoT

Intros may not be necessary—you’ve likely already met. Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are increasingly infused into our lives. In fact, the better these technologies work together, the less likely we are to think about how they interact. When things work, they just work (thanks, UX design!).

Yet those interactions are more potent than ever. Transforming data and connectivity through the network, AI and IoT are fueling one another’s rapid growth. Together, they can unlock tremendous efficiency and innovation, but to safely harness their potential, it’s important to understand what AI and IoT can offer to organizations—and to one another.

What is artificial intelligence?

Applications of AI are advancing so rapidly that only the latest breakthroughs tend to capture our attention. Today, when someone mentions AI, it’s easy to think “generative AI”—but AI still encompasses a broad array of computer science and engineering that simulates a human’s capacity to learn, perceive, reason, and problem-solve. Using AI technologies effectively requires a deeper understanding of the distinctions between different types.

AI can be as simple as reactive machines that perform a narrow range of tasks. These basic systems follow predefined rules and patterns, but don’t learn from historical data or adapt. Early chatbots, for example, might offer a limited selection of responses, and only if the user phrased their question a certain way.

Machine learning (ML) systems, on the other hand, learn from historical data and are designed to improve over time. Using advanced algorithms, ML applications are skilled at optimizing. ML-powered recommendation engines are a key feature driving modern consumer interactions with digital content. This has led to greater personalization of user experiences across e-commerce sites, streaming platforms, and workplace dashboards.

Deep learning is a characteristic of more advanced AI systems that use inference and neural networks to analyze complex data and develop sophisticated processing models. The emergence of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have shown deep learning’s transformative potential, enabling AI integration into diverse applications such as intelligent chatbots, financial trend analysis, and code debugging.

More sophisticated forms of AI often require more data. Large datasets help to ensure accurate parameters are set in complex models, contribute to a stable training process, and enable advanced AI to learn underlying patterns and capture nuanced features.

What is the Internet of Things?

The Internet of Things refers to a network of objects, such as devices, buildings, and vehicles. IoT connectivity is enabled by sensors, software, and technologies that allow these objects to collect and share data with one another using the internet. IoT sensors can also trigger transactions in response to the real-world data collected, such as climate or visual information. The process used to intercept and log traffic that passes over a digital network is referred to as packet capture. Data packets that are captured can then be analyzed to provide detailed insights and help diagnose network issues.

The decisions that an IoT system makes are determined in a control loop. Though similar to a reactive machine in the narrowness of its focus, an IoT control loop is a complex combination of hardware and software. Control loops leverage sensors, data processing units, actuators, and communication networks to manage things like temperature or lighting in complex environments. While not a form of AI, control loops can enable data-driven automation.

The potent intersection of AI and IoT

IoT technology is widely used to optimize energy usage, maintenance, and security in various settings. These include everything from smart factories and homes to traffic lights and hospitals. Different IoT devices and platforms communicate through application programming interfaces (APIs), which integrate data from multiple devices into centralized systems. APIs can also help manage the increased data load as more devices are added, allowing the network to scale efficiently.

There are several challenges in managing these interconnected devices, such as limited visibility for end users and complex network integrity. IoT devices generate massive amounts of data. While copious data is key for sophisticated AI models, it can become overwhelming to process—making network performance issues difficult to diagnose.

The network of devices also can become a vulnerable entry point for cyberattacks. As networks add complexity, attack surfaces proliferate. According to the 2024 State of Industrial Networking Report, mitigating against cyberthreats is the #1 challenge for companies running industrial infrastructure.

The combination of AI and IoT is helping to address some of the challenges in managing more complex networks. It’s also improving how devices interact and make decisions. Smart spaces and AI-enhanced data management systems are helping organizations digitally transform physical workspaces, gain control over environments, avoid costly disruptions, and protect individuals who access those spaces. Intelligent simulations are accelerating this transformation, compressing design cycles by applying AI algorithms to extract more insights from fewer simulations.

What are the benefits of combining AI and IoT?

