Cisco Systems, Inc. may have been late to the software-defined networking party, but it’s trying to make up for lost time.

Four months after it announced its Digital Network Architecture (DNA) initiative – which puts virtualization, automation, cloud and analytics front-and-center in Cisco’s product evolution plans – the company is upgrading customers’ software with security features gained through recent acquisitions at no additional charge to subscribers.

DNA is part of Cisco’s new embrace of software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) and other technologies that move functions that were formerly in proprietary integrated circuits into software. DNA “is about driving toward an application economy where applications change on a daily basis,” said Prashanth Shenoy, the company’s director of enterprise networks. More than 11,000 customers have bought the software to support Cisco’s DNA blueprint and more than 200 have bought the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (APIC-EM) that supports the range of automation services the company intends to bring to market, the executive said.

Today’s security announcements reflect Cisco’s ongoing strategy to become a major force in security by “making the network the focus of the  threat and the place to take action,” Shenoy said. As its Cisco Live conference kicks off in Las Vegas today, the company is making three DNA-related announcements for customers of its 4000-Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR) and Meraki MX security appliances.

1. The routers will get real-time anomaly detection using heuristic and machine learning algorithms to understand traffic and detect suspicious patterns. The technology was acquired with Cisco’s $452.5 million purchase of Lancope Inc. last October. Lancope wasn’t the only company using machine learning to analyze traffic patterns, but it was an early mover that built up an impressive client roster that includes the U.S. Congress. Integration of the technology into the ISR routers provides “an all-in-one security plus networking infrastructure at the edge with a simple software upgrade,” Shenoy said.
2. Technology picked up with the even larger acquisition of OpenDNS Inc. in mid-2015 will  be added to the 4000-Series to give customers additional features to protect against malware, botnets, phishing and other targeted online attacks. OpenDNS’s Umbrella is an edge content filtering system that distributes and speeds up the process of validating traffic without time-consuming central verification. For example, the technology can be used to provide secure guest Wi-Fi services without validation hassles and latency problems by detecting and managing malicious activity at the edge. Umbrella is part of Cisco’s broader internet of Things  (IoT) strategy to tackle scalability problems by moving functionality out of the core network and closer to end-point devices. It compares access attempts against Cisco’s Threat Intelligence database for verification and then monitors for signs of suspicious activity, Shenoy said. Machine learning algorithms are applied at the edge, and the threat intelligence database is maintained in the cloud.
3. Advanced malware protection and the Treat Intelligence system will also be integrated into Cisco’s Meraki MX security appliances, which provide cloud-based infrastructure for switching, routing and security. Aimed at distributed organizations without IT people in every location, the integration “provides customers with a complete threat management system that is cloud-managed,” Shenoy said. The software also has integrated threat intelligence that coordinates local activity against a database of ongoing threats and machine learning routines that look for unusual behavior.  The feature will be provided at no additional charge to customers with a Meraki MX and cloud subscription.

Cisco said it’s providing an openness layer by publishing APIs that enable third-party tools to plug into DNA-powered equipment and software. The company is also unveiling major certification programs in line with its new focus on programmable networks. “We need to help 2.5 million Cisco network specialists become programmers,” Shenoy said.

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