Cisco Champion Radio

How do you create exceptional customer experiences? Contact centers play an essential role in shaping a company’s direction and have become a strategic imperative to driving customer loyalty, innovation and business growth. No other part of your organization touches customers more closely.   Tune in to this episode to learn more about Cisco Contact Center and hear how the next-generation contact center platform was built for the future of customer experience. Learn more: cisco.com/go/cc?dtid=opdcsnc001469       Cisco Champion Hosts: David Macias (twitter.com/dmacias), Contact Center Consultant Sijbren Beukenkamp (twitter.com/sijbrenb), 3Corners, UC Cloud Architect Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, BDM and Solution Architect  Guests: Vinod Muthukrishnan (twitter.com/vinod_cc), Cisco, Chief Growth Officer, CCBU    Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Marketing and Cisco Champion Program

Intersight Workload Optimizer is an exciting new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that helps customers solve the critical problem of assuring workload performance while maximizing infrastructure utilization, both on-premises and in the public cloud.   Tune in to this episode to learn how Cisco Intersight Workload Optimizer simplifies application resource management across complex, hybrid cloud environments to deliver an exceptional user experience; how it integrates with Cisco and 3rd party solutions such as AppDynamics and Amazon Web Services (AWS); what problems it solves; how it leverages and analyzes telemetry data from a broad third-party ecosystem; executes specific recommendations to assure performance and/or improve utilization (either manually or automatically via policies); and plans for changes to the environment such as adding new workloads, refreshing hardware, or moving given workloads to the public cloud.   Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/cloud-systems-management/intersi

Machine Reasoning is a new category of AI/ML that you will soon hear a lot about. It saves your IT team time by automating complex and tedious networking tasks. It can also bridge the skill gap by providing automated workflows that empower your newer engineers to perform complex troubleshooting. Cisco is proud to demonstrate industry leadership with these advanced capabilities in our Enterprise network management system and controller, Cisco DNA Center. Tune in to this episode to learn how machine reasoning can automate complex networking management tasks and create workflows for complex processes and how the groundbreaking technology in Cisco DNA Center empowers inexperienced engineers and saves time for seasoned IT pros. Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/networking/machine-reasoning-is-the-new-ai-ml-technology-that-will-save-you-time-and-facilitate-offsite-netops?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Michael van Kleij (twitter.com/mvankleij_nl), Axians NL, Technical Consultant Shai Silberman (

Data helps businesses make sound decisions, and Meraki MV smart cameras have made it easy for organizations of any size to derive additional value from their smart camera deployments. But as powerful as these cameras are, with machine learning technologies and rich analytics, there are simply some physical attributes - like temperature or humidity - that cannot be easily determined by the camera. Lack of visibility can lead to a variety of issues, including premature equipment failure, and network downtime that can lead to costly outages.   Enter Meraki MT sensors. With a unique, simple, and scalable architecture, these new sensors provide organizations with useful information to help them better understand their physical environment. Together, with the visual insight from Meraki cameras, organizations have the information they need to make better decisions, react to events faster, and or take proactive action before an issue arises.   Tune in to hear from Cisco experts and Cisco Champions as they discuss Mer

Traditional approaches were not designed to handle the data volume, velocity, and variety that occurred with the rise of digital transformation. The advent of big data created a need for a different kind of infrastructure architecture. Hadoop distributions became ubiquitous as the volume of data continued to soar.   Now more than a decade after the big data trend started, the market has consolidated behind Cloudera. As part of this big data evolution, the advent of AI and machine learning—as well as the ubiquity of object storage—has shifted architecture demands for big data. New offerings such as Apache Ozone have begun to emerge to meet this need, but infrastructure challenges remain.   Tune in to hear from Cisco experts and Cisco Champions as they discuss 1) how Cisco’s extensive experience with big data infrastructure led to the introduction of the Cisco Data Intelligence Platform to address the evolution of big data, and 2) how Cisco Intersight, a SaaS based hybrid IT operations platform, is reducing the

Cisco Champion Radio will be on a holiday break until we return to kick off Season 8 on Monday, January 4. We wish you a relaxing and safe holiday season.

