The|network|connects everything. It stands at the vortex of IT and business. It has the potential to constantly empower, protect and inform all IT and business processes. As users, devices, and distributed applications have grown in number, the networking environment has become exponentially more complex.

Intent-based networking transforms a hardware-centric, manual network into a controller-led network that captures business intent and translates it into policies that can be automated and applied consistently across the network. The goal is for the network to continuously monitor and adjust network performance to help assure desired business outcomes.

Cisco DNA Center is the network management and command center for Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA), and it is at the heart of Cisco's intent-based network. It enables you to:

• Configure and provision thousands of network devices across your enterprise in minutes, not hours.
• Deploy group-based secure access and network segmentation customized for your business needs.
• Monitor, identify, and react in real time to changing network and wireless conditions.
• Enhance the overall network experience by optimizing end-to-end IT processes, reducing total cost of ownership, and creating value-added network.

While our networks are evolving and becoming more complex, the world around us has also become even more complex. As nations continue to struggle with the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the workforce is likely eager to return to the office and at the very least, return to some level of normalcy.

Ensuring a safe return to the workplace

Many essential businesses have remained open during these trying times, and as restrictions begin to ease up, many will begin re-opening their offices soon and offering their employees the opportunity to conduct business in-person once again. As the global workforce emerges from their office exile, it is critically important to ensure strong safety measures are in place to minimize the risk and reduce the likelihood of a viral outbreak in the office.

The unique circumstances that businesses face today call for a new breed of innovation to help get through these modern challenges. Developer APIs built on-top of Cisco's technology can help facilitate that innovation. While traditional business problems solved through APIs are commonly associated with digital experiences, there is a mind shift brewing that begs the questions, "how can these APIs provide better physical experiences in this pandemic world?"

Like building a network security policy, companies need to be able to have visibility, consistency, scalability, and adaptability across their infrastructure to reduce the attack surface and minimize the potential risks from threats (regardless of whether that threat is digital, physical, or biological). Programmability and APIs are the tools that arm developers and engineers with the visibility, consistency, scalability, and adaptability they need to help their businesses transform and prepare for a safe return to office life.

Rich APIs can facilitate this new breed of innovation

While these rich APIs can facilitate this new breed of innovation, it is up to our partners to be able to deliver on that innovation. Cisco's partners have been uniquely positioned to "be the bridge" that gets the world back to the office safely and deliver these new innovations to their customers.

When it comes to Cisco customers knowing which partners to trust and deliver on that innovation, look no further than our growing list of DevNet Specialized Partners.

The DevNet Specialization recognizes Cisco partners with demonstrated software skills and business practices that leverage API capabilities of Cisco products and services to deliver successful outcomes to their customers. A DevNet Specialized partner is one that is fully equipped to build and deliver on the innovations needed to make the return to the office safe and effective.

While there are many benefits to the DevNet Specialization program, such as Ecosystem Exchange placement to co-market with Cisco and pre-sales consulting opportunities, one of the unique benefits we offer to our specialized partners is the exclusive API Insights webinar series, which provides the latest information on Cisco API releases, industry trends, best practices, and technical deep dives on API-related topics.

The most recent API Insights webinar -offered exclusively to our DevNet Specialized partners - focused on how DNA Center can be leveraged to perform contact-tracing inside of an office building. It began with an overview of the API capabilities provided by DNA Center, making sure that our DevNet Specialized partners had a base understanding needed to advance the conversation.

Cisco DNA Center "Pandemic Proximity" use case

From there, it dove into the "Pandemic Proximity" use case for DNA Center, covering all the implementation details needed to build and deliver this use case to customers. Partners were provided with a deep dive into the technical aspects of this use case and how Cisco technology can better track in-person interactions across the office, as far back as 14 days.

If a business ever faces the unfortunate challenge of dealing with a viral outbreak in their office, they can use these capabilities, delivered by a DevNet Specialized partner, to understand where the contagious employee was in the office, and who they might have come into contact with. This can help reduce the impact caused by an outbreak, keep more employees safe, and help reduce the disruption to business that this may cause. It also has the potential to save lives in the process.

While more information will be available in the future about the "Pandemic Proximity" use case for DNA Center, Cisco's partners in the DevNet Specialization program are uniquely positioned to deliver on this use case today, having gained the necessary insights and knowledge from Cisco experts through the API Insights webinar. Although this quarter's API Insights event has already concluded, I am already looking forward to what the API experts have in-store for next quarter, and how, together, we can all better the world through programmability and APIs.

As a reminder, these API Insights webinars are available exclusively to partners that have already achieved their DevNet Specialization. I invite you to learn more about the DevNet Specialization so that you and your teams can also experience these exclusive insights/webinar events, and ultimately you can see how being DevNet Specialized can benefit your teams, your business and the business of your customers.

For more information on how being DevNet Specialized can benefit you, check out this conversation on the future of programmability and software development, led by Susie Wee, Senior Vice President of Cisco DevNet.

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