What's new
Cisco Live 2025: Data Center Networking Innovation Key Takeaways
At Cisco Live 2025, Cisco unveiled a bold vision for the future of data center networking—one that embraces AI scalability, embedded security and cloud-operational simplicity. From game-changing switch architectures to hyper-intelligent security tools, Cisco's announcements focused on building the AI-native, zero-trust and observability-rich data center of tomorrow. Here are five of the most impactful innovations announced.
Unifying Data Center Management: A Look at Cisco Nexus Dashboard 4.1
The blog post reviews enhancements coming to Cisco's upcoming Nexus Dashboard 4.1. It highlights how the new unified platform helps to streamline operations, saves network teams time and money, and simplifies deployment and management by bringing all of the Nexus Dashboard features and functions under one roof.
Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA – Overview
Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA is a scalable, high-performance, and secure AI infrastructure from Cisco, NVIDIA, and our strategic partners to help accelerate the adoption of AI for enterprises.
Day-2 Operations: The Critical Data Center Network Component
While Day 0 planning and Day 1 deployment capture initial attention, Day 2 operations—ongoing monitoring, automation, compliance and optimization—account for up to 70 percent of total data center network costs. Without a proactive strategy, enterprises face rising expenses, outages and security risks. To reduce TCO and improve resilience, organizations are adopting AI-driven and automated platforms like Arista CloudVision and Cisco Nexus Dashboard to streamline Day 2 tasks. Investing in visibility, operational simplicity and intelligent automation is now essential for long-term success.
Operating the Cisco NEXUS Dashboard Platform
Cisco has been at the forefront of developing a suite of standalone tools for data center networking, collectively known as the Day 2 Operations Suite. Recently, Cisco has initiated the integration of these tools into a unified interface called NEXUS Dashboard, providing a consolidated view and shared data repositories for enhanced application correlation. This Learning path is designed specifically for those administrators that need to perform and manage the day to day upkeep of the NEXUS Dashboard product. The learning path will include videos, article and a hands on lab going over what a typical admin would need to setup on NEXUS Dashboard. We will cover whats new with NEXUS Dashboard 3.2, creating routes for the management and data networks, creating syslog server, remote NFS and SFTP storage, creating backups, and upgrading the version. We will also go through remote authentication with radius, creating users and roles, and Intersight configuration. Finally we will bring up 2 ACI simulators and onboard the ACI fabrics to the NEXUS Dashboard platform.
Operating Cisco NEXUS Dashboard
The Cisco Nexus Dashboard platform serves as a unified management interface for diverse data center networks, offering a shared environment to operate Cisco's suite of data center services, including Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI), Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator (NDO) and NEXUS Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC). This lab will guide the user on the necessary administrative steps to set up the NEXUS Dashboard platform. These include backup, upgrades, authentication, remote storage, and other critical administrative tasks.
Monitoring datacenter networks with Cisco NEXUS Dashboard and Insights
Cisco Nexus Dashboard provides a unified and seamless experience for common data center services (Figure 2) on your networks, whether Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI), Cisco NX-OS (through its Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller service and/or running in standalone mode), or even some third-party switches. The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Admin Console (Figure 4) informs the operator of the health of the various clusters, fabrics, and infrastructure services to quickly detect issues and their root cause, allowing users to toggle between the different Cisco Nexus Dashboard services as needed. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator, and Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights services are being integrated as part of simplifying the overall consumption experience for our customers. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) consolidates management for multiple NX-OS‒based switches, bringing automation and monitoring for LAN, EVPN VXLAN, and SAN fabrics.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) and Nexus Dashboard Insights Workshop (NDI)
The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) is a centralized solution designed to simplify the management of modern data center fabrics. NDFC streamlines the deployment, monitoring, and management of complex networking environments, making it an essential tool for organizations adopting advanced network architectures such as VXLAN EVPN, or traditional IP fabrics. With its intuitive interface and robust automation capabilities, NDFC allows administrators to define and enforce consistent policies, configure devices with ease, and ensure seamless fabric connectivity, significantly reducing the complexity associated with large-scale fabric management.
An essential complement to NDFC is Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI), which provides in-depth analytics and operational intelligence for data center fabrics. While NDFC excels at fabric provisioning and policy enforcement, NDI enhances visibility into the operational state of the network. It identifies potential issues, enables predictive analysis, and offers actionable recommendations for troubleshooting and optimization. Together, NDFC and NDI create a unified solution that not only simplifies fabric management but also ensures the ongoing health and performance of the network, providing closed-loop assurance that aligns with business needs.
The combination of NDFC and NDI delivers powerful benefits for data center operations, including enhanced efficiency, improved reliability, and reduced downtime. NDFC automates routine tasks, enabling IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives, while NDI proactively monitors the fabric for anomalies, helping to resolve issues before they impact services. This synergy between NDFC's fabric management and NDI's operational intelligence empowers organizations to maintain secure, scalable, and high-performing data center networks, meeting the demands of modern workloads and applications. Together, they ensure a comprehensive and resilient network management experience.
Cisco ACI and Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI) Workshop
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) is a software-defined networking (SDN) solution designed to simplify, optimize, and automate data center networks by unifying physical and virtual environments under a centralized, policy-driven framework. It enables dynamic application provisioning, centralized policy management, and real-time network visibility, making it ideal for modern IT environments. Complementing ACI, Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights provides advanced analytics, health monitoring, and predictive insights to enhance network performance and reliability. By detecting anomalies, identifying root causes, and anticipating potential disruptions, Nexus Dashboard Insights minimizes downtime and ensures smooth operations. Seamlessly integrating with ACI, it offers actionable intelligence to maintain compliance, optimize application delivery, and secure network operations. Together, ACI and Nexus Dashboard Insights create a powerful ecosystem for managing and optimizing complex data center networks, driving operational efficiency and resilience.
