Cisco Reveals New Product Innovations at the 28th Partner Summit 2023

Cisco partners from around the world have participated in the Annual Partner Summit 2023 to network and learn about each other's recent achievements. A significant portion of Cisco's revenue, about 90 percent, comes from its partners. These partners are made up of tens of thousands of organizations from over 150 countries around the world.

Massive technological shifts are currently taking place in the fields of AI, 5G, cloud computing, security, and applications. These changes are having a significant impact on almost every industry around the world. In the present scenario, businesses are increasingly relying on technology to revolutionize their operations, enhance customer experiences, and achieve desired outcomes. Cisco, through its powerful platforms, is providing its customers and partners with greater simplicity, flexibility, and choice, to speed up their digital transformation journey.

Together with our partners, we are committed to leading in AI, security, observability, and sustainability, key drivers of our innovation and joint profitability, all underpinned by our commitment to securely connect everything to make anything possible.

"We are thrilled to host Partner Summit 2023, where our global partner ecosystem will come together to discuss how Cisco and its partners can collectively help customers achieve their business goals," said Jeff Sharritts, EVP and Chief Customer and Partner Officer, Cisco. "This event serves as a platform to foster collaboration, share insights, and strengthen the bonds between Cisco and our valued partners. Through our collective expertise and resources, we can drive innovations that shape the future of digital transformation and create even greater value for organizations across industries and geographies.”

"As the digital world becomes a reality, we are excited to share our latest innovations, announced this week at Cisco Partner Summit. In a rapidly evolving landscape defined by transformative technological shifts, our product offerings and enhanced capabilities will empower partners to simplify IT integration of AI, provide simplified and integrated security solutions, and enable organizations to create new modules on our observability platform,’’ said Panish PK, Managing Director, Partner Business Group, Cisco India and SAARC. “Together with our partners, we are steadfast in our commitment to empower organizations in key domains such as AI, security, and observability, as we pave the way for a sustainable and inclusive future."

Cisco Validated Designs for AI

Organizations worldwide have prioritized the effective use of AI. However, IT teams face challenges in supporting unfamiliar application stacks and infrastructure patterns for these initiatives. To provide partners with the most efficient and scalable solutions that can help customers prepare their infrastructure for AI, Cisco has collaborated with leading ecosystem partners such as NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, NetApp, Nutanix, Pure Storage, and Red Hat to develop Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) for AI use cases. These solutions build on proven capabilities and existing IT processes, enabling customers to move faster on their AI journey without increasing risk or creating new silos of operations.

New Observability Ecosystem for Partners 

Cisco's development partners are finding great business value in the Cisco Observability Platform. They are currently building modules that focus on five key areas: Business Insights, SAP, Networking, MLOps, and Sustainability. This new observability ecosystem is vendor-agnostic and aims to help customers meet their specific observability needs. By providing an environment where they can extract value from observable telemetry, customers can better understand their systems and make informed decisions.

New Cisco Security Suites

Cybersecurity threats are becoming more prevalent and complex day by day. That's why Cisco is introducing new Security Suites, which will provide partners and customers with simpler, outcome-driven solutions to strengthen their security posture against accelerating threats. These suites will offer a more integrated, predictable, and economical way to buy and consume Cisco’s robust portfolio of security products. They will be centered around three critical use cases, including User, Cloud, and Breach Protection, which will improve security efficacy, enhance the user experience, and boost return on investment. Moreover, these suites are designed to work across multiple clouds and private infrastructures, and they are built to be interoperable with other tools and systems.

Partner Innovation Challenge

The Partner Innovation Challenge, which was launched in 2018, has awarded partners from 96 countries a total of over $3.3 million. This year, there has been a 68 percent increase in new partner submissions compared to last year, indicating the program's tremendous growth. The challenge has resulted in innovative solutions that address actual customer challenges on Cisco platforms.

The sixth edition of the Challenge included a new award category called Partnering for Purpose, which provided partners with an additional way to gain recognition and funding for innovative projects that address environmental issues and social causes. The participants were required to submit purpose-driven proposals, covering a variety of topics such as digital inclusion, economic empowerment, climate change, environmental stewardship, crisis response, and basic human needs, to support communities, social causes, and the environment.

Winners of the 2023 Partner Summit Innovation Challenge 

• 1st Prize place ($200,000): Ormit Solutions / SplashAccess’ IPSK (Individual Pre-Shared Key), A Wi-Fi solution for universities and multi-dwelling units that delivers a home network experience, enables network security and user access control while simplifying administrative tasks.
• 2nd place (USD 100,000): Long View Systems’ Sustainable and Intelligent Building Analytics, A building management system that cuts energy costs using Cisco Spaces Wi-Fi data and Webex cameras to optimize occupant control.
• 3rd place ($50,000): CAE Labs’ Innovation Network Intelligence, a user-friendly dashboard that provides complete visibility of Cisco investments.