 from San Diego, California. It's theCUBE, covering Cisco Live US 2019. Brought to you by Cisco and its ecosystem partners. Welcome back. We're here in San Diego Convention Center for Cisco Live 2019. I'm Stu Miniman, my co-host is Dave Vellante. Lisa Martin's also been here for our three days wall-to-wall coverage with about 28 to 30,000 here in attendance for the 30th anniversary of the user and partner show for Cisco. Happy to welcome to the program a first-time guest, Jeff Schaefer, who's vice president of product management strategy inside of Cisco. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Stu, glad to be here. All right, so Jeff, you know, DNA Center, some of the environments that you have. There were some announcements on Monday. Why don't we start there, walk us through the updates of the product line. Ah, thanks, Stu. So we're really excited, right? So as you know with Cisco, we're really building out the intent-based network in support of digital transformation for all of our customers. And one of the key aspects of the intent-based network is that we have incredible programmability of the network all supported through the DNAC controller. And this week we're really excited. We announced two new innovations in the controller. One was incorporating a new set of analytics and machine learning capabilities as part of our assurance package so that we can more quickly troubleshoot network issues. And the third is being able to connect together the multi-division environments. So how do we stitch together the software-defined access to the software-defined WAN to the software-defined data center so that we can lay digital services across the entire network? Yeah, it's a story we've been watching the last couple of years of Cisco is that this move to software, in many ways, is a unifying factor. Used to be I had all these product lines and I need to learn the interfaces and, you know, as my friends that come to this show for many years, when you said single pane of glass, there's like, come on, that's about P-A-I-N. Today's world, it's an API economy. And what's been really interesting and what's the last, you know, recently, a lot of times it's that ML and AI underneath that spans and helps automate a lot of those pieces underneath the covers, no? Yes, absolutely it does. So the thing we're excited, AI's a broad topic, as you know, and underneath that umbrella, we have built in new capabilities around the machine learning, the ability to do deep learning as we look at anonymized data sets in the cloud and deduce patterns that people don't know yet. And then thirdly, we're looking at machine reasoning. So how do we take that, the analytics to pinpoint or identify anomalies in the fabric of the network in these new IBM fabrics and then be able to couple that with a set of orchestrated automation so that we can emulate the behavior that a network engineer would normally do in order to troubleshoot and diagnose problems and so we're that much faster at identifying them, pinpointing the root cause and then actually being able to give recommendations if not automatically fixing it, the recommendations to resolve the issues. So the programmability aspect of it, of course we're here in the DevNet zone. So can we dig into that a little bit? I mean, I'm imagining by that, it allows me to provision bandwidth, performance, certain levels, all through API calls and it's through software. And I can set thresholds, I can talk more about what that does for me as a customer. Sure, so in general within DNA Center we have a kind of very rich programmability capability. It's very much an API first developed controller so everything that we can do within the controller is a set of published and curated APIs. And those APIs come in different categories. So we have APIs that are around the automatic configuration and the provisioning of the network infrastructure. Very much, David, you were suggesting that you can run as a headless entity inside of a, if somebody like a lot of service providers and partners are using this to offer a service to their end customers. And so they can automatically provision out the network and they can do that in support of new applications. We're really actually excited with our partnership with Red Hat. We just introduced a new set of Ansible plugins as an example to support a DevOps process by which is software developers build new applications as part of that DevOps code pipeline. Using the Ansible plugins, we can actually drive automation into the network to provision the network in support of those apps. So a lot of capabilities there. So is the uniqueness of that that you can actually do that? Or is the uniqueness that you're Cisco? I know, so to a large part, in terms of the way things have been done historically, and this is that most of the time, if you were to look at how do you configure a network? It was device by device and it was through command line interfaces. And it's error prone, it's complex, it's cumbersome, it takes a lot of time. And so what we've done with the network controllers is by moving above the top of the intent-based network, we're actually able to automatically configure and provision either policy through policies, either QoS or segmentation for security and do that in a very automated way. And to be able to do it in a scalable way. So that is, and using new kind of configuration mechanisms, we're very proud of the work we're doing around NetConf and Yang models. And that's something that's very unique in the way we're approaching that in the market today. Jeff, historically one of the concerns was, the network, it's tied to the application wasn't as tight there. It was like, you talk to the networking people, it's just the water that runs through the pipes, it's the bits that go on. We watched with, first with ACI, now with intent-based networking, we're getting closer and closer to that application, especially you talk about multi-domain what's going on, it ties right with the microservices architectures that are coming on there. So as the applications get more complicated, the network needs to be able to understand what's happening there and respond to what's needed and give back the services that they need. Yeah, so I think building on where you're taking that conversation, one of the really kind of key or anchor points of the whole idea around the multi-domain integrations that we provided, when we bring together software defined access, the software defined WAN, and the software defined data center, we're using the rich APIs that exist in all of our controllers, whether it's DNAC for software defined access, whether it's VManage for the software defined WAN, or whether it's ACI around the software defined data center, and we're integrating all three of these controllers so that they can do a couple of really important things for customers, so in the context of the application. So the very first thing is how do we provide for segmentation? So segmentation is about how do we provide access policy and drive that into the network so that the right users have access to the right applications and other people don't. And then being able to use the programmability if the user moves from say the campus to the branch, we can automatically have the policy follow the user. If the application moves from the data center to the cloud, we can have the policy automatically follow the application and that way we always ensure that the right people have access to the right applications at the