Founded 12 years ago, Cisco Meraki today claims over 230,000 customers and 3 million network devices. The company is focused on a goal to simplify a technology world that seems to grow more complicated by the second.

“Our mission at Meraki is to simplify powerful technology so that passionate people can focus on their true mission,” said Todd Nightingale (pictured), senior vice president and general manager at Cisco Meraki. “My aspiration is to do that for all information technology infrastructure.”

Nightingale spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed Meraki’s dashboard tool, the growing significance of software-defined networking, and using machines to make life easier for people. (* Disclosure below.)

Simplifying multiple device management

Meraki’s web-based dashboard tool is designed to simplify the management of the multiple devices and technologies that have become integral to nearly every information technology operation. This includes WiFi networks, switching technology, software-defined networking in a wide-area network, mobile device management, and surveillance cameras, which are increasingly generating “internet of things” data for enterprise clients.

“All of this is managed from Meraki’s dashboard, from a single native cloud experience,” Nightingale said.

A key element behind Meraki’s simplistic approach involves management of software-defined wide area networking, which has gained added significance in the evolution of a multicloud world.

“Now that we know that most of our traffic is going to the cloud, SD-WAN is so much more important,” Nightingale explained. “At Meraki, we believe that true SD-WAN should be about the idea of bringing whatever connection you can get … and the SD-WAN technology should provide to you the absolute best application experience without any assistance.”

Meraki recently released assurance products built around security and artificial intelligence cores. Meraki Wireless Health verifies client devices and flags anomalies, while Meraki Insight helps IT administrators isolate network or application problems.

“There are times when the machines are going to do better than the people,” Nightingale said. “The system, the cloud, the Meraki dashboard can do the heavy lifting for us.”

Nightingale believes that Meraki’s message of simplifying technology using tools built around security and intelligence is making an impact. He cited a recent conversation with a Fortune 500 customer: “He said that in his entire time at that company, he’s only been hugged after one project, and it was bringing in Meraki,” Nightingale recalled. “People are really reacting to this idea that powerful technology can be simple.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE