3483: Cisco and Presidio Unite to Build the AI Ready Network of the Future

[00:00:04] What happens when AI Ready Networks, Secure Cloud Infrastructure and Real World Execution meet? Well at this year's Cisco Partner Summit, those threads came together in a way that could reshape how enterprises think about connectivity, automation and resilience.

[00:00:23] Because Cisco unveiled major updates across its portfolio from AI Canvas and unified dashboards to secure routers with five times the throughput of Wi-Fi 7 access points and purposely built for modern workloads. And these demands are only going to increase. So I think that is why it's so important. But of course, the real story isn't about the technology itself. It's about collaboration.

[00:00:53] So in today's episode, I'm joined by Vikas Bhattani and he's the Senior Vice President and General Manager at Cisco. And we also have Ali Tarani and he's the Senior Vice President of Modern Platforms and Networks at a company called Presidio.

[00:01:11] And most importantly, what I want to get across today is how together they're unpacking how Cisco's new unified branch model and Presidio's last mile execution are creating what they call a predictable rollout factory. So we'll talk about AI ready data centers, the rise of agentic operations and how built-in security is becoming the backbone of digital trust.

[00:01:38] So whether you are leading a global strategy or simply trying to understand what AI ready networking means in practice, today's conversation should shine a light on the next chapter of enterprise networking. One where simplicity, speed and collaboration are the things that define success. And I'm also looking forward to demystifying one particular question. The difference between AI for networking and networking for AI in practice.

[00:02:08] Now, before I introduce today's guest, I want to thank our sponsors for keeping the lights on across all eight or nine different podcasts across the Tech Talks network. And it's their support that means I can keep bringing you more than 60 conversations a month with the people shaping the future of tech. So if you enjoy these stories, my sponsors are a big reason why you get to hear them.

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[00:03:56] So Vikas, to begin with, can you tell everyone listening a little bit about who you are and what you do? Absolutely. It's great to be here. Vikas Futani. I'm part of our Cisco product leadership team based right here in beautiful Silicon Valley. And I lead a couple of our businesses more around routing, around what we do with industrial IoT. Awesome. And as I said, we've got two guests joining us today. Arling, would you mind telling everyone a little about who you are too? Sure. Absolutely.

[00:04:25] And thank you for the invite. And Vikas, it's good to be here with you as well. I'm the senior vice president of our modern platforms and networks at Presidio. So think about all things infrastructure, right? Networking, data center, and cloud infrastructure. So who Presidio is, we're a technology services and solutions provider that helps organizations move from foundational ID to really the latest cutting edge AI.

[00:04:53] You know, in practice, what that means is Presidio is a consulting firm. So we design, we deploy, and operate a secure, high-performance infrastructure. Well, it's a pleasure to have you both join me on the podcast today. There's a lot I want to talk about. It's been a very big week for you both. And to begin with, from the Cisco side of things, you've recently announced major updates at the Partner Summit,

[00:05:19] building on the secure network architecture that was revealed earlier this year. And for people listening that are just catching up on that side of things, can you start by explaining what's new in this announcement and also the kind of problems that Cisco is solving for your enterprise customers out there? Absolutely, Neil. So partners like Ali and Presidio were with us at our Cisco Partner Summit in San Diego, California. And just maybe take a quick step back.

[00:05:48] Cisco, when we engage with our enterprise customers, we're really trying to help them solve three key problems. One, it's about their AI-ready data centers. So how do IT operations, CIOs, CISOs get our customers' networks ready for the AI workloads that are coming, AI agents, AI capabilities? Second is really about future-proof workplaces. It's where work actually gets done. It could be in a campus. It could be in a branch. It could be in a factory.

[00:06:17] It could be in a hospital. So how do we provide this amazing environment for the worker, for the human beings to do their work? And third is about digital resilience. Every business at this point in time is a digital business. So we want to make sure that they have the highest level of availability. And if, God forbid, if something was to go down, how can they get back up and running in the fastest way possible? So those are the three macro-level customer imperatives that we are focusing on.

[00:06:47] Now, within those three, let me just double-click a little bit on future-proof workplaces. In future-proof workplaces, our customers really need AI capabilities to help them run their environments in a smooth, clear way. And that's where capabilities of agentic ops come into play. And we announced AI Canvas, a multiplayer cross-domain capability where customers, net ops, network operations teams, security operations teams,

[00:07:16] can come together in a quick way to help them operate their network in a better way. I know we'll talk about this next soon. It's around scalable AI devices. How do enterprises get ready for all of the traffic patterns and capabilities that are changing? And it's really about security. How do we have security imbued and designed right into the fabric of the network as customers get ready for this post-quantum crypto era

[00:07:43] with capabilities around HyperShield and SASE, the secure access capabilities, and how do we bring that together? So, at Partner Summit this week, we announced acceleration across all of these capabilities. We announced how Catalyst Center and Meraki Dashboard can get closely integrated so partners like Ali have one place to go so they can troubleshoot and deploy customer networks.

[00:08:07] We also talked about campus fabric architecture, a cloud-based way to manage campus fabrics and making it easier for our partners and customers. We announced advancement of our AI-ready products around secure routers and making it broadly deployed across these environments. And a project that I'm super excited of working with Ali's team is around Unified Branch on how we're using AI workflows, Cisco-validated designs, and branches code to help our customers accelerate.

[00:08:38] Sorry, Neil, there was a lot going on, so I just want to level set first. No, it's absolutely perfect. And I attended Cisco Live in San Diego earlier this year, and I've been following some of the updates coming out of the Partner Summit. And I've got to say, one phrase that I've been hearing a lot over the last few months is AI-ready network. It seems to appear throughout Cisco's messaging.

[00:09:01] So, just again, to demystify what we're talking about here, what does an AI-ready network actually mean in practice? So, how does it differ from traditional enterprise networking approaches? Absolutely. Look, I think all of us in technology and even our families are really seeing AI change how we live and work on a daily basis.

[00:09:26] And when AI, as AI is rolling out into enterprise networks, things stand up, right? The traffic patterns are changing. Rather than having these spikes of how inference used to be done with agentic workloads, the traffic patterns will change where it becomes constant work that needs to get done. And in that environment, our customers need more compute capability for better inference.

[00:09:48] You need more bandwidth capacity to kind of be able to process this capability and low latency requirements such that these workloads can continue to do their work in a fast, efficient way. So, if you're in the data center, it's really about how you roll out this AI-ready network with hypershield and security designed right in. Two weeks ago, I was in Detroit meeting with some of our large customers.

[00:10:12] And what you find on the factory floor is there are AI-enabled cameras, there's robotics, and all of these environments really need that faster, low latency network such that production lines can hum smoothly. So, now, bringing that back down one more level, in this AI-ready network, Cisco has announced the capabilities of smart switches.

[00:10:34] Smart switches can run in a data center and also in a campus setting, which have much better processing capability and security capabilities like hypershield and post-quantum cryptography are built right in. We're also advancing our routing portfolio.

[00:10:51] With the launch of secure routers, we're providing five times the throughput and capacity for secure networking workloads, whether it's our firewall capability, it's IPsec handling, and SASE architectures for our customers. And most of us are working on Wi-Fi. So, with the rollout of Wi-Fi 7 capabilities, a whole portfolio of Wi-Fi 7 access points, controllers for on-prem and cloud management capabilities, and that is the foundation of the AI-ready network, Neil.

[00:11:20] But we need to make sure our customers and partners can manage it in a smooth, easy way. And that's the power of agentic ops, how AI can help our customers do their work better. And I love how you mentioned bringing your customers and partners into this. So, that's what everything comes down to, really. And, Ali, I'd love to bring you in here. Are there any trends that you're seeing in branch networking from your customers? What are you seeing here? Yeah, so, absolutely.

[00:11:49] I mean, some of the things that we are seeing is customers just want simplicity for the rollout, right? They really want to have an approach where they get the architecture of the design, the configuration once in a gold standard, and that they can deploy it many times as rapidly as possible. And, you know, where Presidio really comes into play, when I look at the partnership with Becas and Cisco, it's about the speed insurance that we give back to the customer, right?

[00:12:18] And with the Cisco Unified branch, together we bring a fully managed and automated blueprint for the branch, right? So, zero-touch staging, golden config templates, integrated security, and a lot of, you know, unified observability. But really, what's the difference? Why do you need the customers want a partner to work with the Cisco? And it is. It's around that last mile, right? That they need some value around.

[00:12:47] You know, you need capabilities to deliver to your customer for site surveys, connectivity, choices that they have, the policy design, and be able to give them a day-to operations. That's easy, right? So, you know, be able to give them automated pipelines for new site, go live, so that those sites can go live in minutes, right, and not weeks.

[00:13:09] And those are really the types of trends that we're seeing from our customers is that level of value that a Cisco Unified branch can bring to the customer alongside what a partner can deliver from an execution standpoint for them. And, Vicas, are you seeing the same at Cisco as well with your customers and partners? That's exactly right, Neil.

[00:13:30] I think if you look at how our customers are, what's changing for them, they're using more and more software as a service models, whether it could be a service like WebEx or they're using Salesforce. They're using public cloud services applications. So the traffic patterns are changing. And where Presidio and partners like Presidio step in is there are no local IT support. So they need our partner community to help them roll out and kind of also run these environments.

[00:14:00] Environment requirements like post-quantum cryptography are becoming increasingly important where financial institutions, government institutions want to make sure that their data is protected in going forward. So, look, I think, you know, branches are really where a lot of this work is getting done. And we need to help our customers get ready for this dynamic environment that they're in.

[00:14:21] And I also read that you've unveiled Cisco's unified branch, which seems to be aimed at redefining how organizations deploy and manage their branch networks. And to let people listening understand maybe a before and after picture here, how does this new solution change the experience for customers compared with, let's say, some of those legacy branch setups? That's right. Maybe just for our audience, Neil, we can just level set what are these branches?

[00:14:49] A branch could be the restaurant that you pick up your dinner service from. A branch can be the retail bank where you go to get a transaction done. It could be a clinic where you go to take care of a loved one. And in these environments, you know, more and more customers just want an amazing experience. They want their point of sale transactions to go through. They want for the agent to be able to get your information up in a real time way.

[00:15:16] So in this time and age, it's really the network, the secure network, which is critical for our customers to deliver their consumers an amazing experience. And in this point in time, as Ali talked about it, you need a Wi-Fi access point that is ready to serve a hotspot in this environment. It's a network that's able to connect a video camera or a point of sale terminal. It's really about a thousand eyes to give you visibility and availability across all of those things.

[00:15:45] In the past, like you said, customers would have to kind of cobble together these different piece parts and then kind of build their own snowflake or a unique design. We believe there's a better, more modern way to deploy these services. So this is where we're bringing together all of this technology into something which is a validated design.

[00:16:05] So Cisco is taking our resources, testing it and proving it out such that partners like Presidio can roll out a branch, you know, in a minute rather than taking days or weeks. And you can do it not just for your few branches, but do it for thousands of branches.

[00:16:21] And so this is where the capabilities of agentic and in this AI era, where we can help build out these workflows and these Cisco validated designs and branches code capability, where the definition of that branch is not in CLI or templates or whatever. However, it's defined by within code.

[00:16:40] And then if customers or partners want to change it with a simple automation workflow, they can now deploy that change to hundreds or if not thousands of locations and manage this drift. We will talk about here in a second as well. And I think Cisco's partnership with Presidio, I think that also shows the value of collaboration in scaling some of these secure branch networks that we're talking about here.

[00:17:05] So just to bring to life the conversation and the topics that we're talking about, are you able to share how the partnership model is helping customers accelerate deployment while also maintaining security and performance? Anything you can share around that? Yeah, absolutely. So I think this is where, you know, Cisco and Invicossa's team in particular has been really good when they were ideating the idea about the unified branch, right?

[00:17:31] They brought, you know, partners such as Presidio very early on into the discussion when the customers team were still ideating these things. And the purpose there was so that they're not doing it in the vacuum, right? We are out there doing these deployments for Cisco at our customer locations, like I talked about the last mile before. And the value that's really being brought there is we can have a two-way conversation.

[00:17:56] You know, we met several times and, you know, discussed what our feedback is on what Vikas and his team are doing. And that's really what the value I see. Now, to your question on the customer side, what's the value there? You know, if I kind of look at this from a customer outcome perspective, customers, you know, they want fewer moving parts, right? They really want a consistent security controls and really a predictable rollout factory.

[00:18:20] And that's why that partnership with Vikas and his team was so important is we could provide that feedback on how do we go about doing a deployment, whether it's 10 locations or 5,000 locations, right? So that that kind of feedback loop can be provided into development of the unified branch.

[00:18:38] And on behalf of every network admin that could be listening anywhere in the world, a question I've got to ask, of course, is how do you at Presidio differentiate between AI for networking and networking for AI in practice, that is? And how do you also guide clients in choosing maybe the best approach for their strategic goals? Because I imagine it could be quite a tricky balance sometimes.

[00:19:03] Yeah, I'm, you know, for far the listeners, I can't see me smiling on this, your question, because I get this question often even within our organization, right? And I have heard of people confuse the two, but there is a very much a distinct difference between the two of them. So let's frame it this way. AI for networking means using AI to run the network.

