Cisco IQ: Strategic Overview, Architecture, and AI-Driven Support

I thank you everyone for taking your time to joining us this afternoon. The topic of today is our new platform, Cisco IQ, and since it's.00:00Launch in late April. It's been far exceeding our expectations. Currently more than two, 5000 customers have.00:20Already onboarded globally which are roughly 2000 of those are in the EMEA region and 500 of those are in the north region, which we are representing today. So the north region covers the geographic north Analox north.00:28Ricks and Baltics included, but also Switzerland Poland and Ukraine. And the team we have here to assist this webinar today is Juan Lavadez, our customer delivery architect based in Switzerland. He will be doing the.00:48Presentation and the live demo. We have Mohammed Bumesa technical consulting engineer based in Poland and Michael Strovski, partner success manager also based in Poland. Me I Amongnus Lestra, work as a customer success manager and.01:08I am based in Norway. So the the last few months we have seen a lot of interest in Cisco IQ from our customers. There's probably quite a bit influenced by the new wave of frontier models, AI models hitting the market, which again raises the bar of how we.01:26Need to approach life cycle management.01:47Patching, maintaining our platforms and their Cisco IQ is positioned to provide really valuable insights but to get it up and running with with your assets and install base. So Cisco IQ will also be a very central platform for us in IQ for providing good support.01:51Also, very helpful for our professional services delivering good quality services going forward as well. So during this live presentation, this presentation and this live demo, please feel free to ask any questions you have in the chat, either in the public chat or directly to the panelists.02:11If you want to speak up and raise your question vocally, please just raise the hand and we will unmute you. And yeah, that's it for me and I'll hand it over to Juan for the. Take it away. Thank you. Thank you Magnus, so now let me share my screen.02:31Okay, NO, thank you Mark. Magnus and well as Magnus mentioned it, right? So today's I will, I will explain IQ, what is IQ, how this fits in our portfolio of services. Then I will give you a live demo with both Cisco IQ.02:47Do an IQ link, I will also explain what it is, what is the difference, and then we will open for Q and A's. As mentioned, well, IQ is our, our.03:07New tool that we use to provide insights and also the the new way we are delivering services to our customers and partners. So let me start. So basically as as mentioned everything and as you can imagine we are using everything with AI. Whatever we are doing now in Cisco will be.03:19Digitized will be using AI and well again we are transforming the way we are delivering.03:39Services for both technical support and professional services. As you I don't know how you've been working or the relationship that you have with Cisco but the new portfolio looks like this. We have Cisco support basically technique.03:47Assistance every time that you need to replace a box or maybe ah fix a problem.04:07You call the TAC, that's on the left side. Then on the right side you have Cisco professional services. That could be a transactional service. So basically you have a project for six months, ten months. Once this is done, then the engagement is, is done. The other option is subscription, so mean this is a learn.04:13Longer journey, like maybe three or four years, where you have a dedicated team that will help you with ongoing activities, either optimization, consultancy, and so on. What's the difference today? And I'm filing here at the bottom so Cisco IQ. What we released I think two or three months back is a Cisco IQ, it's a.04:33Tool that which is for free, by the way. So free meaning once at least you have a support contract with Cisco, you are granted to create a new account in Cisco IQ.04:53Okay, I will show you in the demo what it is, how it works and all the the good things about IQ. So if we zoom in into the portfolio, you have two sections on the one on the left, which is Cisco support where I just highlight the TAC.05:06You have three levels, the basic, the standard signature. Signature is where you have the more advanced capabilities, restoration of services, H Tom H tech, really advanced features, including AI advanced features. On the right, as I mentioned, Cisco professional services, subscription or transactional.05:23What I'm showing today is purely on the left, the technical support. We have three main applications, which you will see today and well, more to come definitely and more to come also in the same tool, in the same portal, we are including the professional services part.05:43You will see it in, in the demo, ok? So again, Cisco IQ, this is how we are delivering is our vehicle to deliver those services. It's personalized, it's proactive and predictive. Why is important? You may ask, ok, why, why this tool today? And maybe you are familiar.06:01There