For organizations to thrive in this new reality, they need to be resilient enough to enable growth and innovation in a dynamically changing world. Unfortunately, with cyberattacks on the rise, and more people are working away from the office—stressing digital infrastructures, the need for a secure workplace and workforce has never been more critical.  In this episode, we’ll explore how Cisco is reimagining security with our new SecureX platform, and how Cisco Business Critical Services enable secure workplaces and workforces.  Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/customer-experience/perform-transform/business-critical-services.html#~expert-views?dtid=opdcsnc001469  Cisco Champion Hosts: Matt Ouellette (twitter.com/mattouellette), Presidio, Systems Engineer Mark Sibering, Devoteam, Lead Architect   Guest: Nagendra Murthy (twitter.com/nagenmur) Cisco, Product Manager  Sam Stratchan, Cisco, Solution Architect   Moderator: Amilee San Juan (twitter.com/amileesan1), Cisco, Technical Influencer Ma

SecureX is a cloud-native, built-in platform experience that connects our Cisco Secure portfolio and your infrastructure. It is integrated and open for simplicity, unified in one location for visibility, and maximizes operational efficiency with automated workflows. It radically reduces threat dwell time and human-powered tasks to stay compliant and counter attacks.   Tune in to hear from the Cisco experts and Cisco Champions as they discuss the newest SecureX capabilities — including 1) ribbon, which maintains security context and threat intelligence across your products, and 2) orchestration, which automates workflows and reduces manual tasks.  Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/securex/index.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Evan Mintzer (twitter.com/evanmintzer), Ashfield Healthcare, Manager Information Security Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), RedEye Network Solutions, Senior Network Security Engineer   Guests: Ben Greenbaum (twitter.com/secintsight), Cisco, T

The COVID-19 pandemic set a new high bar for organizations and their need for increased business resiliency. When the pandemic hit, thousands of organizations around the world found themselves forced to rethink how to keep things running while keeping their employees safe and serving customers and the community. Cisco was one of them.  When work-from-home policies took effect in March, Cisco sent home virtually its entire workforce of 100,000—plus employees, contractors, and partners almost overnight.   Tune in to this episode to hear from Distinguished Engineer, Brian Christensen, and Cisco Champion hosts as they discuss how Cisco continues to enable its workforce to connect and collaborate securely and how it plans to enable a return to the office and hybrid work experience. Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/perspectives/businessresiliencyplan?dtid=opdcsnc001469  Cisco Champion Hosts:  Michael Rhoades (twitter.com/ciscomikey), North American Hoganas, Manager Information Technology  Sijbren Beu

Identifying who and what is on the network is a challenge for many organizations. Incomplete visibility makes it difficult to implement advanced security policies and recommendations, and unknown endpoints can increase the threat surface. There is growing evidence that bad actors are taking advantage of these weaknesses. Cyber-attacks on IoT devices surged by over 300% in 2019, and over 75% of vulnerabilities discovered in 2019 were from IoT devices. It’s clear that organizations must build in the appropriate security as they deploy IoT devices at scale. Tune into this episode to learn more about Cisco AI Endpoint Analytics and how it provides the insights that administrators need to segment and secure their networks—how it helps identify and verify all devices on the network and builds complete profiles. Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/networking/to-secure-your-organization-begin-at-the-end?oid=pstetr022946?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Ben Story (twitter.com/ntwrk80), Redeye Network

Join this episode, featuring three Cisco partners, as they discuss the ins and outs of DevNet Specialization for partners.   DevNet Specialization is a catalyst for Cisco’s ecosystem partners to build and enhance their software development practices, with a focus on automation and application development with Cisco platforms and APIs. Achieving this Specialization recognizes their expertise and ability to support customers with the right people, tools, and processes.   Listen in and hear experiences from current DevNet Specialized Partners, how new skillsets are changing the networking landscape and how you and your company can get started. Hint: Go get DevNet Certified!   Learn more: https://developer.cisco.com/partner/specialization/?dtid=opdcsnc001469    Cisco Champion Hosts: Matyas Prokop (twitter.com/maty0609), Natilik, Principal Architect Paul Giblin (twitter.com/dreamlessod), Presidio, Distinguished Engineer   Guests: Chuck Stickney (twitter.com/chuckstickney), Cisco, Business Development Architect, De