[00:19:24] So think about AI ops and agent assistant for noise reduction, faster root cause analysis and policy recommendations, and really a self-healing actions that can take place, right? Now, networking for AI is building the infrastructure that feeds AI. So high throughput, low latency fabrics, secure east and west at the edge of the data centers, right? And really predictable quality of service for the GPU clusters.

[00:19:54] So, you know, really the guidance that we give to our clients is, you know, we want to first start with what is the business outcome they're looking for? You know, we want to assess that readiness and choose the right lane that we're going in. So as an example, when we're talking about unified branch, we're generally talking about, you know, AI for networking instead of networking for AI. Love that. And I think we've covered that topic brilliantly there. And I know it's a question you must get a lot.

[00:20:23] And I'll be interested in people listening with their views on that topic as well. And Vikas, for many IT leaders that are listening and struggling with fragmented systems, overlapping tools and skill shortages, another topic we hear a lot about. How do innovations like unified dashboards and AI, Canvas, et cetera, how do these address some of the pain points? Because they are very real pain points, aren't they, right now? They are, absolutely.

[00:20:50] When our customers, you know, they have global teams. You might have a team here in the U.S. You have a presence in Europe that are closer to you. You might have some operations teams in India helping them operate. And as I said earlier, every business is a digital business. So, you know, everybody's work and time is getting compressed because they need to keep these environments up and running because the production or the customer service really, really depends on them.

[00:21:16] So, in our customer environments, the stakes are getting higher and higher in making sure that this infrastructure, this critical infrastructure is always operational. But what we also have is, as Ali mentioned earlier, you have fragmentation. You have lots of different tools. So, Cisco is really focusing on simplifying that for our customers. So, examples of what we announced this week, Neil, is we have enterprise customers that have been using Catalyst Center. They've been using Meraki.

[00:21:42] Now we're bringing them together such that within the Meraki dashboard, they can also see the capabilities and the devices connected to the Catalyst Center, as an example. We have announcing the focus, as I talked about earlier with AI Canvas, has gotten tremendous reception from our customers because what you really want is you might have a team in the U.S. who's troubleshooting in need, but they need to pull in an expert from Belgium, Brussels, or somewhere to kind of real-time collaborate.

[00:22:12] And that's the power of AI Canvas, a real-time multiplayer tool such that you can kind of share information and use generative UI to kind of tie it together. Closer to what Ali and I are talking about is around unified branch for that Wi-Fi access point, for that Ethernet switch, for that secure WAN, secure router device.

[00:22:34] We have now landed on the Meraki dashboard is the one platform by which you can manage this entire capable branch, not just for 10 branches, as Ali said, but up to 5,000 branches. Now, that makes it easier for our partners and our customers to make sure that they can service their end-user needs because at the end of the day, we all want to deliver amazing customer experience and we want to make sure that there's highest level of uptime.

[00:23:00] And so, this simplification, this bringing together of these different dashboards is really in this era of skill shortages is going to be the key necessary capability for continue to deliver these amazing services I just talked about. And from the outside looking in, the new secure routers, Wi-Fi 7 access points and access manager all seem to tie in with Cisco's broader security vision.

[00:23:26] So, how are you at Cisco fusing security directly into the network layer to better protect users' devices and data without adding even more complexity? Because this seems like a big focus right now for you guys. It absolutely is. Look, I think if you, again, take an example of a retail bank or any customers or even a retail store for that matter, then now there are more and more IoT devices that are in this environment. It could be a point-of-sale terminal.

[00:23:55] It could be a video camera that you're using to monitor for safety of your employees. And lots of these devices are headless and they might have versions of software that is a little bit older and maybe not kept as current as your laptop or my iPhone device. So, within this proliferation of IoT devices, customers really need to kind of come up with ability to detect the devices

[00:24:19] and then kind of group them into logical groupings and then create policies between them. So, you might not want your IP camera to be calling home to a website in China, as an example, or you want to make sure your point-of-sale terminal is not communicating to the guest VLAN to for any reason, as an example. So, it really comes down to understanding the devices on your network, grouping them,

[00:24:44] and then creating segmentation or maybe a firewall rule sets between these different communities of different device types. So, that's where Access Manager comes in. Access Manager is a simple, easy way for us to be able to identify these devices, come up with segmentation, and be able to deploy it. And it's building on the capabilities we have had with our identity services engine, or ICE for short, for years. And Cisco has market leadership capability.

