Imagine if you could combine physical premises, IoT technology, and IT into a functional whole. Imagine if you could manage such an entity and the information derived from it in a single cloud service and its interface. Cisco Meraki technology is all this and a bit more. Few even understand yet how to harness all the opportunities it offers for business benefit. How would you like to benefit from the information provided by the network?
Information is collected into cloud services
Public cloud services enable new things that we don’t always think about. Cloud services collect information from different sources, and the real question is, how could you utilize all that information in your business? Public cloud services typically have open API interfaces for application-technical utilization of various cloud data. This is also the case with the Cisco Meraki cloud service. The Cisco Meraki cloud service collects information from network devices, cameras, and IoT devices, as well as the changing things detected around them by many sensors. In addition, information may be collected about network usage and its possible various problems.
Ready-made applications published in the application store can be integrated into the Meraki public cloud, but also custom applications. Meraki cloud information may thus be used extensively, for example, for commercial purposes in large shopping centers without your knowledge, guiding consumers to offers in real-time. Or simply to analyze and regulate the energy efficiency of premises.
Meraki cloud API interfaces enable, if necessary, very demanding technical administrative functions using Rest calls. For example, how would software-based network security automations based on alerts from Microsoft Defender security sound? How automatically does your organization react to such potential security threats, isolating devices on the network if necessary?
IT infrastructure as a collector of premises data
The Meraki portfolio includes a comprehensive collection of IT infrastructure devices and IoT devices. The cloud enables network device management and security maintenance regardless of place and time. It makes IT administration work even more efficient. Where updating network devices such as firewalls has previously been a manual task, edge network vulnerabilities can now be kept in check with quick updates through the cloud. Switches enable visibility through the local network and very comprehensive troubleshooting of network client devices. Wireless network devices typically also include Bluetooth beacons, which track in real-time the Bluetooth signals sent by passing devices such as phones. Camera-recorded footage can be analyzed mechanically. Information collected by IoT devices on temperatures or electricity usage can be gathered and utilized as triggers for various types of automation – for example, alerts for temperature rises.
The collected information can be harnessed for various IT environment management-related measures and for the use of different applications. Sometimes even simple-sounding things can be significant workday facilitators. What basic things would you like to automate in your IT administration based on the information collected by the cloud? It may well be possible.
Connect clouds and networks
Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed network technologies enable, through software-defined network management (SD-WAN), a very extensive interconnection of multiple different cloud services and networks. But when cloud technology makes networks so abstract, where should networks be more closely protected at the edge? If we listen to us security professionals, protecting the network at its edge is beginning to lose its significance. Everything is already in the cloud, and even users are at the end of the pier. Clients and information from different networks should be able to be protected wherever they are. Cisco’s cloud firewall might be today’s solution to these challenges. Let’s protect different cloud services, networks, users, and most importantly, the information itself, but do it centrally in the cloud.
Services from these different cloud services and networks are utilized on workstations securely with Cisco’s modern security and remote access solutions (Secure Connect). When applications are published individually and users are assigned access rights based on the current level of security, we can be sure that only authorized persons are using the services. The era of traditional client VPN solutions is over, as they opened too many accesses to internal networks at once. Workstation users can also be protected with these solutions in Cisco’s cloud firewall on a SASE basis, so the remote user is always just as safe, even when remote without the additional protection provided by the office’s physical network.
When we make the everyday life of end-users genuinely secure and even better functioning, the benefits for business are significant.
Intelligence, efficiency, and performance
When summing up the powers of the Meraki cloud, we find that the hottest thing right now is software-based management and intelligence. Meraki cloud services bring unprecedented efficiency to network management and security, making your IT administration even more performant, but at best, they also enhance your organization’s business performance by bringing more intelligence and automation to operations based on network-generated information.
The next time you consider renovating your data networks, take a look at Cisco Meraki solutions. Because although we’re talking about the “Mercedes of the network world,” the cost benefits through increasing your organization’s business and efficiency may be significant.
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