AI helps to significantly simplify IoT network management and performance assurance. For instance, AI-driven channel planning uses advanced algorithms to monitor network conditions, tag severities, and avoid dynamic frequency selection (DFS) events that require frequency switching to prevent interference. AI can also help ensure compliance with local energy regulations by adapting transmission power based on range data and regulatory requirements.

AI also democratizes the power of IoT, allowing for more intuitive system interactions that use conversational prompts instead of highly technical queries. This allows administrators to quickly trigger packet captures, automate monitoring processes, and detect anomalies using preconfigured data from other deployments.

Used together, AI and IoT also enable simulations of environments to test virtual scenarios and optimize configurations. IoT systems can leverage the deep learning ability of AI to analyze vast amounts of data and predict outcomes, making those ecosystems and the components within them more adaptive and intelligent.

For example, smart cameras equipped with AI can analyze video feeds in real time, trained on models that allow them to detect and recognize anomalies, unusual activities, potential shortages, or even security threats. Surveillance systems that once required manual oversight and, in the case of incidents, laborious manual review of footage, are now transformed into proactive security solutions that can respond instantly. Triggers can even be set up to only activate threat response in anomalous conditions, such as when an RFID-tagged device leaves a designated area in a store.

The advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities of AI can be applied to data collected by these systems, offering nuanced insights that can improve interactions, refine resource allocation, and extend device life. Retailers can use AI and IoT cameras to track buyer sentiment through facial expressions and traffic patterns. Dwell time can be tracked using heat maps to inform improved equipment configurations and proper rotation.

The APIs that allow IoT devices to communicate with one another also facilitate custom AI solutions for IoT edge applications. AI that operates at the edge can be trained on highly relevant, real-time information, allowing it to quickly diagnose issues and pinpoint causes such as power outages, local environmental factors, connectivity problems, or user errors with a high accuracy and speed. By computing smart thresholds, AI reduces alert fatigue, providing more specific analysis and ensuring that resources are not wasted on misdiagnoses.

AI-enhanced radio resource management (RRM) can process and analyze 10 times the data of conventional methods—another boon for performance assurance. Optimizing radio configurations across multiple access points, RRM systems can help minimize or quickly resolve connectivity issues in complex wireless environments where any amount of latency can significantly impact the user experience.

Securing IoT and AI-based applications

Enhancing the security and performance of IoT networks with AI-based edge applications requires more agility and granular control over network traffic and device interactions than traditional virtual local area network (VLAN)-based approaches can offer. By dynamically adjusting security measures and resource allocation based on real-time data and contextual information, adaptive policy ensures that security protocols meet each device and application’s specific needs and behaviors.

By continuously monitoring network activity and device behavior, adaptive policies can identify anomalies and respond to threats with automatic segmentation and traffic isolation. Automating a segmented response minimizes the impact of security breaches and reduces the potential surface area for an attack.

Adaptive policies also help optimize resource allocation and performance by prioritizing critical applications, managing bandwidth efficiently, and dynamically adjusting to changing conditions and demands in the IoT ecosystem. This helps prevent bottlenecks and ensures that cameras, sensors, and other edge AI applications can function with low latency and high reliability.

What does the future of AI and IoT ecosystems look like? Less intrusive, for one thing. We’re already seeing the infrastructure efficiency in data centers being built to power AI computing. Informed by AI and IoT feedback and optimization, these new data centers require far less space than those of the past. As the use cases for smart and even autonomous IoT ecosystems abound, demand for elegant infrastructure could grow.

Whereas organizations once had separate systems to track people, inventory, and external threats, a platform environment is becoming more attainable than ever thanks to the integration of systems that AI and IoT are now making possible. As environments grow more personalized and complex, user controls should be simplified into a single dashboard experience that works so well you don’t even have to think about it.

Register for a free Meraki dashboard demo

Related Posts

BACK

Today’s business outcomes are intrinsically linked to the quality of digital experiences IT professionals can deliver to connect employees and customers to any app or service.  

Think about a video call for a remote worker. A user opens their app, turns on the camera, and has a meeting. Hopefully there were no hangups or drops along the way. Seems simple, right? Hardly. That call took a path from a computer through the Wi-Fi network and out to a service provider. Then maybe it went through yet another transit provider, up to the cloud, back through the internet, and finally to the office headquarters. The quality of that video call could have been affected at any point along the way. 