was a project.06:21Glass wind from entropic. Cisco is one of the companies that were part of this project. And basically with AI, I'm sure you have been using AI, so this changes everything, right? So now it's not about, all the security advisories, all the patches and everything.06:23You cannot wait to really operate your infrastructure. So project Glassquin, what did is accelerate this piece of of security advisories. You may have here that before, I don't know, maybe we we publish our security advisories every quarter or every three months or something.06:44Now we are doing it every two weeks.07:04So yeah, every two weeks because of the advanced capabilities that we have in AI, you know, all the, all the cyber security and attackers, e.g., they now using AI tools to explore those vulnerabilities and maybe attack your your devices. That's why we have this win.07:08And that's why we have Cisco IQ. So again, I really highlight that if you don't have an account or you don't have a Cisco IQ, I would recommend reach out, create account and we can help you to onboard devices and have this visibility. You will see more details in the detail in the demo. How, how you can, how easy is to, to see.07:28To your inventory to see the insights and to see which devices are potentially affected by a vulnerability that it was published I don't know, one or two weeks ago.07:48Okay, so why this so really I have been in Cisco for more than 20 years, so I started as a tech engineer. And since then, the tag process is pretty much the same, but not now, right? So now with AI, again, everything is moving so fast. E.g. in the past or actually.07:58Today, when there is an incident, the tag engineer and even your operations team, they may start being reactive, right? So something happened, we try to minimize the downtime, we try to reduce the severity of this incident, and that's the regular tag process.08:18When we apply those workarounds, we reduce that incident. But now the proposal which is quite cue and in the era of AI, we want to reduce even that incident to the minimum and even being predictive and proactive. Why? Because again, we are using AI, we are.08:37Guys in real time your current infrastructure.08:57More details in the demo, but so you can, you can see how, how actually we are leveraging AI in our in our Cisco solution which is called Cisco IQ. Okay, so now three architectures basically that we have today. What we have today is let me highlight here.09:02What he, what we have here is on the left, this is the SaaS mode, meaning everything that actually that you will see today is is a SaaS, so basically IQ is based in in the cloud, in the Cisco cloud. And you have the option to deploy a small virtual machine on prem to collect.09:22The data from your local environment and we call it Cisco IQ link.09:41Okay. So again, Cisco IQ is like the SaaS model, the main portal that you will see today. Cisco IQ is a small VM that you will deploy on prem to collect data, so telemetry and and inventory from your local environment.09:46You will see in the demo. We have it today and you can even create an account in less than 2 min. You just go to iQ.cisco.com and you will get the account. What is coming here on the right, and this is coming in 24 July is IQ on prem.10:03Meaning for those customers like governments or or public sector that going to the cloud is not an option. We have this new architecture. Everything that you have in Cisco IQ, you will have it on prem, maybe not a one to one parity when it comes to features.10:23But really, I would say maybe 80 to 85 % that the new features are today and in the future, you will get it on prem. The main difference, as you can imagine, we're using AI, you will have some llmiss, well, on this case will be smms, so short ones, you will have it running local.10:41In your environment.11:02We have our requirements, hardware requirements, and we since we are talking about AI yes, you will need GPUs. Once we have this option available, we will publish all the requirements, but just that you are aware if you are one of those customers that you need something really on prem.11:03This is an option that will be available in end of July. Then in the middle is something in in in as as as so in the middle, it's a mix.11:24Between in the cloud and some components in on prem. So what will be on prem will be all those applications and and AI running on prem and in the cloud it's just about maybe the software updates or specific settings that we can collect from the cloud.11:35Okay, good, so this is the three architectures on the left what what you will see today and purely cloud on the right 100 % on prem and will be available 24 July.11:53Okay, so now I think it's time of show time, so basically the three main applications that we have with IQ. These are just the the ones that are available today, but more to come definitely more and more applications that will be available. Most of them in July.12:09Including the on prem capabilities, ok? So now let me stop sharing and we can go to the demo. In the