As networks become more complex, automation can tame the complexity and provide agility to meet business requirements for connectivity.  ngena provides this agility and simplicity in deploying Cisco SD-WAN for the as-a-service market.    Tune in to learn how the ngena solution delivers end-to-end automation, and the impact that they can provide for your SD-WAN services, in addition to other services.  We cover overall best practices on how you can successfully implement this agile and automated solution when using Cisco SD-WAN.    Learn more: https://blogs.cisco.com/networking/how-to-quickly-capture-share-of-the-sd-wan-managed-services-market?dtid=opdcsnc001469  Cisco Champion Hosts:  Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, BDM and Solution Architect David Peñaloza Seijas (twitter.com/davidsamuelps), Verizon Enterprise Solutions, Lead Network Consulting Engineer  Paul Campbell (twitter.com/paulmc3), Quaversal, CEO & Founder Guests:  Inigo Alonso, Cisco, Principal Architect  Madhu Somu (twitter.c

A critical component of any zero-trust strategy is securing the workplace that everyone and everything connects to. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) enables a dynamic and automated approach to policy enforcement that simplifies the delivery of highly secure network access control. ISE empowers software-defined access and automates network segmentation within IT and OT environments.   Join us as Chris O’Rourke, Cisco Senior Director, and Cisco Champions take a deep dive into the recent ISE 3.0 release, while covering cloud transitions, going agentless for compliance and AI and machine learning's practical use to identify all network endpoints within the zero-trust workplace.    Learn more:  (AAG) http://cs.co/9005H6JFV (Blog) http://cs.co/9008H6J2g  Cisco Champion Hosts:  Dan Sheldon, World Wide Technology, Senior Consulting Systems Engineer Pieter-Jan Nefkens (twitter.com/pjnef), Nefkens Advies, Network Consultant Shai Silberman (twitter.com/shaidom), San Jose State University, Director of Network Ser

Design thinking is a framework and methodology for creative problem-solving. It helps define problems, design solutions, test and deliver. It can be used by any business or function to achieve extraordinary results.   Tune into this episode to learn more about Cisco Design Thinking principles. Hear how Cisco applies Design Thinking in real-world scenarios and projects with partners and customers to accelerate innovation and product development. You can also get tips and best practices on how to get started with Design Thinking in your team and organization. Learn more: https://developer.cisco.com/site/designthinking/?dtid=opdcsnc001469  Join the Cisco DevNet Design Thinking Community on Webex Teams: https://eurl.io/#OMLM8kGx-   Cisco Champion Hosts: Jose Bogarin (twitter.com/josebogarin), Altus Consulting Costa Rica, Chief Innovation Officer Matyas Prokop (twitter.com/maty0609), Natilik, Principal Architect  Paul Giblin (twitter.com/dreamlessod), Presidio, Distinguished Engineer/ Enterprise Architect 

The changing global environment has transformed how enterprise users connect to applications. The SASE architecture delivers important networking and security capabilities to deliver a seamless application experience—irrespective of whether the user is in the office, at home or in a remote location. The core elements of the SASE architecture are built on a converged SD-WAN and cloud security. Cisco SD-WAN integration with Umbrella delivers end to end networking and security capabilities to address these important cloud transformations for the enterprise.  Tune into this episode to learn more about SASE and Secure SD-WAN architecture.  Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-sase-secure-access-service-edge.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469  Cisco Champion Hosts: Daniel Dib (twitter.com/danieldibswe), Conscia Sverige, Senior Network Architect  Daniel Sheldon, World Wide Technology, Senior Consulting Systems Engineer  Guests:  Eric Trolan (twitter.com/etrolan), Cisco, Techni

