Cisco Systems Inc. said today it’s boosting its networking portfolio to help customers become more flexible, productive and secure, and reduce their network maintenance times.

The announcements, made during the networking giant’s Cisco Live digital event, cover Cisco’s software-defined wide-area network platform, which is being integrated with Cisco Umbrella. That’s the cloud-native security service that extends protection beyond the network to devices, remote users and distributed locations.

The company said Cisco SD-WAN now offers fully automated, cloud-native security to protect against cyberattacks. The Cisco Umbrella platform provides a secure web gateway, DNS-layer security, firewall and cloud access security broker functionality in a single service. What’s more, Umbrella is a fully automated service, meaning it can be provisioned and deployed with relative ease.

Cisco is also enhancing its User-Defined Networks service, which gives users an easy way to securely onboard new devices and control which ones can connect to their local networks. The service is being updated with new analytics tools that can provide insights on previously unmonitored devices, helping to enable better network segmentation.

Network segmentation is all about dividing the network into smaller segments in order to improve performance and security, and it’s especially useful for “internet of things” deployments. The new AI Endpoint Analytics service, to be available in the summer, can be accessed via the Cisco DNA Center dashboard, which is used to manage networks, and helps identify previously unknown endpoints and group them logically using contextual sources and artificial intelligence. The idea is that users can then create automated policies to secure those endpoints.

In addition, Cisco is adding group-based policy analytics to the Cisco DNA Center, which helps analyze the flow of traffic through those endpoints. These insights can also be used to design security policies that enable proper segmentation, the company said.

“With today’s announcement, Cisco is helping IT rapidly roll out advanced networking and security capabilities by simplifying and automating segmentation and cloud-based security at scale,” said Scott Harrell, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Intent-based Networking Group.

Later this year, the company said, it will add more analytics tools for its indoor location services platform, Cisco DNA Spaces. They include Cisco DNA Spaces for Return to Business, which helps monitor real-time density within office spaces and other buildings to show how well they’re being utilized. Not surprisingly, Cisco cited the need to take preventative measures against COVID-19.

In addition, the company will roll out what it says is the world’s first indoor IoT-as-a-service offering on WiFi 6 access points. The idea is to help customers deploy indoor IoT applications and devices at scale by providing an easy way to activate, configure and manage them. The Indoor IoT Services also help with asset tracking, environmental monitoring of employee safety, room finding and space utilization, the company said.

Not everyone is going back to work just yet, however, so Cisco is doing its bit to protect those who will continue to work from home while the fight against COVID-19 continues.

“Our teams have worked tirelessly to implement and scale solutions for our customers and partners who
have moved, primarily, to work-from-home environments,” said Liz Centoni, senior vice president of Emerging Technologies and Incubation at Cisco. “The reliance on video calls, VPN, mobile
connectivity and security for an unparalleled number of remote workers has never been greater, nor
has the need for the rapid expansion of remote business capabilities without sacrificing security and
privacy.”

In response, Cisco is pitching a new “business resiliency” portfolio that includes a Remote Contact Center service that enables contact center agents to work from home. It’s also offering a new Flexible Remote Access service that gives employees secure access to company networks, collaboration endpoints and business applications from home. Finally, the new Secure Remote Worker service helps provide better security for remote workers, with tools for analyzing and configuring virtual private networks that can be used to manage employee access.

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