Cisco DNA is a Game Changer for the Digital Era?

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DNA, Cisco’s DNA, is not that DNA related to the biology. This Cisco DNA, short for Digital Network Architecture, is an open, extensible and software driven architecture for digital business. It was unveiled at Cisco Partner Summit 2016 in March.

With Cisco DNA, we are re-defining networking with an open, extensible and software-driven strategy.

The Cisco DNA is a platform that will give our customers both a roadmap to digitization and a path to recognize immediate benefits of network automation, assurance and security. Wherever you are on the path to digital, with DNA we intend to make Cisco your partner of choice in this exciting journey.

Cisco Digital Network Architecture

Cisco Digital Network Architecture Principles

In developing Cisco DNA, we have committed to five fundamental new design principles for the networking software stack:

Virtualize everything to give organizations freedom of choice to run any service anywhere, independent of the underlying platform – physical or virtual, on premise or in the cloud.
Designed for automation to make networks and services on those networks easy to deploy, manage and maintain – fundamentally changing the approach to network management.
Pervasive analytics to provide insights on the operation of the network, IT infrastructure and the business – information that only the network can provide.
Service management delivered from the cloud to unify policy and orchestration across the network – enabling the agility of cloud with the security and control of on premises solutions.
Open, extensible and programmable at every layer–Integrating Cisco and 3^rd party technology, open API’s and a developer platform, to support a rich ecosystem of network-enabled applications.

Today we are introducing the architecture and the first wave of solutions, including network automation for IWAN and network operations teams, virtualization for the enterprise branch and new cloud managed offers. All delivered as Cisco ONE software offers. And this is just the first wave of technology announcements – stay tuned for more.

Early adopters of Cisco DNA are already seeing the benefits of gaining insights, automation and security through the network:

“Unlike other SDN solutions, DNA innovations like APIC EM can be deployed on our existing infrastructure so we can move quickly with minimum risk and maximum investment protection.” CJ Singh, Chief Technology Officer, Backcountry.com
“With Cisco DNA, I can easily deploy services to a branch office. It’s fully automated, and saves me time and money for my entire operations.” Markus Voegele, Sr. Network Architect, IBM Aviation Industry Services
“DNA-enabled solutions such as CMX Cloud allow us to quickly deliver easy Wi-Fi, gain new business insights on customer trends and preferences, and substantially improve the way we engage visitors that were once largely anonymous to us.” Abbas Rizvi, Senior Network Manager, Santana Row Shopping Center
“Cisco DNA policy-based approach, using NetFlow-based monitoring turns our network into the most powerful all-seeing sensor that has helped us protect our staff, students and intellectual property.” Ryan Laus, Network Manager/Security, Central Michigan University

Rob Soderbery’s Presentation on the Cisco Digital Network (DNA) Architecture

Rob Soderbery, SVP of Enterprise Products and Solutions gives an overview of the new Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA).

In the following video it gets more details on how Cisco is building the next generation architecture to help IT lead the digital transformation in their organization. And explore the microsite to learn more about Cisco DNA. If you are interested in this journey, please join us. Looking forward to hearing how well Cisco DNA meets your future networking needs.

More Notable Mentions on the New Cisco DNA

Here are a few notable mentions from our analyst community recognizing Cisco leadership during this major networking transformation to open, programmable and virtualized networking environments.

IDC: “For Cisco, DNA establishes leadership in the enterprise (campus) SDN and NFV space… This provides an opportunity for Cisco to leverage its proven enterprise networking technologies in the context of an automated, programmable infrastructure that is now relatively open as well.”
Gartner: “Cisco is the first big networking company to come out and say publically, ‘Hey, NFV is for the enterprise too’,” Andrew Lerner, Research Director, Gartner quoted in Network Computing
ZK Research: “Cisco DNA gives Cisco and its partners the ability to talk to these executives about an immediate pain point: going digital as fast as possible.”
ESG: “If Cisco can deliver by providing a variety of capabilities in an integrated manner, they will be able to change the way these new systems are evaluated. I don’t think it will be an overnight change, but this is a great start in this journey.” *