Computer networking giant Cisco Systems, which has partnered with Nvidia to develop networks for artificial intelligence, on Tuesday announced new versions of its routers and switches it said are optimized for campus deployments of AI.
Along with the hardware, new versions of network management software make use of a large language model developed by Cisco called Deep Network Model to automate network tasks.
Cisco argues much of network management can be achieved via what’s called AgenticOps, where the development and refinement of AI agents is an automated process akin to DevOps.
The announcements were the highlight of Cisco’s annual Cisco Live customer and partner meeting, taking place Sunday through Thursday this week at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.
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On the hardware side, the 8100, 8200, 8300, 8400, and 8500 are new versions of the Cisco “secure router” family of routers that Cisco says will bring three times the throughput of prior versions. That is meant to handle increased load on branch office networks, Cisco said.
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Likewise, new versions of Cisco’s Catalyst family of campus LAN switches, the 9350 and 9610, have been enhanced to provide up to 51.2 terabit-per-second throughput, “below 5 microsecond latency, and quantum-resistant secure networking to power high-stakes AI applications,” said Cisco.
The new hardware also includes a new member of the Cisco Meraki family of Wi-Fi access points, the 9179F, and “ruggedized” network switches designed for industrial applications of AI. In both devices, Cisco is incorporating the wireless broadband technology known as “Ultra-Reliable Wireless Backhaul,” which is meant as a substitute for fiber-optics. Cisco emphasizes being able to combine URWB, as it’s known, with Wi-Fi in the same devices.
Along with the new hardware, Cisco said its network management software will combine control of the Catalyst and Meraki devices, along with the industrial switches, in a “unified management platform.”
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Underlying the unified management platform is its new LLM, the Deep Network Model. Cisco says the model has been trained on the collective Cisco corpus, calling it “a domain-specific LLM trained on decades of Cisco expertise, from CCIE-level content to Cisco U. courseware.”
The Deep Network Model makes several capabilities possible. One is “Cisco AI Assistant,” a natural language interface for network management. Cisco says the Assistant can identify network issues, “diagnose root causes, and automate workflows,” which it claims will “reduce troubleshooting time from hours to seconds.”
The AI Assistant is in public beta.
Another capability is AI Canvas, which is an AI-based user interface that Cisco says makes it easier for security operations staff to collaborate with network managers and DevOps team members. The Canvas software is expected to be given to “select customers” for testing this fall.
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All of these capabilities are wrapped inside of what’s known as AgenticOps, an emerging rubric that moves beyond traditional DevOps, DevSecOps, and MLOps.
AgenticOps refers to the entire lifecycle of using AI models to automatically code an app, along with the agents the app needs to interface with enterprise resources.
The AgenticOps workflow includes the continuous test and refinement, and recoding, of AI apps, from the first developer prompt to the retraining of the underlying language model.
Cisco describes AgenticOps as an “orchestration” of AI agents, which are expected to have a high degree of autonomy within the enterprise.
Several examples of AgenticOps exist from startups, including AutoGPT, CrewAI, LangGraph, OpenDevin, and AgentOS.
Cisco claims the AgenticOps code will “turn real-time telemetry, automation, and deep domain expertise into intelligent, end-to-end actions – at machine speed and with IT teams still in control.”
You can read about all the Cisco Live announcements on the Cisco news website.
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Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