meantime, I don't know magnusy, we have questions or comments? No questions or comments so far. So yeah, you're good to go.12:26Okay. Because I don't see my screen eh if there is a question, ok. I will I will politely interrupt you if there are any questions. Excellent. Okay. So this is IQ. This is IQ. I have I'm using my account. It's a demo.12:45Account that we used and before going and showing IQ, I want to highlight the three ways you can collect and ingest data into IQ. The 1st one.13:05Is cloud connector. So basically for those controllers that you have and they live natively in the cloud, with a couple of clicks, you can connect with IQ. And literally it's a couple of clicks. You can just select the the the the controller that you would like to add, you add it and then maybe.13:18The next day everything will be reflected in in IQ. Today we support inter site, Webex Catalyst SD WAN manager, and Meraki dashboard.13:37That's option one, right? The cloud connectors. Option two is what we call Cisco IQ link. As you remember, if you remember my my slides there is the one in the left, you have IQ link, which is a small virtual machine in the on prem, with your customers or partners. And now here.13:47You don't see IQ link, but I want to show you how the GUI interface looks like. So now I jump into IQ link. You can see it here.14:06You can see IQ link because this is the the the product. And then here you can today we support catalyst center, meaning and then this is an example. So e.g., if I click here catalyst center, you can define the IP of your catalyst center if it's a three node or a single node.14:15Provider credentials and then automatically the, the catalyst center since as we know if you're familiar with catalyst center is the controller for the campus network. So Cisco IQ link will collect all the telemetry data via catalyst center. All your campus network or your.14:35Your switches, routers, access points, it will be collected.14:55Be via catalyst center. And then of course since we have, that's why we call it IQ link, this will be the link between whatever you have on prem with your Cisco IQ in the cloud, ok? If you remember my slide also in the architecture, you remember in the July 24, we will have IQ on prem.15:00When you, if you are one of those customers that you prefer an on prem solution, the on prem solution will include both. The IQ and the IQ link.15:20Okay. Okay, so now that was the IQ link. Let me go back now to the, to the IQ. I mentioned we have three co three days, three ways of collecting data, cloud connectors, IQ link, and then what we call the legacy collector.15:31So basically, if you have worked with Cisco, you may have a Cisco CX agent or CSPC. So we consider those legacy collectors because, well, the business unit, they will not develop more features on this one. Actually, IQ link will replace.15:49All the capabilities that you have in CX agent and CSPC will live in IQ link in the coming, in the coming months, ok? So that's it. That's, that's the, the, the way we collect data. Now let's let's go into the the real so the demo.16:06Basically in IQ, you have three main applications, assets, assessments, and support. Also in the main port and yeah in the homepage, you have Cisco support tiers. Let me open this one before going into the applications.16:25And you see right the basic standard and signatures, what I just show in the, in the slides. If I click review, you have the three categories that we have for the services, and here you can see what is included in those services. Plus it's a quick summary of the.16:43Assets that you have in each and single category. You may have all your your devices in signature or you will have a mix, right? So as we have here in, in the, in the table. Once you have access to IQ, again, you can review the capabilities that we have.17:03And also something that I want to highlight is this help button, right? So here you will find how to open a case, they're getting a start guide, the installation, release notes, and so on. Okay, so let's, let's go back again and then now the I will show you the three main applications.17:22And this is mainly for, the support part. The 1st one is assets. Let me click in assets, and here you will have the overview page. You will get how many assets you will have in your network. Here we have a total a total of 4000.17:42Plus assets and assets with sub comp sub components like e.g. you have a chassis with controllers, with line cards, this is the the sub components, ok? That that's the main difference. Then you will have a really nice dashboards like how many devices they are covered by.17:59Which specific service, maybe you have some devices with NO support, yeah. So here is highlighted. The last day of support, this is a really, this is a snapshot basically to help you to plan your your life cycle of your infra install base because as I we mentioned.18:19Alright, so today in AI, you may have older boxes.18:39That you don't know where they are. This is the visibility that you will get. So you will plan to