right time. The other use case around the APIs and the multi-domain segmentation is that to the extent an application needs quality of service. Think about it, 82% of the, as we move forward in time, but roughly 82% of the traffic on the internet is starting to become video on the networks. And like 8K video is 7.29 terabits per second. So how do you ensure that there's enough bandwidth and enough quality of service to ensure the latency of like virtual reality or augmented reality where latency matters? And so the other thing we're doing with policy is provisioning out the QoS so that as you configure it in the data center, it's honored in the software defined when and it's honored all the way to the end user in the software defined access here. Stu, you were saying earlier how the traditionally was like, don't touch my network, all right, it's working. Okay, so Jeff, my question is, is if you look over the last 10 years, as you bring in the software defined data center and infrastructure, programmable infrastructure, infrastructure is code, how is that changed and is it changing the relationship between infrastructure pros and application developers and application development heads? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So it kind of comes from two different angles. So number one, from the extent that every software development organization becomes more and more of a DevOps organization and they want to be able to deliver value, the experience, the velocity around the applications to production. As they go through those code pipelines through the DevOps practices, they need to be able to automatically provision out test environments, they need to be able to automatically provision out the pre-staged and then automatically promote the applications into production environments. And that's why it's so important, for example, as we mentioned just earlier about the Ansible plugins that allow the configuration of the network in support of application DevOps teams. The second thing that we find with the network engineers themselves, to the extent we've defined everything as software defined, we have this rich set of digital services that we're starting to manage in these infrastructures and through the controller, that programmability, the controller, we can, network engineers are having to evolve their capability. And so, we're really excited at the show. So, CZWe, who leads our DevNet program, introduced a whole new category of offerings in support of how you start to become both not only a network engineer, but also development aware through, for example, the DevNet Automation Exchange by making DevNet certifications available through Cisco certifications and by hosting these curated communities where we're able to contribute new applications that run on top of our controllers, we're able to contribute new integrations, new automation logic, new AIML logic, everything that's possible, and by curating it, it means it's curated code, but then it's stored in very common repositories like GitHub. It's so really excited with everything she's doing. It's Cisco's going to prime the pump with initially, right, with apps and code. Cisco's been, we've been priming the pump, but we've actually, over the last little bit, we've developed a number of partnerships. So, we have over 25 partners that have built value-added applications and integrations for, for example, DNA Center. We have a number of partners that have actually taken DNA Center and wrapped it with a new service offering, a solution offering to the network. I'll give you a great example. So, one of our partners at Taltel, so what they've done is they've taken DNA Center at the core and our ability to quickly provision wireless infrastructure, and they've wrapped it with a hoteling solution for convention centers. So, think about a convention center, you have a large space, multiple concurrent shows, every one of them setting up their own wireless network with their own SSID, and so the ability to set these up, tear these down, resolve problems quickly in these high density spaces, and they've built that completely as a solution on top of the programmability of DNA Center and our IBM infrastructure. So, it's a very exciting time. All right, so Jeff, some new things announced, but also I want you to touch on, I believe about a year ago, API and programmability was launched. What lessons learned? What feedback from the customers? Give us the update. Yeah, so we launched the programmability and it's, as we mentioned before, it's kind of a very broad ecosystem of capability. Now, the first thing about programmability is really meant to do a couple of key things. One, and probably most important, is to enable all of our customers to be able to make sure that everything's fit for purpose. So, how do we integrate into their existing enterprise ecosystems? And so, we know we're API first, we have SDK, sample apps, we have a bunch of out-of-the-brox integrations that use all these SDKs, for example, integrations with ServiceNow and others. And so, that's very, you know, that's new. The second thing that we're doing with all of the programmabilities, we're using it to enable the community. So, the challenges we all know in technology spaces is that the rate of innovation continues to expand. It's like innovation is on the sphere, you know, it's the surface area of the sphere and as every year progresses, that surface area gets bigger, the rate of innovation gets bigger and the ability to keep up with that, you know, exceeds the capacity of most organizations. So, the best way to harness that is a community-based approach. And if you don't have communities, if you don't have programmability, if you don't take that strategic approach, it's very hard to stay current and relevant to the market of the future. So, that's another big thing that we're really excited by is being able to track that community and ecosystem of partners and development. Great, Jeff, I wanted to just give you the final word, a lot going on in your space. Any final customer takeaways or, you know, things you want people to walk away from your team from Cisco Live 2019? So, the positive thing that I'm most excited by is that as we look at the transformation of networks from kind of the device centricity to how do we manage segmentation in these multi-domain fabrics and do that in support of ensuring quality of experience, so the bandwidth and the latency and support of the applications, ensuring the segmentation and the security, you know, being able to, you know, minimize the attack surface on these new infrastructures by driving segmentation through the fabric. It really takes kind of a systems approach to this, which is how we bring the intent-based network together with, for example, the new CAT 9K family from Cisco and then bringing DNA center, the controller together, by bringing those two things together, we're really helping to, you know, change the entire architecture of the industry for the next 20 years. So, I'm very excited to be here. Thank you guys. You're welcome. Well, Jeff Schaefer, really appreciate all of the updates. Congratulations on what's going there. For Dave Vellante, Dave, you have a final word to say? Well, go Bruins. This is the only thing I can think about right now, Stu. I, that's what I was expecting you to say, so Dave Vellante, I'm Stu Miniman. We'll be back, getting towards the end of three days, wall-to-wall coverage here from San Diego for Cisco Live 2019. Thanks for watching theCUBE.