A roadmap for digital resilience 

Digital resilience means that you continue to deliver a good user experience in the face of any disruption. For networking, that’s proactive intelligence, predictive recommendations, and (if something goes wrong) automated remediation. 

IT leaders are expected to deliver experiences that feel seamless, connected, and whole. But that is easier said than done as teams wrestle with how to manage the ever-growing complexity of devices, networks, and data centers they own—plus the service providers, SaaS providers, and public cloud infrastructure they don’t own.  

Because every user experience depends on both owned and unowned infrastructures, solving IT problems in silos (LAN, WAN, and cloud) no longer works. We must begin to think of this combination of owned and unowned as the global area network. Visibility across every part of the infrastructure is now essential. If you can see and understand everything, you can fix anything. 

IT leaders repeatedly tell Cisco that they feel hampered in assuring digital experiences and achieving digital resilience across the global area network. According to the 2024 Global Networking Trends Report, 41% of respondents think providing service reliability to ensure predictable and consistent user experiences is an area for significant improvement. 

For over 40 years, network professionals have been waiting for that superpower. Today, that is going to change. Cisco is introducing Digital Experience Assurance from Cisco ThousandEyes. We’re doing for the global area network what GPS and driver data do for driving—providing IT with a clear view of the entire journey, even the parts they don’t control.  

Digital Experience Assurance is a fundamental change from where the industry has been for decades. Now, IT can use AI-native capabilities to show what’s happening with users and applications across the entire global area network—phones, tablets, laptops, home broadband gateways, switches, and routers. Digital Experience Assurance is part of the Cisco Networking Cloud platform, providing continuous intelligence with predictive analytics and automated remediation, from user to cloud and everything in between.  

It doesn’t just change how IT teams work. It also gives IT leaders time to focus on accelerating the business while reducing operational (and even emotional) stress. 

Networking for the generative AI industrial revolution 

The need for AI-ready infrastructure has never been more important as AI workloads, driven by generative AI models, continue to grow. According to our own survey of more than 8,000 senior leaders with responsibility for AI, 95% believe AI will increase the workloads of their IT infrastructure—but fewer than half believe their infrastructure is ready.  

In partnership with NVIDIA, we are now bridging that gap by bringing operational simplicity to AI data centers with Cisco Nexus HyperFabric. It is the world’s first cloud-managed AI infrastructure solution that gives enterprises everything we’ve learned from deploying AI at hyperscalers. Using a Meraki-style operational model, we automate the entire fabric across networking, NVIDIA accelerated computing, storage, optics, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, including NVIDIA NIM inference microservices.  

This makes it easier for IT teams to deploy their own enterprise AI clusters where the on-premises data resides, in large data centers, colocation facilities, or edge locations enabling generative AI anywhere. 

Multidomain operational simplicity 

We are also announcing Cisco Workflows for consistent automation across domains as part of the Cisco Networking Cloud platform. In a complex network, making any change or spinning up a new site can be very complicated or may even compromise another domain. Workflows makes it easier.  

With Workflows, you can reduce repetitive tasks and manual errors while eliminating multi-step, multi-app, and probably multi-meeting ordeals. With Workflows as part of Cisco Networking Cloud, you are the IT hero. You create automations across network domains and fix issues at scale. You eliminate trivial, error-prone tasks that used to take hours.  

Cisco Networking Cloud 

Our Cisco Networking Cloud platform has made phenomenal progress toward continuous intelligence, predictive analytics, and automated remediation over the past 12 months. This is just a sampling of the new additions that will help you transform the world. AI-native operations, assurance, secure networking, and infrastructure for AI are all coming together in the Cisco Networking Cloud platform. 

All experiences have a digital component. All experiences will be defined by the network. Cisco will continue to help IT modernize for the future and deliver their most critical business outcomes.  