either shut down or replace with the latest and greatest hardware that we have. Okay, and so on. So I will not go to those details, but this is actually one of the assets breakdowns that you will get. You will get the.18:43Top five product families, so here in this case is Nexus nine K then 2nd one is another flavor of another nine K and also the locations, right? But the good thing here, I can just go here inventory.19:04And you can see the inventories is basically is now a different view, right? So now it's not more graphical, it's on in a table. And the good thing here is, and this is the power of Cisco IQ and this is now really zooming in into the AI topic. If you expand here, so if I can if I expand expand here.19:20You will see this insights. This is the power of Cisco IQ and AI.19:39With just one click, I got the oldest summary of the table that you see below using AI, right? So AI in the back end is analyzing the data, the the location, the versions, and so on. And it's giving me what I call it a quick and dirty summary. But if you want to zoom in, you can click here.19:45Full analysis. And then again, AI will give you and will analyze the same inventory and will provide you more insights, like a nice dashboards, e.g., but that we will see in just a couple of seconds.20:04And if you have, I mean I'm sure you have been using Cisco sorry or something else, right? So at the end, and you will see during the demo, this is how we will now interact with our, our tools using AI and actually prompting. This one is was purely without of the box capability.20:23Is like a couple of clicks. So here on the left, you saw my the let's say the quick and dirty summary. But once we click on analyze, we, we can get more details. We can see this is nice graphs created by, by, by our AI mechanism that we have in the backend.20:42The good thing also you can download here, you can click on download PDF.21:02And then the same results that you got from, from that summary, you will get it in PDF that you could send it to your operations team or executives or who who really needs this, this insights. You can consider this one as a snapshot when you run the, the, the prompting, ok? So I.21:07I'm closing this one and now I will interact really with, with my AI, so what I will do also let me click here filters. Let me reset and then I will click filters.21:27Filters, well, you know exactly what is a filter, but on this case, I'm using this one to showcase only the signature devices. So signature, you know, the the level of support that we have. We have additional filters. E.g., I talk about the data source, right? So in this case, data source.21:42You can select, maybe you, you are only part of the catalyst center team. So maybe you can just select your specific catalyst center or maybe you are part of the, I don't know, the, the inter site team, the data center or the SD one, so you can just select your specific technology or data source.22:01We have mechanism to to filter, of course, so when you onboard users, you can select this specific user, they can access or they can view only what is in SD one manager. For that we create resource groups and we can assign. And this is more a deep dive but maybe in a different session. And by the way, we have the.22:21Different videos that will cover how to create all those filters. But I just highlighted this that you are aware how to do it. Okay, so I think I selected the, the filter. Let me go back, ok? This is same with filter, so it's a custom filter I can create. So if I click this one, you will get I see.22:41To the coverage, so that means and I'm also in some devices we are getting telemetry, but in some they I don't, right? So this is where I I will start prompting with my, with my agent. So what I will do now is I have a prompt ready so I don't need to to type it. So I.23:01I will go here.23:21And I will start prompting with my agent. I'm telling the agent identify the devices in Santa Clara that are going end of life in the next twelve months. And I'm doing this because maybe we need to start the refresh program that is happening now with in the in the company. Then I'm saying.23:22Categorize this by device type and product ID.23:43This was really a simple prompt and again, I'm sure that you are familiar with with or cloud or any other agent. The more precise that you are in your prompt, better results that you will get, ok? And then the same as I explained before, we have a quick, let's say.23:46Quick underty summary.24:06AI is telling me in Santa Clara we have 45 devices with the following categories, but I can click analyze the response, so maybe I would like to ask or get more details with AI and maybe some, some nash nice dashboards or or charts. And this is what AI will do for you. Instead of.24:09If you or the team going into endless Excel files, e.g., with just a couple of clicks or prompts, you get these details, right? So and again you can download the PDF and you can consider this as a snapshot. We have another question Juan?24:28In the chat here, it is in CX cloud partners