Exploring Cisco NEXUS Dashboard Insights
The NEXUS Dashboard Insights service is a powerful tool that revolutionizes network telemetry utilization. Transforming raw data into actionable insights significantly reduces downtime and enhances overall network performance. This service leverages advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to provide visibility for real-time network operations. This means that IT administrators can see what's happening in the network as it happens, allowing them to address issues before they escalate.
One key benefit of NEXUS Dashboard Insights is its ability to resolve issues proactively. Instead of waiting for problems to occur and then reacting, the tool identifies potential issues early on and provides recommendations for resolution. This proactive approach not only minimizes disruptions but also ensures that the network runs smoothly and efficiently.
Moreover, NEXUS Dashboard Insights offers a comprehensive understanding of the network. It analyzes various aspects of the network, from performance metrics to security threats, and presents this information in an easy-to-understand format. This holistic view enables IT administrators to make informed decisions and optimize network performance.
By empowering IT administrators with these capabilities, NEXUS Dashboard Insights ensures that networks are managed efficiently. The tool's real-time visibility, proactive issue resolution, and comprehensive network understanding contribute to optimal performance and reduced disruptions, making it an invaluable asset for any organization.
Cisco ACI and Day 2 Operations Briefing with Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI)
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI) is included with all Nexus licensing and is compatible with both ACI and NDFC. The platform offers extensive insights functionality, such as dynamic correlation, impact analysis, proactive alerts, failure prediction, and remediation. By leveraging advanced alerting, baselining, correlation, and forecasting algorithms, NDI provides deep insights into network behavior through telemetry data from networking components. This accelerates troubleshooting, rapid root-cause analysis, and early remediation, ensuring compliance with operator intent and simplifying audits. Additionally, it supports multi-site environments, enabling effective monitoring, maintenance, and troubleshooting across multiple data center sites. Overall, Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights enhances network visibility, optimizes performance, and ensures a more reliable and efficient data center operation. This briefing will introduce you to the Nexus Dashboard platform and demonstrate the benefits of NDI.
Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator (NDO) - ACI Anywhere Briefing
Cisco ACI extends its capabilities beyond a single data center. This briefing will introduce you to the architectural options for leveraging a single point of management through the Cisco ACI Manager across multiple data centers.
Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) Briefing
The most common protocols used in a modern Data Center Network (DCN) are EVPN/VXLAN, while there are many benefits to this underlay/overlay technology, it is extremely complex to implement. Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC) can streamline the process for EVPN/VXLAN campus or DCN networks as well as traditional networks. The platform's user-friendly interface and streamlined workflows simplify the process of fabric management, from initial setup to ongoing maintenance. NDFC supports both greenfield and brownfield deployments, allowing for seamless integration with existing fabrics as well as the creation of new ones. By providing a centralized point of control, NDFC reduces the complexity associated with managing multiple fabrics and sites, ensuring that network operations are efficient and straightforward.
Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI) Briefing
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI) is included with all Nexus licensing and is compatible with both ACI and NDFC. The platform offers extensive insights functionality, such as dynamic correlation, impact analysis, proactive alerts, failure prediction and remediation. By leveraging advanced alerting, baselining, correlation, and forecasting algorithms, NDI provides deep insights into network behavior through telemetry data from networking components. This accelerates troubleshooting, rapid root-cause analysis, and early remediation, ensuring compliance with operator intent and simplifying audits. Additionally, it supports multi-site environments, enabling effective monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting across multiple data center sites. Overall, Cisco Nexus Dashboard Insights enhances network visibility, optimizes performance, and ensures a more reliable and efficient data center operation. This briefing will introduce you to the Nexus Dashboard platform and demonstrate the benefits of NDI.
Exploring Cisco NEXUS Dashboard
Cisco has been at the forefront of developing a suite of standalone tools for data center networking, collectively known as the Day 2 Operations Suite. Recently, Cisco has initiated the integration of these tools into a unified interface called NEXUS Dashboard, providing a consolidated view and shared data repositories for enhanced application correlation. This Learning path is designed specifically for those new to networking or new to the NEXUS Dashboard product. Future learning paths will go into more detail about operating and implementing the NEXUS Dashboard platform.
Cisco Nexus Dashboard Explained
A simplified, centralized dashboard for managing hybrid cloud network operations.
Cisco NEXUS Dashboard
Previously, the Cisco day 2 operations suite of MSO, NAE, NIR, and NIA ran separately on computing as a .ova in vSphere or on the APIC as an application. The architecture never allowed for sharing data between the apps or correlations with errors and telemetry views of packet loss. With the roadmap moving, we had applications and a shared data lake for all applications to draw from and correlate between application errors, changes to the policy, and deep flow telemetry, all visual as an epoch.
For all the applications to run and have sharable databases, Cisco NEXUS Dashboard (ND) was created. The ND platform allows all the Cisco Day 2 apps and third-party applications to run on a single appliance. Secondly, the ND has to be an expandable CPU and storage-intensive platform; today, the platform can scale with 3 master nodes and 4 worker nodes with the apps and their data residing on the ND cluster. As ND matures, more ND servers can join the cluster, and they can be separated regionally if within TTL requirements to distribute applications and provide DR strategies.