[00:25:12] So, that was an advancement that we made in this particular part of it. Now, going back to the branch office environment, customers need a single WAN appliance. They don't want to have a firewall and a router. And this is exactly where secure routers step in. We're going to be providing, as I said earlier, five times the network throughput when you turn on IPsec, when you turn on firewall services, when you turn on SASE services. And that's the power of what the secure routers are doing,

[00:25:39] where security just designed into the fabric of the network. And now, recently, we've been testing this out with agencies like NetSec Open. And our firewall efficacy and capabilities are right up there if you had a dedicated firewall appliance. What does that mean for a customer? It's fewer moving parts, securities designed in from identification to segmentation to firewall services, all that are easy to manage without having to go to three or four different screens, right?

[00:26:07] So, that's what we mean, Neil. We're taking security and building it right into the network so that we can secure, protect, and make sure that it is easy to do that at scale. And Ali, how do you see the customer's needs change and the value that you'll strive to bring from more of a partner perspective? Sure. Look, I mean, just simply put, customers want to fear silos, right? And I think they want faster outcomes.

[00:26:35] And they absolutely want security built in. So, if we kind of look at what challenges our customers are facing with, their budgets are shifting. They're shifting from tools to platforms. And they're shifting from projects to continuous value that they have to bring to their end users. And if I kind of look at this, and based on this discussion, branch is becoming the edge for the AI workloads and secure access. So, simplicity and automation absolutely matters for them.

[00:27:02] And I look at what does my team or what does Procedure kind of bring to the table? And that is the value of being a trusted ally, right, to that customer. We bring Cisco's innovation together with their blueprint and factory approach. And, you know, it's really designed once and then we deploy many. And we want to make sure that we're helping the customer operate that with telemetry driven SLAs along the way.

[00:27:28] So, you know, really to just kind of summarize it, for the customers, it's accelerated time, first value. So, they want that hardened security and they want a predictable outcome with high level of performance along the way. Love that. And Vikas, as we look ahead, what does this evolution towards a more secure AI-powered cloud managed networks be? What does that mean for Cisco partners and customers from your viewpoint here?

[00:27:59] Look, I think maybe just break that question down. First of all, AI is not just, you know, in technology, clearly. It's a wave right now, but it's going to change or this changing how we live and operate in our professional and our personal lives. And, you know, previously we would think about networking and security as two different things. It cannot be. I mean, security has to be built in.

[00:28:22] And so, that's why you see Cisco really kind of emphasizing the need for secure networking, because we believe that is critical for our customers. And as Ali said, like, look, we have to have, we are moving from this tools-based approach to a platform-based approach where you don't, customers don't need to keep finding the right tool for the job. The platform needs to go and help them deploy these services. And this is ever more critically important when you come to the branch, because you have to do this at thousands of locations in an instant.

[00:28:52] And you have to make sure, and you have no resources there. There are no IT experts that can go in and go change that. So, you really have to make sure that this capability is deployed at a platform level globally in a resilient way.

[00:29:06] And I think that is super important because as we bring workers, employees back into the office spaces, and whether you're in this retail store or a branch office or a clinic, you know, ability to deliver amazing end-user experiences, ever more reliant on that secure network. And that's kind of what we are helping. And AI as a capability is really important because the work for the IT teams are shrinking.

[00:29:34] As Ali said, they need faster, quicker response. And all of us have an important role to play to help in this new era where AI is a super important capability for the secure networking offers. Well, a massive thank you to both of you for joining me today and sharing your insights.

[00:29:51] But before I let you go, on a more personal level, I think one thing that we all have in common, I would say myself, both of you and everybody listening around the world, is this real pressure on us all to be in a state of continuous learning. So, to give everyone a valuable takeaway, and Ali, we'll start with you first. Where or how do you self-educate? How do you keep up to speed of this pace of learning? Anything you can share there? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:21] And it's really important, right? So, for me personally, I keep a weekly learning cadence. I block off 30 to 60 minutes a day on self-enablement. And I consume that knowledge in many different ways, right? So, whether that's through listening to a podcast or watching YouTube videos or online reading, the result is still the same for me. It's consuming that data. But lately, what I found myself doing is using ChatGPT.

[00:30:47] And the reason I do that is for much more focused enablement that's tailored to me by just entering exactly the prompt that I'm looking forward to learn on. So, I think that's really, like Vikas talked about, just a different way that we're doing things in life and learning using LLMs is one of those. But frankly, at the end of the day, us learning, especially like myself and Vikas being leaders, the key is that consistency.

