Blog Post

Cisco has released version 2.2.2 of the Cisco DNA Center, which builds on the success of version 2.1.2, which experienced the fastest adoption rate in history. The new Cisco DNA Center has several interesting new features that stay true to the company’s basic mission of providing powerful connections, greater security, and a pleasant IT experience for both users and administrators. Some of the most significant improvements are summarised in the below section of the blog and moving forward, we will tell you why should you go for Cisco SD-access.

What new features Cisco is offering to Customers in their latest release version of DNA-Center – Cisco SD-access

Improve performance

Is your network ready for your new office, which is now more focused on people and supporting their working styles? Is it equipped with the necessary safeguards to provide a positive user experience? Make things as simple as possible for your IT staff, your users, and your company. AIOps is a reality for network operations thanks to automation and AI-enabled analytics solutions. More automation, improved visibility, faster deployment, and built-in robustness are all features of the Cisco DNA Center.

With Thousand Eyes, you’ll have complete visibility across all your apps, services, and infrastructure – Cisco SD-access

You probably don’t have great insight into the performance of each entity if your applications rely on distributed architectures, multi-cloud platforms, a complicated network of APIs, and third-party services. Troubleshooting and resolving issues would be difficult. Using agents installed and operating on Catalyst access switches, Cisco ThousandEyes enables monitoring for such setups stretching from access to the cloud. ThousandEyes agents are straightforward to deploy on access switches thanks to Cisco DNA Center’s one-click approach for installing the agent on all compatible switches at once. It will even download and install the most recent version for you, saving your time and money while also simplifying maintenance.

Ease your way with AIOps and strong analytics

The Cisco DNA Center continues to emphasize the importance of AI and machine learning in networking. Predictive analytics using AI/ML are utilized for anything from enhancing coverage of wireless AP locations to identifying Wi-Fi-deficient regions in buildings. The new comparative analytics feature allows you to compare the performance of network devices and clients, identify underperforming entities, and improve overall network performance.

New dynamic Wi-Fi coverage heatmaps track the hourly performance of chosen KPIs throughout the day, allowing you to acquire a better understanding of your network, pinpoint faults, and undertake root cause investigation.

The new Baselines Dashboard gives you more visibility into Wi-Fi onboarding KPIs across buildings and SSIDs, which helps you enhance user experience.

Wi-Fi deployment planning with Ekahau

Your users depend on a stable Wi-Fi network. You want a network that is customized to your floor design and capacity needs. You want to make sure you have the proper amount of access points in the right places. Ekahau integration with Cisco DNA Center can now assist you. This connection allows you to export your floor plans to Ekahau, design your Wi-Fi deployment, and then import it back into Cisco DNA Center, ensuring that you have the proper number of APs in the right places.

Speed Adoption

Your users depend on a stable Wi-Fi network. You want a network that is customized to your floor design and capacity needs. You want to make sure you have the proper amount of access points in the right places. Ekahau integration with Cisco DNA Center can now assist you. This connection allows you to export your floor plans to Ekahau, design your Wi-Fi deployment, and then import it back into Cisco DNA Center, ensuring that you have the proper number of APs in the right places.

Get a jump start

A network controller should be just as simple to set up and use as the network devices it manages. Cisco built an express setup procedure in Cisco DNA Center while working on this instruction. You may start using automation, assurance, and numerous other functions within minutes of plugging it in.

With SD-Access, you may create your own path to zero-trust security.

If you have a typical Layer 2 access network and want to take advantage of SD-Access’ features but are worried about how the migration will affect your users, don’t be. Cisco DNA Center now allows you to choose how you migrate your present network to SD-Access. Use the new capabilities that don’t need you to change existing VLAN-IDs to save time and effort while speeding up the conversion process. Whatever your starting place, you may take tiny, incremental efforts to grow your network over time while reaping growing rewards.

Complete your zero-trust security journey

You’ve already built trust by utilizing AI endpoint analytics to identify and profile all endpoints, defining access controls using group-based policy analytics, and enforcing these policies with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and network devices. But, after that initial inspection, can you be certain that the endpoints are still trustworthy? Could they be spoofing MAC addresses to get access to the system? Cisco DNA Center can now continually monitor endpoint activity, correlate endpoint behavior with posture and vulnerability status, and award a numerical trust score to each endpoint. This score can be used to assess whether an endpoint should be quarantined or deleted from the system. At Zindagi Technologies, we have a team of certified Subject Matter Experts who specializes in SD-Access solutions and being the top IT managed service provider, we give you the complete service and solution that is the best for your organization. If you’re looking for Migration / Planning / Designing / Implementation / PoC services for SD-Access, reach us out at  Zindagi. Or call us at  +91-9773973971.

Author
Ravi Kumar Singh
Network Consulting Engineer