Cisco releases new developer capabilities for intent-based networking platform

Cisco today announced new developer capabilities for its intent-based networking platform. These capabilities underscore Cisco's progress in creating an open, programmable platform that spans the entire network, from campus to data center, branch to edge. By delivering open networking, Cisco is empowering 500,000 developers, 60,000 partners, and 3 million network engineers to innovate on the platform.

Intent-based networking will revolutionize the way networks are built and managed. These modern networks will move away from the traditional time-consuming, manual network management methods and will be able to capture business intent and translate it into network policies. These policies can then be automatically activated across the entire infrastructure and ensure that the business intent is achieved as expected.

“Intent-based networking represents the next generation of open, IP-based systems that we believe will have a disruptive impact on society,” said David Goeckeler, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Networking and Security Group. “Cisco is building an open architecture that enables an ecosystem to accelerate intent-based networking innovation. Our customers and partners are already beginning to innovate and create value on their networks in ways that were unthinkable just a year ago.”

Launch of DNA Center Platform

Today, Cisco announced a new developer tool and open API for DNA Center, the command and control hub for intent-based networking for campus, branch, and edge. DNA Center transforms the network from a collection of hardware devices into a single system. With the launch of a full network API, Cisco is now enabling developers to easily program this system to take advantage of all the analytics and insights the network has to offer.

• With a rich catalog of APIs, DNA Center enables customers to protect their business in the most efficient way and gain rich insights from it.
• Improve business operations with network intelligence: DNA Center enables developers to program the network as a single system through intent-based APIs. Now developers can easily create a new generation of network-aware applications, while partners can integrate the network into business processes.
• Streamlining functional IT processes: DNA Center enables network IT managers to exchange information to automate processes in IT systems through software adapters. Now IT can invest more resources from operations to innovation.
• Managing multi-vendor networks: DNA Center provides developers and partners with the flexibility to support multi-vendor networks through a software development kit (SDK). This enables customers to simplify the complexity of heterogeneous networks and manage them consistently as a single system.

Today, 15 Cisco partners have built innovative solutions on the DNA Center platform and are demonstrating them at Cisco Live.

Launching the world’s largest developer community for intent-based networking

Cisco also announced that its developer community, DevNet, has surpassed 500,000 members, and as network programmability increases, Cisco will be able to tap into this large and active community to continue to inspire more innovation.

Today, Cisco announced three new developer programs to fuel the growth of its innovation ecosystem:

• DevNet Ecosystem Exchange enables developers to easily find and share applications or solutions built for Cisco platforms. Business leaders and developers alike can use this online portal to find partner solutions for all Cisco platforms and products. The portal currently contains more than 1,300 solutions.
• DevNet Code Exchange provides a platform for developers to access and share software to quickly build next-generation applications and workflow integrations. A curated list of sample code, adapters, tools, and SDKs written by Cisco and the DevNet community are available on GitHub. Code Exchange covers Cisco's entire product portfolio and is organized by Cisco platform and product area.
• DevNet DNA Developer Center is a one-stop shop for developers to build applications and integrations on the DNA Center platform. It provides all the resources, features, use cases, and learning materials that developers need.

Availability, Service and Support

• The new DNA Center capabilities are expected to be available in summer 2018. Customers can purchase these new capabilities through existing subscription channels from Cisco and its partners.
• DevNet’s Ecosystem Exchange, Code Exchange and DNA Developer Center are now available.
• Cisco and its partners offer full lifecycle services to help customers simplify the journey to building a true intent-based network.