A version of this article also appears on the Cisco Blog

Related Posts

BACK

As organizations race to meet customer and employee demands for seamless digital experiences, it’s the network operations team answering the call. But especially with users everywhere, applications in data centers and the cloud, and the mainstream adoption of AI, the complexity that IT faces grows.

Networking leaders know that to deliver unified, differentiated experiences—remote, branch, in-store, and other, encompassing a myriad of applications—they need to stop thinking about the LAN and the WAN as silos. Instead, they must ensure experiences work across a global area network, spanning campus, branch, cloud, software as a service (SaaS), and other connections.

In this environment, the challenge IT leaders face is maintaining the quality of every experience across infrastructure they own and don’t own.

Resilience through digital experience assurance, simplified operations, and enhanced security

One company that is embracing this challenge is modern home furnishings and decor retailer Room & Board. Their challenge —and competitive advantage—is building strong relationships with customers throughout the design process, delivering exceptional experiences that span both digital and in-store interactions. To make good on that promise, they need to ensure a seamless, secure, and data-intensive experience, no matter how customers connect. In order to solve this complex problem, Room & Board needed a networking and IT platform that could give them visibility and control across the owned and unowned parts of their global network, simplified operations across sites, and the ability to ensure security and customer data privacy. They found the answer in Cisco Networking Cloud, the only IT platform that can deliver:

  • Digital experience assurance with AI-insights, proactive and pre-emptive recommendations, and automated operations to help deliver flawless digital experiences
  • End-to-end secure networking for consistent policy enforcement and automatic security measures—regardless of how users and devices connect across the digital landscape—by integrating networking and security
  • Simplified, AI-native operations to help efficiently scale support and drive business resilience by unifying and automating operations throughout the owned and unowned digital landscape

At Cisco Live US, we are unveiling new capabilities for Cisco Networking Cloud designed to help our customers at any scale achieve more resilient digital experiences across their diverse networks.

Delivering assurance across the global area network

At the heart of our ability to provide Digital Experience Assurance (DXA) across the global area network is Cisco ThousandEyes. With Cisco ThousandEyes, IT teams can instantly see every network they rely on, owned or unowned, as if it were their own environment. With ThousandEyes, identifying issues anywhere along the digital delivery chain is not only automated but proactive, preemptive, and simpler.

And importantly, ThousandEyes enables closed-loop workflows that automate and accelerate critical remediation and optimization actions for our customers across all domains. Room & Board relies on ThousandEyes to provide visibility into the cloud-hosted and internet-enabled services that are outside of the company’s direct control.

“ThousandEyes helps us deliver the quality experience that we want to put forward to our employees and customers,” said Mark Rodrigue, a senior network engineer at Room & Board. “It’s enabled our customers to feel confident in their interactions with us.”

High throughput, end-to-end security with zero trust protections

When users and apps are connected across the global area network, IT teams need a more flexible and resilient WAN backbone to connect and protect every interaction on the network. A Cisco secure WAN edge is the backbone for the digital enterprise, combining high-performance routing, intelligent SD-WAN with integrated Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), and flexible multicloud connectivity in an architecture purpose-built to extend security and assurance to every touchpoint across the network.

Managed through Cisco Networking Cloud, this WAN architecture defends the entire network by consistently enforcing security policy across campus, branch, industrial environments, remote users, and the cloud. It’s perfect for customers of all sizes, from local retailer showrooms to a global network of bank branches.

At Cisco Live US, we’re debuting innovations across the WAN edge to help our customers build this critical backbone for today’s dynamic workforce and tomorrow’s AI-powered workloads.

  • The new Cisco Catalyst and Meraki SD-WAN fabric interconnect allows IT teams to select the best WAN platform for every type of site they operate, without sacrificing security, simplicity, or scale.
  • Cisco Meraki Secure Connect is now integrated with Cisco Secure Access, our powerful cloud-based security service edge (SSE) solution, to help connect and protect dynamic remote workforces in a zero-trust model. Along with powerful next-generation firewall (NGFW) capabilities powered by Cisco Talos, this native integration gives customers a seamless path to a unified, scalable SASE solution.
  • The new Meraki MX650 extends the Meraki MX secure SD-WAN portfolio, more than doubling throughput for high-performance branch routing and security.

