Cisco Brings Wired and Wireless Intent-based Networking to the Masses

the Catalyst family of switches have been known for pushing the limits of what the network could do. Last year, Cisco’s Catalyst 9000 switches pushed those limits even further by introducing the world to intent-based networking, helping big networks learn, adapt and evolve. Now, Cisco is expanding its iconic Catalyst portfolio to all access, including the branch, across wired and wireless. And it is bringing intent-based networking to deployments of all sizes, delivering a smarter, simpler and more secure network to more customers than ever before.

 “We’re excited to bring the full power of Cisco’s intent-based capabilities to everyone, everywhere,” said Sachin Gupta, senior vice president, Product Management, Enterprise Networking at Cisco. “We want to give IT the tools they need to automate and see the network end-to-end. Our expanded Catalyst 9000 portfolio lets customers do this not only for large wired networks, but for wireless and simple branch deployments too.”

Intent-based networking represents a fundamental shift in the way that networks are built and managed. One that does away with the old manual, time-intensive, error-prone way of doing things. Instead, these modern networks capture business intent and translate it into network policies. This allows the network to be automatically configured in minutes, with the assurance that it has happened correctly.

New Catalyst Products

The Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series was built from the ground up for intent-based networking. It runs on a single, open, programmable OS that powers all access and WAN products. This allows Cisco customers to turn on new software innovations faster, simplify IT operations, and lower costs. A single software controller automates the entire network, while programmable ASICs provide unmatched investment protection. And security is embedded into the network, instead of bolted on.

By extending the  Catalyst 9000 Family to wireless deployments and mid-market customers, Cisco is bringing the new era of networking to even more customers. New products include:

• New Wireless Controller: For the first time, customers can run consistent security, automation and analytics services across wired and wireless environments by leveraging the same OS. The Cisco Catalyst 9800 Series Wireless Controller can be run anywhere—on premise, in any cloud, or embedded virtually on Catalyst 9000 switches. It supports today’s wireless standards and is ready for the 802.11ax standard. It also elevates wireless services with software updates without disruption, new threat defense and advanced programmability.
• New Mid-Market Switch: The  Catalyst 9200 switches extend intent-based networking to simple branch deployments and mid-market customers. For the first time, the mid-market gets access to the full suite of enterprise services, all at a similar price point as the previous generation of Cisco switches. Simplicity without compromise. And with the security and resiliency customers have come to expect from the Catalyst family.

Cisco Indoor Location Wins Industry Innovation Award

The Wireless Broadband Alliance recently added to the already long and impressive list of accolades awarded to Cisco indoor location analytics. The industry organization named the Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) deployment at the University of British Columbia as the Best Business Wireless Service Innovation.

Seventy Thousand Users

Like many educational establishments, the University of British Columbia wanted a wireless network that could meet the demands of its faculty and students.  The university turned to Cisco to provide more 5,500 Wi-Fi access points to support 70,000 concurrent clients and 130,00 unique devices on the network, every single day. Via this network, they were able to provide personalized learning experiences for better student engagement, research activities, and improved operations.

More Than Connectivity

While the ability to better serve students and facility was a clear win, the university saw the opportunity to do more. The university also wanted to use their Cisco wireless infrastructure to gather indoor location information, learning about user behaviors with real-time analytics, such as dwell times, high traffic zones, and heat maps.

The Cisco indoor location solution provided real-time location analytics, enabling the university to get visibility into the movements and patterns of building occupants through trending data. The insights and analytics derived from the Wi-Fi network were able to provide significantly more insights compared with the more conventional and imprecise tracking of occupancy by using CO2 sensors.

Stefan Storey, CEO and Co-Founder of Sensible Building Science explained, “Buildings use over 40% of all primary energy and hence pursuing sustainability is a great sector to be in. The lightbulb moment was when I realized that Wi-Fi data could be used to make buildings smart, to make buildings responsive to people.”

Access Points as Sensors

“Essentially what we are doing is using the Wi-Fi access points as a sensor network,” continues Storey. “The solution tells you when people are coming, when people are leaving a space, how busy a space is at any one particular time. What we are doing is taking that data and sending it to the building control systems, which means that the building can respond really quickly to where the people traffic is.”

Previously, Wi-Fi analytical systems did not talk to building control systems. By connecting the two systems, and by leveraging data insights from the Wi-Fi system, the university, Cisco and Sensible Building Science developed a new system that can influence and control the building’s environmental systems –an approach that is improving energy conservation across campus.

Five Percent Energy Savings

Cisco developed a platform that can interact with other specialized applications through open APIs. The Sensible Building Science Bridge application communicates with the Cisco Restful APIs, extracts occupancy data, performs streaming analytics, and sends HVAC control commands to the building automation system, all in real-time. Now the building HVAC systems control airflow, heating, and cooling into each room, optimizing environmental control to occupancy. The results? Five percent energy savings.

Blair Antcliffe, Energy Engineer at University of British Columbia states, “We have usually to spend a great deal of money for 5% savings, and so seeing that success, we wanted to roll this out. UBC has over 1 million square meters of floor space, it’s a small city frankly. As we expand this out to the whole of the campus, we are looking at between $200,000 and $400,00 worth of energy savings on an annual basis.”