Last week, communications technology company Cisco announced a plethora of new tools and capabilities in the areas of hybrid work, cloud, IoT, security, networking, sustainability and more.

The technology innovations were announced at Cisco Live EMEA, the company’s annual training and education event for IT professionals in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region.

“Our customers rely on us to keep them connected and secure, with uninterrupted access to the apps they need to run their businesses efficiently, and to continue to adapt and grow,” said Wendy Mars, president of Cisco’s EMEA region. “That trust is something we’ve forged over many years, and the close collaboration between our teams and our customers and partners fuels the innovation we have on display here in Amsterdam.”

Here are some of the innovations announced at the event, held in Amsterdam:

Cloud security

Cisco customers can now access new risk-based capabilities to better protect hybrid work enabled through multi-cloud environments. That includes risk-based authentication that provides users with access, secured by real-time contextual signals.

Additionally, Cisco unveiled Business Risk Observability, an enhancement to Cisco’s Full-Stack Observability application security solution, available through Cisco Secure Application. It allows teams to generate an application-based business risk score to help mitigate vulnerabilities on applications or services.

These capabilities seek to demonstrate Cisco’s vision to protect the integrity of an organization’s entire IT ecosystem.

Networking

Cisco announced IoT Operations Dashboard to help customers increase industrial asset visibility, securely manage assets from anywhere and converge IT and OT operations.

Cisco ThousandEyes introduced support for OpenTelemetry to provide expanded visibility, correlated insights, and optimized digital experiences.

Cisco+ Secure Connect, the company’s unified SASE ( secure access service edge) solution, now supports integration into Cisco SD-WAN fabrics (software-based, virtual IP fabric) to provide any Cisco SD-WAN customer with access to fast, secure, private application and internet access.

These announcements mainly serve organizations that need to connect core enterprise operations to industrial spaces, spanning utility grids, manufacturing facilities, and transportation networks.

Sustainability

Cisco announced the addition of Carbon Emissions Insights to its Webex Control Hub; this delivers actionable insights on energy consumption and usage of Cisco Webex devices, helping companies track their sustainability goals.

Cisco also enumerated its sustainability programs:

Takeback and Reuse Program – 99.9 per cent of Cisco’s end user hardware that is returned is reused and recycled
Cisco Room Bar, designed with 100 per cent recyclable packaging material
Cisco IP Phone 8800 series will have models made with 100 per cent Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) resin
Cisco Green pay – circular payment solution that offers 5 per cent incentive on Cisco hardware, predictable payments for five years, and free product returns.
Cisco Refresh – buy remanufactured, fully certified Cisco network routers, switches, phones, and collaboration products.

Training programs

Cisco announced its goal to train 10 million people across EMEA in digital and cybersecurity over the next 10 years through its Networking Academy program. This is part of Cisco’s 10-year plan to empower 25 million people globally with the digital skills they need to manage and safeguard the essential digital systems we rely on today.