Cisco Live 2024: Cisco Introduces AI Deployment Solution in Collaboration With NVIDIA
Cisco has committed $1 billion to AI investment and unveiled a new networking solution in partnership with NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure at its yearly consumer event on June 4. Cisco Live is currently taking place in Las Vegas from June 2 to June 6. These announcements made at Cisco Live address the growing enterprise demand for AI, along with the increasing emphasis on visibility and security.
Collaboration Between Cisco and NVIDIA for Nexus HyperFabric AI Clusters
The new networking solution, Cisco Nexus HyperFabric AI clusters, is a joint effort by Cisco and NVIDIA to provide a seamless entry point to AI for customers who may lack deep knowledge of AI deployment or IT expertise. Cisco Nexus HyperFabric AI clusters enable the deployment, management, and monitoring of generative AI infrastructure for businesses.
Jonathan Davidson, the executive vice president and general manager of Cisco Networking, stated in a press release, “The potential of AI is evident, but the initial steps for many are challenging. Customers often encounter difficulties, both economically and operationally, in setting up an AI stack. Cisco is dedicated to simplifying the deployment and operation of AI infrastructure.”
SEE: The UALink Promoter Group aims to establish a norm for AI infrastructure – notably, without NVIDIA.
The concept is that organizations require assistance to implement AI infrastructure effectively. Thus, the Nexus HyperFabric AI cluster solution merges Cisco Ethernet switching and cloud-managed options with NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, NVIDIA NIM inference microservices, NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUS, the VAST data platform, and more.
The solution is anticipated to be generally available in the fourth quarter of 2024, with a selected set of customers receiving early access in Q4.
To help IT teams adeptly manage generative AI, Cisco offers training on AI infrastructure. The CCDE AI Infrastructure certification is obtainable through Cisco Learning and Certifications.
Initial Phase of AI Investment: Cisco Launches Global Fund
Cisco is injecting $1 billion into AI via its worldwide investment fund, demonstrating its commitment to supporting startups and generative AI solutions. As strategic partners, Cohere, Mistral AI, and Scale AI will benefit from funding provided by Cisco. Cisco has currently allocated $200 million to this fund.
Cisco Introduces Security Upgrades for Cloud, Web Apps, and Beyond
Cisco announced improvements to its existing security products:
- The Firewall 1200 Series, which eliminates the need for multiple appliances for switches, routers, and firewalls in enterprise branch locations, will be released in October 2024.
- Security Cloud Control, a management framework for Cisco Security Cloud, offering an AI overview for Cisco Secure Firewall, Secure Firewall Threat Defense, Secure Firewall ASA, Multicloud Defense, and Hypershield, will be launched in September.
- Technical enhancements for Splunk, which was acquired by Cisco in March, including new sources of Cisco telemetry within Splunk for the security operations center. These updates will be rolled out in the upcoming months.
- Firewall Threat Defense Version 7.6 for all Cisco firewalls.
- Google Chrome Enterprise’s threat and data protection for web apps secured by Cisco Secure Access.
Integration of Cisco Hypershield with AMD Pensado DPUs and Intel Infrastructure
Cisco’s security architecture, Hypershield, which was unveiled in April 2024 to distribute security enforcement across virtual machines or Kubernetes clusters, will now be extended to new services. Cisco Unified Computing System servers will be the first to support Hypershield on AMD Pensando DPUs by the end of 2024. Support for Hypershield on AMD Pensando DPUs will later expand to other server vendors and Intel infrastructure processing units by the year’s end.
Soni Jiandani, the general manager of the networking technology and solutions group at AMD, stated in a press release, “By leveraging our DPUs in customer servers or in future Cisco networking platforms, Hypershield users can enjoy high-capacity throughput and intelligent policy enforcement without compromising on workload performance.”
Integration of ThousandEyes Visibility Engine into Digital Experience Assurance
ThousandEyes, a device management visibility engine acquired by Cisco in 2020, has now integrated AI alerts from ThousandEyes into Digital Experience Assurance for Cisco Networking Cloud. ThousandEyes leverages data from the entire Cisco ecosystem to offer proactive recommendations, transmitting device and telemetry data to customers’ domain controllers and management systems.
Additionally, ThousandEyes can now map AWS environments, provide an integrated view of external and internal network conditions on Cisco and non-Cisco networking platforms through Traffic Insights, and utilize Meraki Wi-Fi and Local Area Network telemetry and device details. The collaboration between ThousandEyes and Meraki has further enhanced the Meraki Assurance Overview.
TechRepublic is providing live coverage of Cisco Live remotely.
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