We have entered an era where the way people work is forever changed. With a large portion of the world continuing to work from home, many are wondering how the workplace will evolve as the doors open again.   Join us to see how Cisco Webex is transforming the way you operate, respond to change and reimagine how people work together.  From the personal office to the boardroom, learn how Cisco Webex is using automation, AI, sensors, and analytics help to remove friction points throughout the day, provide intelligent alerts and drive changes that will keep workers safe and productive. IT, facilities and HR managers can gain a deeper understanding of environmental conditions and usage to drive workplace optimization and improve employee experience while supporting the unique needs of a hybrid workplace.  Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collaboration/hybrid-workplace.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469     Cisco Champion Hosts: Amr Nasher (twitter.com/Amr_Nasher), Twaasol, Business Development Mana

Cisco Managed Detection and Response (MDR) can reduce the mean time to detect (MTTD) and respond to threats from months to hours. MDR combines an elite team of researchers, investigators, and responders with threat intelligence, automation and response capabilities, and defined investigation and response playbooks supported by Cisco Talos® threat research.   Tune into this episode to learn:  Why and how the security market has evolved, leading to the need for Managed Detection and Response services, How Cisco’s MDR offer helps keep your assets safe, How Cisco’s MDR solution is differentiated from others in the market, How Cisco MDR leverages other Cisco security products   Learn more: www.cisco.com/go/MDR?dtid=opdcsnc001469   Cisco Champion Hosts:  Evan Mintzer, (twitter.com/evanmintzer), Ashfield, Information Security Manager  Mir Hossein, (twitter.com/packetroute), Itron, Inc., Principal Cloud & Network Security Engineer  Sebastian Leuser, (twitter.com/sleuser), Deutsche Telekom Business Solutions G

Today, organizations are facing changes so large, so fast, and so many—seeing acceleration of already established trends as well as unprecedented disruption—that’s making their business models highly vulnerable, or more acutely, at risk of extinction. Tune in to this episode to hear from Cisco CTO, Stephen Smith, and Cisco Champions as they discuss the changes to the way we work today.  And the importance of empowering the workforce to collaborate and get work done from anywhere and ensuring workplaces are always trusted environments.    From flexible remote access to proximity reporting and social density automation; To extending security and performance to remote workers; To asset and facility monitoring for industrial environments.  Hear how Cisco can help organizations rise to new levels of business resiliency with solutions built for change at any scale across the organization, its technology investments and its industry landscape Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/business-resiliency.html?dti

What better way to kick off the 2020 IT Blog Awards season than to bring together technical bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to share their unique experiences? In this episode, you'll gain insights into what inspired some of our Cisco Champion bloggers, vloggers and podcasters to pursue their craft; what challenges they faced (and overcame); and some of the amazing outcomes of pursuing their passion and sharing their unique insights and perspectives. (The IT Blog Awards, hosted by Cisco, is accepting submissions through October 16, 2020. Apply today.) Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/training-events/events-webinars/influencer-hub/blog-awards.html?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Aaron Weiler (twitter.com/aaronengineered), Comcast, Sales Engineer Daren Fulwell (twitter.com/darenfulwell), IP Fabric, Network Automation Evangelist Deirra Footman (twitter.com/ccieby30), 14 West, Senior Network Engineer Kevin Blackburn (twitter.com/theroutingtable), Aultman Hospital, Director of Ne

From low data rate wireless, such as low-power-wide area technologies that are designed for small devices running on batteries, to the emergence of high data rate wireless technologies, such as 5G, and Wi-Fi 6, decision makers and network experts face a broad choice of wireless technologies. But when it comes too industrial wireless technologies, one size doesn't fit all. Tune into this episode and discover several important criteria and methodologies to consider when selecting industrial wireless technologies to meet connectivity objectives. Learn more: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/internet-of-things/iot-network-connectivity.html#~stickynav=2?dtid=opdcsnc001469 Cisco Champion Hosts: Gert-Jan de Boer (twitter.com/gjdeboer), aaZoo Network Solutions, Networking Archaeologist Jonathan Mahady (twitter.com/jonathan_mahady), BHP, Senior PCN Network Engineer Guest: Patrick Grossetete (twitter.com/pgrossetete), Cisco, Distinguished Engineer for Cisco IoT Moderator: Lauren Friedman (