Cisco to link all future products to its SaaS-y Cloud Control management tool

Cisco has decided that all its future products will be linked to its SaaS-y Cloud Control management tool. This cloud-based platform, launched in June 2025, gives network administrators a single tool to manage the company's devices and a significant portion of its software portfolio. The rollout has been slow, as Cisco needs to ensure privacy and other regulatory compliance before expanding to other markets.

However, Cisco's senior vice president for portfolio strategy and marketing, Jeff Schultz, has announced that Cloud Control will be available in the EU, UK, and Australia in February 2027, followed by Japan, India, and Canada in May. Starting next year, Cisco will stop shipping products that do not integrate with Cloud Control, aiming to reduce the complexity of managing its customers' products.

The company believes that integrating networking, security, and observability through Cloud Control offers a platform advantage, leading to better manageability and resilience. Cisco will bundle its Thousand Eyes observability and security tool with its "Essentials" and "Advantage" licenses, making it automatically available with Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 hardware.

Additionally, Live Protect, a tool that implements compensating controls for unpatchable vulnerabilities, will be extended to Cisco's 8000 series routers, secure firewalls, campus gateway, Cloud Control itself, ASR 9000 series service aggregation routers, and Network Convergence System from December and May 2027, respectively.