Simplified operations with drag and drop, point and click automation workflows

In today’s complex, distributed networks, making a config change or spinning up a new site can be time-consuming and accident-prone. But now even entry-level admins can confidently create and run complex, multi-step workflows across campus, branch, and data center environments with Cisco Workflows.

Cisco Workflows is the new automation and orchestration service at the heart of Cisco Networking Cloud. Workflows simplifies complex automation through a visual, low-code interface to help admins quickly and confidently configure, provision, and approve networking changes.

New services can quickly be created by connecting and creating automations across Cisco and third-party systems. A catalog of templates, distilled from Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs), is available with drag-and-drop features that make it easy to create and customize automations. With Cisco Workflows, there’s no need to move between different dashboards, so organizations can achieve business outcomes faster while reducing human error.

Innovations with an immediate ROI

Great digital experiences, simplified IT, and stronger end-to-end security. These are just some of the significant benefits companies can enjoy as we help you harness the power of the global area network. Learn more about how Cisco Networking Cloud can help you achieve resiliency through digital experience assurance, end-to-end secure networking, and simplified operations.

See how Cisco Networking Cloud can help you achieve unified, differentiated experiences.
BACK

5G fixed wireless access (FWA) is transforming the way businesses connect to the global network, especially in areas where fiber is not available. Market analysis from Wells Fargo recently indicated that nearly all net-new broadband accounts in the United States are FWA. Despite this demand, FWA point solutions inhibit the scale potential of FWA when expanding to multiple locations.
Businesses need a better way to implement 5G FWA across their growing branch footprints.

Accelerating time-to-market with cloud management

Cisco is pleased to introduce its first 5G standalone (SA) cloud-managed FWA devices, the Meraki MG52 and MG52E cellular gateways, to accelerate the way businesses open and connect branches. Managed through the Cisco Networking Cloud, these devices help businesses scale robust, always-on, 5G-connected experiences to more people and places without compromising scale and performance.
For branch-based businesses and organizations with remote operations, the MG52 and MG52E deliver:

  • Faster “day zero” operations by enabling businesses to purchase and activate AT&T data plans with an integrated complimentary introductory period directly from the Cisco Meraki dashboard
  • Lower operating expenditures by enabling businesses to streamline deployment with instant-on provisioning via Cisco IoT Control Center and Meraki
  • Higher return on investment by ensuring long-term compatibility with multigeneration cellular service (4G, 5G NSA, 5G SA) and reducing upgrade costs with future-ready 5G SA

Simplifying the 5G journey

Businesses often suffer from delayed time to market due to long lead times associated with disjointed processes and multivendor complexities in opening and connecting branches. AT&T and Cisco saw an opportunity to reach customers more quickly with a jointly developed, innovative, out-of-the-box experience, offering a deep integration with AT&T Wireless WAN services to help businesses get started even faster.
Businesses can now immediately connect full-stack, secure Cisco SD-Branch and SD-Campus networks with 5G FWA at all their branches—up to thousands at once. AT&T enables business IT leaders to prepurchase FWA data plans directly from the Meraki dashboard to leverage cloud-managed eSIM on the MG52 and MG52E.
“Together with Cisco, we are making it faster and easier than ever for companies to reimagine their networks and conduct business with next-level connectivity,” said Mike Troiano, Senior Vice President, Product and Pricing, AT&T Business. “This offer is yet another way we are demonstrating our commitment to simplifying business challenges and enhancing the end-user experience.”

