Cisco data center switches feature baked-in security for AI, networking duties

The N9324C, available soon, is positioned as an edge device where customers can inspect and protect traffic and access as users come in and out of the network, Wollenweber said. The second model, which will be released towards the middle of the year, is a top-of-rack switch with 25G ports as well as 100/400G uplinks for server connectivity.

“We have some customers that are going to deploy these when they do their next network refresh. When they start to look at new switches, they’ll deploy these smart switches today and deploy it with Hypershield. Or, they’ll even add these network services over time, because they now have a more intelligent device that can take on new personas or new features and functions,” Wollenweber said. 

Integrated security with Cisco Hypershield a draw for enterprises

The range of networking and security services the new N9300s support will make them attractive to data center customers, experts said. 

“While AI applications have brought the bandwidth and latency concerns back to the top of the networking requirements, additional capabilities are also top-of-mind. Security, especially in hybrid and multi-cloud networks, requires segmentation and enforcement, and the Cisco N9300 can be hooked into Cisco Hypershield to be a network-based enforcement node for certain policies,” said Paul Nicholson, research vice president, cloud and datacenter networks, with IDC. 

“Also, the digital twin capabilities, where upgrades and changes can be tested on a shadow data plane before going into production, will be attractive to IT operations, especially if they do not have the capability today,” Nicholson said. 

Additional hardware capabilities can offer multiple benefits – accelerating security policies, offloading other processors to concentrate on their core tasks for better networking performance, and adding capabilities at scale that would not be practical before, Nicholson said.