[00:31:17] It's small, focused time daily. But the most important part, again, from a leadership perspective is sharing what you've learned with your team so that that compounds with the rest of the team as well. Such a great answer. I was recently speaking with somebody who was on a three-hour drive, and they spent that three hour having a conversation with ChatGPT. And just learning about something, then asked it to turn it into a PDF and various other learning materials that they could catch up on later. And over to you, Vikas.

[00:31:47] How do you self-educate? Look, I mean, there is so much going on around the world in our personal and professional lives. And it's just, it can be overwhelming. So, the way, you know, what I try to do for myself and the teams around us, first of all, we need to maintain our curiosity, right? Like, we need to be curious, we need to be ever learning, and have a growth mindset, right? Like, I mean, I think the tools are changing, but the core principles of what we do needs to, is everlasting.

[00:32:16] So, my personal routine, I'll give you a couple examples. Like, I think my, I go for my bike rides on Saturday, Sunday mornings, you know, and it's probably not something that anybody would recommend. But I have my podcasts on, like yours, and for two hours to catch up on everything, you know, that I miss during the week. And you can kind of slow down and absorb that in a more real way. My favorite tool, I mean, we're just, my family is planning a vacation to come to Portugal here in a few weeks, Neil.

[00:32:44] And so, we've been, I've been genuinely using Perplexity, but my wife uses ChatGPT to plan our itinerary and, like, look at the hotels and all of it. So, look, I think, you know, just, I would just say, look, staying curious, having a growth mindset and capabilities, you know, today it's AI, but capabilities like that to keep learning and getting better with everything that we do. And accommodating that in our busy personal and professional lives, so. Absolutely love it.

[00:33:10] I love how both yourself, your wife, and indeed, are they all using different AI tools in a way that help you, help you improve, help you get better. So much food for thought there. And for anybody listening that maybe missed some of the announcements outside of the Partner Summit, is there any way you'd like to point everyone listening, Vikas, that could just keep up to speed and follow some of the information coming out there? Yeah, no, I think, as always, you know, I think we have many social media handles.

[00:33:38] I think I just, like, our LinkedIn handle for enterprise networking at Cisco is now live, and we are going to see more and more information. Actually, we just posted a case study we did with Brian from Neil's team, Ali's team yesterday, and Cisco.com. I believe those are probably the best places to go to kind of what's coming up all across Cisco. Awesome. Well, I will get the links and post them in the show notes to everything we mentioned there. Make it easy for people just to hit a quick click on there.

[00:34:07] And Ali, for anyone interested in all things Presidio, where should they be going? Sure, yeah. Please come and visit our website at Presidio.com, and similar to Cisco, you know, try to follow us on social media. Find me on LinkedIn, and if you have any direct questions, I'd be glad to respond to you there as well. Awesome. Well, as I said there, a big thank you to you both. There's some big news being announced at the Cisco Partner Summit this year. But for me, it's not even about the announcements. It's the collaboration.

[00:34:35] It's the community and the things that you're building together here, and how you're helping customers and partners and leveraging technology to do just that. But more than anything, just thank you to both of you for taking the time to sit down with me and share your insights today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Neil. Thanks, Ali, for our continued partnership. Thank you, Michael. I think one of the many things that stood out to me in that conversation today is how the language of networking has changed.

[00:35:00] It wasn't too long ago we only talked about routers, switches, and uptime. Now the conversation is about automation, telemetry, co-defined branches that go live in minutes instead of weeks. And the partnership between Cisco and Presidio isn't just a business alignment. For me, it's a working example, an example of how to turn an architecture into an outcome.

[00:35:27] And as AI transforms workloads and security becomes inseparable from networking, I think it's clear that the companies leading the charge are those building for adaptability, not just performance. And if the unified branch blueprint delivers on what we heard today, it could redefine what future-proof really means for enterprise IT. But over to you, what do you think?

[00:35:55] Are we finally moving toward networks that manage themselves? Or will human expertise remain the most important layer in the stack? Love to hear your thoughts on anything we discussed today. Share them with me on social, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, just at Neil C. Hughes. Or wherever you listen to this. And remember, head over to techtalksnetwork.com. We have eight podcasts, thousands of interviews. I'm afraid they all do include me. But have a listen over there.

[00:36:25] Let me know your thoughts. There's even a way of clicking a button and sending me an audio message. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. But that is it for today. I've taken up far too much of your time. So I'm going to walk off into the sunset. And I'll be back again waiting inside your podcast feed tomorrow with another conversation. Speak with you all then. Bye for now.