Subscribe
  • Home
  • /
  • Security
  • /
  • Cisco introduces new 'intent-based' networking

Cisco introduces new 'intent-based' networking

Paula Gilbert
By Paula Gilbert, ITWeb telecoms editor.
San Francisco, 20 Jun 2017
Cisco says it's changing the fundamental blueprint for networking.
Cisco says it's changing the fundamental blueprint for networking.

On Tuesday, Cisco unveiled a new "intent-based" network that it says is able to detect malware even when it's in encrypted traffic.

The new technology was revealed at a press briefing in San Francisco, California today by Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, who says the company is redefining the network of the past.

"The network has never been more critical to business success, but it's also never been under more pressure," says Robbins.

The new network is designed to be intuitive and can recognise intent, mitigate threats through encryption and use machine learning to adapt over time to defend against an evolving threat landscape. Cisco says it is the result of years of research and development to reinvent networking for an age where network engineers already manage hundreds of devices, but will be expected to manage one million by 2020.

"The network has been the foundation on which all technology innovation for the last three decades has occurred and today we are launching the network for the future," Robbins says.

"I truly believe we are ushering in a new era of networking and we are unleashing the next wave of innovation from Cisco."

The group says its new approach is "informed by context and powered by intent" and is changing the fundamental blueprint for networking. This is a shift from hardware-centric to software-driven networking for the company. However, Robbins says this shift hasn't happened overnight.

"For years, almost 80% of our engineering resources have been software engineers so we aren't becoming a software company, we have been a software company," he told a roundtable of journalists at the event.

However, he added that high-performance hardware still has a key role to play in the network and the company will continue to focus on both hardware and software going forward.

This was reiterated with the launch of Cisco's new Catalyst 9000 switching portfolio along with a new Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) system. Both fall under a suite of Cisco Digital Network Architecture technologies announced today, including a centralised management dashboard for network management.

Security focus

Robbins says cyber security is a huge global issue, and as more and more connections are added every day, the threat surface just gets bigger.

"We block 20 billion threats per day, that's more than six times the amount of searches that Google does," he explains.

David Goeckeler, Cisco's senior VP and GM of networking and security, told journalists that the company's new encrypted traffic analytics (ETA) solves a network security challenge previously thought to be unsolvable.

"ETA uses Cisco's Talos cyber intelligence to detect known attack signatures even in encrypted traffic, helping to ensure security while maintaining privacy," he says.

Cisco says currently almost half of cyber attacks are hidden in encrypted traffic and this number keeps growing. However, by using Talos cyber intelligence and machine learning to analyse metadata traffic patterns, the network can identify the fingerprints of known threats even in encrypted traffic, without decrypting it and impacting data privacy.

"Only Cisco can enable IT to detect threats in encrypted traffic with up to 99% accuracy, with less than 0.01% false positives. As a result, the new network provides security while maintaining privacy," the group claims.

Already, 75 leading global enterprises and organisations are conducting early field trials with the new networking solutions, including NASA, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Scentsy, and Wipro.

Share