Consistent, unwavering, robust performance

5G FWA is often the best choice for WAN when a business needs to immediately connect a site with minimal downtime, provide connectivity diversity and redundancy, or conduct a large branch deployment. It is also the best WAN choice for:

  • Rural and remote regions where wired WAN can take over nine months to deploy
  • Single-occupancy real estate where a wired WAN connection doesn’t exist
  • Space-constrained locations where a WAN gateway must be deployed in small, tight spots
  • Pop-up sites where a wired WAN is implausible to deploy
  • Nonconventional locations such as basements or rooftops too far from wired WAN

Discreet, versatile, pervasive connectivity

The MG52 and MG52E enable businesses to open branches immediately, boost network resiliency, and increase ROI on FWA investments. Multisite, branch-based verticals, such as retail, food services, hospitality, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and supply chain, transportation, logistics, and more, can expand their charters and offer services to new customers in new markets. Well-orchestrated deployments can also offer greater business agility, getting to market faster with same-day, full-stack SD-Branch and SD-Campus connectivity with Cisco Meraki or Cisco Catalyst networks.

Intuitive, streamlined, scalable management

Wired remains a highly reliable and fast-performing WAN option for businesses. For most use cases, FWA offers a strong complement to wired WAN, particularly when using SD-WAN, SD-Routing, or routing to take advantage of Cisco traffic orchestration features such as load balancing, traffic shaping, uplink selection, and more.
Businesses can extend secure connected experiences everywhere using Cisco Talos-powered cybersecurity capabilities—firewall policies, content filtering, intrusion detection and prevention (IDS and IPS), advanced malware protection (AMP), and more—using both wired WAN and FWA.

Partnering with telecommunications industry leaders

For businesses looking to partner with a managed service provider, Cisco is teaming up with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Business to provide robust, reliable, same-day cloud-managed 5G FWA by offering the MG52 and MG52E as a fully managed solution.
T-Mobile is teaming up with Cisco to enhance its Connected Workplace offering by making the MG52 and MG52E available as part of its fully managed, end-to-end 5G FWA solution.
“When we launched Connected Workplace earlier this year, one of our primary objectives was to continually enhance the solution to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” said Chris Melus, VP of Product Management, T-Mobile for Business. “The addition of the MG52 and MG52E means our customers have a 5G SA gateway that leverages the full power of T-Mobile’s nationwide 5G SA network. It also gives them more choice when it comes to optimizing their networking infrastructure, reducing IT workload and enhancing operational efficiency.”
Verizon Business and Cisco are partnering to offer businesses full-stack, cloud-managed, scalable networking with Verizon 5G FWA built around the flagship MG52 and MG52E FWA devices.
“Businesses need an easy, powerful, and scalable way to deploy high-performance 5G fixed wireless access,” said Debika Bhattacharya, Chief Technology Solutions Officer, Verizon Business. “We’re proud to partner with Cisco to bring businesses reliable 5G connectivity with an emphasis on simplicity, optionality, and capability.”

Business continuity starts now

Together with cloud-managed eSIM integration with AT&T, the MG52 and MG52E offer many new capabilities to elevate the way branch-based businesses get connected and serve their customers. With same-day connectivity, the flexibility to be deployed anywhere, and robust, reliable performance, IT teams can help drive their organizations forward with greater ease and success.

BACK

Let’s talk about the modern complexities of device management. It’s hectic out there, and the Cisco Meraki Systems Manager (SM) mobile device management (MDM) team is in the trenches, working hard to keep things under control with security and management across the evolving tech terrain.

In fact, we’re amping up our game to stay ahead of the curve in this fast-paced IT world, and we’ve got some great new updates and accolades to share about our continuous rise as a top-tier device management vendor.

Android Enterprise Silver Partner status—achievement unlocked

The Meraki SM team is all about delivering stellar, flexible device management to all our customers, regardless of device operating systems, and we’ve just been recognized as an Android Enterprise Silver Partner. But what does that mean? We have been given a stamp of approval after meeting Android’s tough standards, and we can now be considered part of the top tier in the Android ecosystem, ensuring smooth integration and hitting Android’s high industry marks.

Next-level Android powers with Meraki SM

Meraki Systems Manager isn’t new to the game; we’ve been helping thousands of our customers manage their org’s devices for a while. But just because we’ve been around for a while doesn’t mean we don’t have great new things to show off. We’ve added some new tools like kiosk mode and zero-touch enrollment to the tool kit. Kiosk mode is all about turning devices into mission-focused machines, locked in on important tasks. With zero-touch enrollment, our customers can set up a fleet of Android devices through a streamlined and hassle-free process.

