Cisco Products

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Its job: decide who and what is allowed on the network. When a user or device tries to connect, ISE checks their identity and device health, then tells the switch/router/wireless controller whether to grant access, restrict it, or block it. It's the "bouncer at the door" for network access control.

Cisco Secure Access

Its job: protect users no matter where they're working from. It sits in the cloud between users and the internet/apps, enforcing security (web filtering, zero-trust app access, data-loss prevention, firewalling) on every connection — so a remote employee gets the same protection as someone in the office, without needing to route through an on-prem data center.

Cisco AI Defense

Its job: secure the AI itself, not just the network around it. It scans AI models and agents for hidden vulnerabilities before they go live, watches for risky "shadow AI" tools employees are using, and blocks live attacks (like prompt injection) while an AI system is running.

Cisco Secure AI Factory (with NVIDIA)

Its job: give companies a pre-built, secure foundation for running AI at scale. Instead of piecing together compute, networking, and security separately, it's a validated design (with NVIDIA hardware) that comes with security and monitoring baked into every layer, so AI workloads can be deployed faster and more safely.

Cisco Isovalent

Its job: secure and monitor traffic inside Kubernetes/cloud-native environments at the kernel level. Built by Cilium and Tetragon, which use eBPF — a technology that runs directly inside the Linux kernel — to see and control how containers and workloads talk to each other, without the performance hit of older network tools. Think of it as security and visibility built into the plumbing itself, rather than bolted on top.

Cloud-based

Describes where something runs. Instead of living on a physical server in your building, the software/data lives on a provider's remote servers (like AWS or Cisco's own cloud) and you access it over the internet — so there's nothing to install or maintain locally

On-Prem

Describes where something runs. The software/data lives on physical servers and hardware inside your own building, owned and maintained by your own IT team — no reliance on a third party's data center or internet connection to function.

Network

A group of connected devices that can share data with each other — could be two laptops in a house or millions of devices worldwide (the internet). Connections can be wired (cable) or wireless (Wi-Fi).

Router

Connects different networks to each other and directs traffic between them — most commonly, connecting your home/office network to the internet. It reads the destination IP address on each packet and decides where to send it next.

Switch

Connects multiple devices within the same network so they can talk to each other. It uses MAC addresses to send data only to the specific device it's meant for, instead of blasting it to everyone — making the local network faster and more efficient.

Firewall

Acts as a security checkpoint between networks. It inspects incoming and outgoing traffic and blocks anything that doesn't match its security rules, protecting your network from unauthorized access or attacks.

Server

Provides a resource or service to other devices on request. A file server stores/shares files, a web server delivers websites, an email server handles mail — it's built to respond to requests, usually running 24/7.