have the possibility to create so called ask the expert and accelerator session directed towards their customers. Will there be something similar available in Cisco IQ or is it on the roadmap?24:47That's a good question My understanding is that yes, they could come in the in as part of the roadmap, but we need to validate. That's a good question. So we'll, we'll note that one down and and back to you. Yeah.25:02Okay, then that was the 1st part, right? So that was the the assets section. Of course you can hear service contracts, but I will what I will do is I will come back to the main page and now I will show you 2nd application that we have.25:19This is assessment and Magnus coming to your question, if this is something in the roadmap, maybe here.25:38I'm sure that this is a feature that will come in the future. Maybe you have like I don't know training or or ask the experts and most probably it will appear here, but we will confirm. Okay, so now the assets, sorry, the assessments is pretty much the same concept. When you click, you will get the overview page.25:44On this case is about the security, security advisory, security hardening configuration, and field notices. These two, what I'm highlighting on the left, security hardening and configuration is basically all the intellectual capital that we have built here in Cisco for I don't know, the last 40 years. So.26:04All the engineers technical support and so on. We have a really big database.26:23Where we use all this knowledge to start analyzing and and training our llmiss to provide this level of security hardening and configuration best practices. The 1st one, e.g., security advisories. Let me, let me highlight this one.26:27You remember the the and the glass wind project that I mentioned? This is changing a lot. So now every two weeks we will start delivering these security advisories. If you are not familiar with the security advisories, let me let me open one, e.g.. Let me open this one. Security advisory looks like this.26:44So basically you have the name of the security advisory, in this case it's about iOS software and the TCP vulnerability. If I click here.27:04In the in the security advisory itself, you will get all the details, right? So when it was published, the, the work potential work around the book ID, and well, I don't need to say more, but this is this is the biggest, bigger, big document, right? So it's an endless document that as a human.27:14Is really hard to read. And this is just one, right? So sometimes you need or the operations team, they need to review hundreds of security advisories. What would you expect on this case? We will use AI to start doing this work for us, right? So what I will do is I'm.27:33Taking one of assessments or security advisories.27:53I'm just copy paste here and here this is the security advisory. I see six potential, so six affected and four potential. So let me click here, here I have like a summary of the assessment. I can see the asset, so the the device that could be.27:57Affected or potentially affected, the product ID, the IP address, and the support, right? Those are the serial number and so on and so on. I and here e.g. you can add more, more values, right? So more tables if, if you need it.28:17And also a really good good cool feature is that you can maybe order the, the, the, yeah, order the the columns as, as you desire, right? So that's also a good feature. So now what we'll do here, what I will do is.28:32Let me take this one. Now what I will do, I will start again prompting with the agent. So what I will say is I just copy paste my prompt. I'm telling the agent I maybe hitting this security advisory. Confirm my exposure and then AI in the backend.28:48Will do all the, all the analysis. If I expand here.29:08You will see similar again with you or any other agent. It will analyze the data. It will use the LLM that we have and then it will provide a summary or a result. Okay.29:12What is happening in the network, in the back end of course is analyzing 1st. You remember the the security advisory that I just mentioned it, this endless portal is actually doing the same step, right? So instead of me spending.29:31Hours reading those files or those public documents, AI is doing it for me at the same time analyzing my data. And then you get the results right the host names, the product ID, the software, and so on. So you have we have it, right? So we have six devices.29:44Confirm and six another four that we may need to to validate. I could do the same again analyze, but I will not do it. What I will do is I will send another prompt. I will say, provide a workaround. Again, a quick and dirty prompt, right? So the better, the better you.30:04Write your prompt, the better results that you get. But on this case for a demo, I'm just using yeah quick and dirty prompts. And with this one, you get all the details, right? So I just ask, provide a workaround is there is NO fully work around for this security advisory, you may need to do the upgrade.30:23But in any case, it will give you the recommendations