Leading the charge in innovation

As a part of Cisco—the largest networking technology provider with a massive, powerful networking data lake—Meraki Systems Manager comes with a treasure trove of integration capabilities. We’re blending Meraki technology with powerhouse Cisco security features like Umbrella, Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), and Identity Services Engine (ISE). These integrations have helped our customers take a full-platform approach to organizational security from end to end.

The silver lining

Achieving Android Enterprise Silver Partner status is a game-changer for Meraki Systems Manager. It’s a testament to our commitment to pushing boundaries and delivering top-notch technology services. As the IT scene gets more tangled, we’ll continue to innovate in our work as a trailblazer to help simplify the complex. Stay tuned and learn more here—the adventure is far from over.

Learn more about
Systems Manager MDM

BACK

Cloud-based security has transformed the way businesses manage their security operations. Unlike their on-premises predecessors, cloud technology has given IT and security teams greater flexibility and scalability.

System administrators no longer need to be on-site to keep tabs on their buildings. Instead, the cloud has given them the ability to do more with less. They can monitor access points, provision key cards, and implement system changes from anywhere. However, a new iteration of cloud-based physical security is improving how enterprises, commercial real estate companies, schools, and more interact with their security.

What do we mean by a single view of security?

This approach to security connects otherwise disparate hardware and software infrastructure into one platform. For example, an enterprise team could integrate and see surveillance video cameras all within their access control dashboard. This automation helps IT and security teams save time when monitoring their security and speeds up emergency response time.

It also extends beyond integrating video management systems with access control. Manufacturers offer a wide variety of our API integrations that connect platforms like chat software, visitor management, Internet of Things, mobile credentials, and workforce management, delivering a streamlined way for system administrators to manage security.

How this approach helps enterprises and more

Traditional security approaches often involve managing diverse systems and siloed information, leading to inefficiencies and security breaches—most evident to retailers losing billions of dollars to theft annually. While our security approach helps combat theft more effectively than businesses using multiple different systems, there are many other important features, including the following integrations:

  • Automate mobile and key card provisioning. By integrating security with workforce management platforms, like Okta or Azure AD, IT and security teams can automate the provisioning process. When a security team adds or removes a user from workforce software, that user’s key card or mobile badge updates accordingly. When a security team adds or removes a user from workforce software, that user’s key card or mobile badge updates accordingly.
  • Support visitor management. Many commercial real estate companies, enterprises, schools, hospitals, and more need a way to safely make sure that visitors get where they need to be. Cloud-based access control platforms can be integrated with visitor management to give temporary access to specific doors. When integrated, these systems work together with chat notifications to alert users when a guest arrives.
  • Simplify video management. Whether managing security for an enterprise, hospital, school, or commercial real estate company, video management has become more needed. If you’re working across multiple locations, a unified platform will provide a more organized way to view your entire portfolio.

How video security and access control work together

Cloud-based solutions such as Genea Security act as a hub for monitoring access control and video management. They also help teams monitor, analyze, and respond to threats more effectively for a proactive security posture.

For example, hospitals need robust security measures to protect patients, staff, and sensitive medical information. By integrating video management systems with access control, teams can establish a holistic approach. If a security incident happens, the hospital’s administrators can quickly pull up the appropriate video alongside information about the event within the access control dashboard.

Similarly, if a school experiences a lockdown incident, the security team can quickly pull up video of the appropriate access points, then take immediate action to lock down the necessary points, all from one dashboard.

How Genea + Cisco Meraki can help

Unifying surveillance, access control, and analytics allows IT and security teams to proactively safeguard their environments. Cloud-managed Cisco Meraki cameras and Genea Security integrate with ease, so organizations can log video records of access events for faster reaction time during emergencies. As technology in safety and automation continues to advance in today’s dynamic world, embracing the cloud’s holistic security model isn’t just a choice—it’s a necessity.

Related Posts

BACK

From Wi-Fi 6E (and the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 technologies) to smart cameras, IoT devices are expected to grow by 50% by 2027. As organizations leverage more of these intelligent, data-generating machines to boost employee productivity and user experience, they may want to consider the impact on the network.

