Cisco has completed its acquisition of the security and observability business Splunk.
The acquisition, valued at around $28 billion in equity value, intends to lay the foundations for delivering “unparalleled visibility and insights across an organisation’s entire digital footprint”, according to Cisco’s official announcement.
To ensure a cohesive operational ecosystem, Cisco and Splunk aim to integrate the disparate elements that drive a business, including people, places, applications, data, and devices. This collaboration safeguards their digital infrastructure from cybersecurity threats, downtime, and other significant business risks.
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco, commented:
We are thrilled to officially welcome Splunk to Cisco. As one of the world’s largest software companies, we will revolutionize the way our customers leverage data to connect and protect every aspect of their organization as we help power and protect the AI revolution.”
Cisco will harness the extensive capabilities of its network, along with its advanced security and observability solutions, to provide a unified, real-time view of the digital landscape. This integration empowers teams to proactively defend critical infrastructure, mitigate outages, and enhance the general network experience.
“Uniting Splunk and Cisco will bring tremendous value to our joint customers worldwide,” added Gary Steele, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Splunk. “The combination of Cisco and Splunk will provide truly comprehensive visibility and insights across an organisation’s entire digital footprint, delivering an unprecedented level of resilience through the most extensive and powerful security and observability product portfolio on the market.”
Furthermore, Cisco states its commitment to fueling and safeguarding the AI revolution. Organisations require robust infrastructure to support the full potential of AI, ample data for development, a comprehensive security platform to safeguard it, and an observability platform for real-time monitoring and management to unlock the full potential of AI. Cisco endeavours to address all these facets simultaneously via the Splunk acquisition.
How the Acquisition Intends to Benefit Customers, Developers and Partners
Firstly, the suggested benefit of improved security through a highly comprehensive security solution is that it offers threat prevention, detection, investigation, and response capabilities tailored for organisations of any size. Leveraging cloud, network, and endpoint traffic provides excellent visibility into potential security threats.
Secondly, a highly comprehensive full-stack observability solution is designed to ensure exceptional digital experiences across multi-cloud hybrid environments. Meanwhile, a leading secure networking solution delivered on intelligent, resilient, and continually optimised network infrastructure is also promised to be delivered.
The partnership also promises to deliver better AI. Cisco’s networking portfolio, complemented by enhanced security measures, full-stack observability capabilities, and a robust data platform, empowers customers to securely leverage the potential of AI across their organisations and applications.
Lastly, the platform approach adopted by Cisco and Splunk aspires to assist their customers in consolidating numerous point products, resulting in improved business outcomes and reduced costs.
What Else Has Cisco Been Up To Recently?
In February, Cisco revealed a “first-of-its-kind” Identity Intelligence solution.
Revealed at Cisco Live last month, the solution resides within the Cisco Security Cloud and is complemented by several new AI-powered security capabilities.
Cisco Identity Intelligence enhances customers’ identity infrastructure by offering unified visibility and AI-driven analytics. It enables users to gain insights into their entire identity population, secure vulnerable accounts, revoke unused and risky privileges, identify behavioural anomalies, and prevent high-risk access attempts.
Also revealed at Cisco Live, the vendor showcased a series of AI Assistant features now generally available for Webex Suite and Contact Center customers.
The features include automatic meetings, vidcast summaries, and automatic translation. These capabilities were previously exclusive to Cisco employees or selected businesses but are now available to all Webex Suite and Contact Center customers.
Cisco also announced a compelling sustainability tool for organisations — Low Carbon Mode. Control Hub’s Low Carbon Mode offers location-based insights to manage energy consumption when low-carbon energy is unavailable.
Cisco launched a Webex app for the Apple Vision Pro. The Webex app is now available on the App Store for visionOS, with Patel describing the device as “one of the most consequential devices of our times” during Cisco Live’s keynote.
