Cisco reveals new tech, intends to prevent network issues

Cisco has revealed new technology intended to mitigate costly disruptions by aiding IT teams in learning, predicting and planning.

In development for two years, the company has been building and testing predictive software engines to create a first-of-its-kind predictive analytics engine that will help IT teams prevent issues and elevate the user experience.

Additionally, with this new development, Cisco intends to provide predictive technologies across its portfolio in integrated, straightforward SaaS offerings.

Cisco adds that doing so will make its predictive networks accessible to businesses of all sizes.

Early customer trials demonstrate that Cisco's technology is able to predict issues with high accuracy, assisting IT teams in significantly improving connected experiences.

Over the past three decades, Cisco has been focused on the internet and the subsequent challenges that have arisen as a result.

Noting the evolution of networks to detect and react to issues in order to maintain performance and reliability, the company says the logical next step is for networks to predict problems before they happen.

Cisco predictive networks utilise predictive technologies combined with the company's broad portfolio of observability, visibility and intelligence offerings to provide more robust reliability and performance across all operational scenarios.

The company has tuned and tested predictive models with customers across a range of industry sectors, incorporating advanced analytics and machine learning techniques to allow for greater precision and ease of use.

Cisco predictive networks work by gathering data from a myriad of telemetry sources. Once integrated, it learns the patterns using a variety of models and begins to predict user experience issues, providing problem-solving options.

Customers then have the ability to decide how far and wide they want to connect the engine throughout the network, giving them flexible options to expand as necessary.

Acknowledging that IT teams are finding it difficult to be proactive, Cisco says managing factors such as cybersecurity threats, hybrid work, and hybrid cloud mean that ensuring best networked experiences for employees and customers is crucial. In particular, 24/7 uptime, as unplanned downtime and outages can interrupt employee productivity, customer service and revenue.

Furthermore, the company cites that 45% of IT leaders surveyed said responding to disruptions was the top network challenge for 2021.

It says that people's network connection experiences have also become vital for business, with people and organisations using and relying on applications for most of their processes, adding that an app is the critical first impression for customers.

Cisco cites that 57% of people say brands have one shot to impress them and that if their digital service does not perform, they won't use it again.

"The future of connectivity will rely on self-healing networks that can learn, predict and plan," Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins says.

"Our research for predictive networks has been tested and developed with customers, and early adopters are seeing major benefits saving them time and money. The industry has been waiting for secure, proactive networking and only Cisco can do it right.