The associated data influx of additional IoT devices could lead to network congestion and slow response times, affecting the performance and reliability of both the network and the IoT devices it supports. Moreover, IoT devices can be susceptible to cyberattacks. Is your network infrastructure ready to handle the expected IoT growth?

Imagine investing in interactive whiteboards to enhance employee collaborations, only to experience network congestion causing delays in sharing and saving content. This would lead to frustrated employees and upset clients.

Realizing IoT investment starts with a secure backbone

We recently expanded our Cisco Catalyst 9300-M switching portfolio with 15 new models designed to meet your most demanding use cases. It enables you to deliver a flexible and secure end-to-end network at scale while managing it with ease and confidence. Here are some features designed to unlock new use cases while lowering deployment and operational costs:

  • Secure networking across sites: extension of Adaptive Policy across all new platforms and capable of up to 1T physical stacking and stacking flexibility across models.
  • Smart, sustainable spaces: 90W Universal Power Over Ethernet (UPOE+), 1,900W power supply option, and StackPower.
  • Digital experiences and assurance: high-density mGig and fiber options and 25G/100G uplinks.

For more detailed information, please refer to the datasheet. Tune in to our latest Cisco Champion Radio episode and learn how these latest Catalyst 9300-M switches can help our customers solve the most challenging IT and security needs at scale.

Power more distributed, smarter, and sustainable spaces with UPOE+

The expansive corporate campuses of yesterday have given way to a new age of decentralized offices and hybrid work structures. A recent Cisco survey underlines this change, showing that 98% of meetings now involve at least one remote participant.

The new Catalyst 9300X-M 90W UPOE+ switching powerhouses can connect more power-hungry PoE devices securely to ensure application operations and frictionless user experiences, such as smart lighting systems, conferencing system, and smart cameras. The best part? All your Meraki devices across distributed locations can be managed centrally on the Meraki dashboard, unlocking dynamic topology and rich telemetry, enabling your team with a deeper understanding and control of the entire network for faster mean time to resolution and effective security management.

When converging network and power management, it reduces deployment and simplifies ongoing operations. PoE management on Meraki dashboard can also help you achieve sustainability goals.

For example, the Wrexham County Borough Council in the United Kingdom used Meraki sensors and Cisco Meraki switch port schedules to reimagine its IT infrastructure to reduce cost and carbon emissions across 70 schools. The council has been able to make significant energy savings of 10 metric tons of carbon and roughly $28,000 in electricity savings per year across its 70 schools.

Connect everyone and everything securely with streamlined security

The traditional VLAN-based security policy approach is insufficient, introducing skill gaps and challenges for your IT and security teams to maintain.

Adaptive Policy enables secure access to network resources by dynamically segmenting the network based on user identity and context. This approach reduces SecOps efforts and costs by eliminating the need for manual management of thousands of access control lists (ACLs) and re-architecting the network infrastructure when deploying policy changes.

It strengthens security by automatically applying appropriate policies to the correct users and devices. Back to the earlier example, it will ensure employees can access the interactive whiteboard without delays, while unauthorized devices such as smart cameras will not have access to business applications.

Simplify network operations with an agile, flexible platform

In a distributed IT landscape, Cisco Meraki provides a centralized end-to-end management experience, from wired and wireless, to security, to IoT. This comprehensive approach helps your team deliver secure network management at scale without a steep learning curve. Your network team can make configuration changes in one place and push to selected locations, eliminating manual processes and potential human errors.

Real-time application visibility and rich telemetry provide your network teams with proactive insights to optimize the network, ensuring a seamless employee experience. Furthermore, firmware updates are made effortless with Meraki. Simply schedule and stage them from the cloud, improving productivity for your team.

Resilient, secure networks start here

The Catalyst 9300-M switching portfolio, along with the scalable Adaptive Policy, can help you navigate this new influx of data and network requirements. For more information, please explore our page or contact our sales team.

Related Posts

Try our technology.

Smart, cloud-managed IT solutions that make life simpler.

Start Trial Now