on how to mitigate this one, right? So you will get the exact commands that you may need, how to verify, what do you expect examples and so on. So and then also redirecting in case you need to zoom in into more details, then AI is giving this to you.30:43Okay, that was 2nd one. That was 2nd application that we have assessments. So I will jump now into the 3rd application that we have today, and this is mainly about support, technical support.31:03Normally in us in the previous applications, you will get an overview, the number of cases open, the severity, RMA, so RMA is when you replace a part or a device in your environment, and you will get the details of those rmas and those cases.31:20So, what I will do is again using AI I will just go with my cases click here.31:40This is based on the contract, of course, right? So in this case, you will see the contracts, sorry, the cases associated with your, with your contracts and all the telemetry that you are we are pulling with those data sources. So we have a list of cases here, right? Let me open, I don't know, this open.31:47Let me open this one, just as an example.32:08And here I have a summary about the case, the serial number of the device, the severity, the product, what, what is included, and so on. So what I can do is I have the notes, yeah? Normally, let's say that someone, the, my manager or someone else is asking me, hey, what is happening with.32:13This case.32:32What you will do normally you will go to notes and maybe if you have time, take a coffee and start reading the notes, right? But why should we do it now? We can ask AI, so what I will do is instead of me reading this 15 notes, I will ask AI.32:33Give me a summary.32:53Of this case. And you know it, right? So you, I think you saw it. I'm just asking this case, so I don't need to copy paste because there is context already Since I opened the AI in the exact window where there is this case.32:57AI already knows whatever question I'm interacting with, with the agent is about this, this case, right? So again it will it's working on the background, it's providing and analyzing all those 15 notes and whatever is in the back end and it will give me.33:15Yeah, the current status and the action plan. And I I want to highlight it was this a quick and dirty prompt so when the best option is just think about what you would like to ask the agent and then you can you you will get the best result.33:34Okay, then there was really the one one example when it comes to, to, to the cases. Another good thing is that you can ask the cost the the agent to open a case for you. I will I will give it a try. E.g., in my case it will fail because I'm not assigned to this.33:53To this contract or this case. So what I'm saying is.34:13Today is June twenties. Let me change the date because today is July July, July four on 4 July.34:18I'm just up the copy paste my my prompt. So I'm telling I'm I'm asking the agent, let's schedule a maintenance window to operate device X because we need to fix a vulnerability to open a proactive case, including the required notes.34:35For the tech engineer why we are doing this.34:55And the time of this maintenance window is 4th of July, 18 h and then well we need the available engineer at that specific time. And again, I don't have the the rights, that's why he's not able to open it. But once you are entitled in your, in your Cisco IQ account, you will be able to provide.34:58To all the details. But this is really the an option that you will have to open a case using AI capabilities. Normally, you need to go to, I don't know, the tax support page. You need to provide the serial number, maybe potential logs or whatever. Now with AI.35:18It will include all those details because we have it already, right? So it's part of the IQ capabilities that we have. And with that, I think that's what I wanted to show today. I highlighted the, what is IQ, why we are doing it.35:37Architecture and then I also showcase the three main applications that we have. Today you saw only the tech the support part. What will come in the future again will be professional services support also, right? So like maybe how we are sharing documents with you, e.g., like, design.35:54Or something everything will be digitized and everything will be consumed via IQ, ok? So I think with that we can, I can stop sharing and maybe if there is a question or comment, we can zoom in.36:13I think we have tackled most of or tackled the questions in the chat as we went by, but if there are any questions, please feel free to raise your hand and and we'll unmute you.36:34Or if not, I guess we can end earlier today and give some time back. That's always nice as well, right?36:55Yeah, I can't see any questions. We did have quite a few questions as we went by here. So thank you guys. I saw it. I saw like prompting the the question, but so thank you thank you Mohammed and Magnus, so thank you. Yeah NO NO worries. Thank you all for joining and wish you all a wonderful summer and stay cool. Thank you guys. Thank you all. Take care.37:11