Three insights you might have missed from the Cisco Live event

The mantra of networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. was well understood long before Cisco Live 2023 kicked off in Las Vegas last week — future-proofing in an increasingly hybrid world.

But such a vision posed some big questions: How might artificial intelligence disrupt best-laid plans? And what might Cisco’s plan to respond to the future look like?

In a wrap-up commentary of the event written for SiliconANGLE, Zeus Kerravala (pictured, right at bottom), principal analyst at ZK Research, wrote that Cisco had rolled out the “most comprehensive set of announcements that I can remember” at this year’s event.

“They spanned the entire product set, but had a singular focus of raising the value of the end-to-end Cisco platform,” Kerravala wrote. “Accomplishing this would add value to both Cisco and its customers.”

In addition to commentary from Kerravala, theCUBE industry analysts John Furrier and Dave Vellante (left) discussed the road ahead and the broader solutions being built during SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio theCUBE’s coverage of the event. (* Disclosure below.) 

Here are three key insights you may have missed:

When it comes to companies that differentiate on ease of use, Furrier raised the example of Apple Inc. during an analysis with Kerravala, which is now worth nearly $3 trillion.

“Furrier theorized that if Cisco can pull this off, it can be the next trillion-dollar company. Cisco currently stands at about $200 billion in value, meaning $1 trillion would indicate a fivefold increase,” Kerravala wrote in his wrap-up commentary. “Can Cisco get there? Only time will tell, but the one thing I do know is that it won’t achieve this without the evolution to a platform.”

The shift in thinking also applies to the company more broadly, in an effort to move beyond a perception of Cisco solely as a networking company, according to Bob O’Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research LLC.

“They are inherently involved with the creation and the delivery of applications. This stuff happens all over the place, and it’s making those network connections happen and then monitoring them … that is really their key to success moving forward,” O’Donnell said.

Part of what was revealed at this year’s Cisco Live event was the company’s vision for multicloud network and security, with a goal to unify its network and security offerings, in part, to enable developers to build on its platform.

When it came to the company’s message on simplification and complexity, Cisco received high marks, according to Vellante.

“Now, it’s got to play out over the next several years,” Vellante said. “To me, they announced three superclouds. They announced the networking supercloud, a security supercloud and a full stack observability supercloud, which sort of weaves through the other two. Now, over the next couple years, we’re going to see those things come together.”

In addition to that theme of simplicity, Furrier said he felt as though unification was another big part of Cisco Live — that even though the company used to have unified as a part of their compute model, in this case they were thinking bigger with unified platforms.

All of it together represents a big shift for the company, according to Vellante.

“Cisco’s in the process of moving from a product culture to a platform culture. From push the next feature to let the ecosystem and the customers guide us as to what features we want to enable on the platform,” he said. “That’s a different mindset, different thinking. The mindset can’t be understated. It’s the culture.”

Here’s the complete video analysis with Dave Vellante and John Furrier, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event:

Networking professionals often keep a close eye on Cisco Live, which often includes a number of product announcements. This year was no different, but most were geared toward building broader solutions, as Kerravala wrote in his wrap-up commentary.

During Cisco Live, the company rolled out upgrades to Panoptica, a cloud-native security development platform. Panoptica emerged out of Outshift, a Cisco initiative aimed at exploring new frontiers in cloud through research and open-source project contributions, along with new software development. Panoptica ensures security thanks to its end-to-end capabilities, covering areas from runtime to deployment, according to Vijoy Pandey (right, at top), senior vice president of Outshift at Cisco.

“It does everything from how, what and where in the application security space with the context and prioritization of attack parts,” he said. “Now, Panoptica is also tackling runtime security, deploy time security, as well as develop time security, because, again, it needs to be end-to-end. You can’t just look at runtime and forget about the developers. That’s where the friction is.”

That security market is, of course, large and fragmented, a reality that spurred Cisco’s new Security Cloud, which is a generative AI-driven approach to cybersecurity.

“The attackers are getting more sophisticated, they’re getting more coordinated, and our defenses are getting more isolated because of the point solutions,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of the Security and Collaboration Business Units at Cisco. “That just doesn’t make any sense. It should be the other way around.”

The company is also utilizing AI to incorporate features, such as noise isolation and voice optimization, into Webex to enable enhanced telepresence, according to Snorre Kjesbu, senior vice president and general manager of collaboration devices at Cisco.

“We’ve been working on machine learning and AI and had those features out in our products since 2016. We just launched a brand new product this week here at Cisco Live, which is the Room Bar Pro … it gives us 20 times the AI, machine learning capabilities that anyone has had in the past,” Kjesbu said.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Snorre Kjesbu:

In an effort to bring automation to the factory floor, automobile manufacturer Audi AG has sought to revolutionize its production processes through the implementation of a smart factory.

“We wanted to go down this smart factory route. At some point we figured out, ‘Hey, we need to change something,’” said Henning Loeser, head of the Audi Production Lab.

That’s where the P-Lab comes into play, according to Loeser.

“We’re the group of nerds that get to play around with technology and figure out, hands-on, is this helpful for us in production or not?” he said. “[People in the data center] introduced us to the concept of hyperconverged infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines and all of that.”

The company didn’t want to throw away all of its equipment just to change a protocol.

“We needed to figure out … how do you tunnel a field pass protocol that’s key for automation through a Layer 3 network to a hyperconverged infrastructure, that then does the compute and gets the data back down to the shop floor so that it does what it’s supposed to do? That was quite a challenge,” Loeser said.

Audi collaborated with Cisco to address part of its needs, with its eyes toward its goal of a more technologically advanced manufacturing environment. In addition to Audi, Cisco Live was an opportunity to hear from other companies that have incorporated Cisco solutions into their offerings, including cruise line operator Royal Caribbean Group. The company implemented a full-stack observability approach, utilizing Cisco’s AppDynamics.

The company had a challenge regarding customers informing the company that their website was down or that they couldn’t make cruise bookings, according to Alice McElroy, director of IT service management at Royal Caribbean.

“We started this journey of wanting to simplify and figure out, ‘How do we use tools to help us get out of that?’ We turned to [AppDynamics] at that point,” McElroy said. “We went through that transformation, and as we got AppDynamics in place, we were able to reduce the number of people that it took to resolve issues. We got great results in our mean time to resolution.”

Here’s theCUBE’s full interview with Henning Loeser:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event, here’s our complete event video playlist:

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU

Every Classroom And Exam Question And Answer For Persona 5 Royal

As if stealing the hearts of Tokyo’s most corrupt in Persona 5 Royal wasn’t a big enough task on its own, you’ll also have to contend with all the worries of a normal high schooler, and that includes your schoolwork. Throughout your year at Shujin Academy, you’ll be asked a number of questions both in-class and on exams, and the perks for doing well are numerous.

RELATED: How Long Does It Take To Beat Persona 5 Royal?

The questions you’ll get can be a little tough, though, but that’s where we come in. Below, you’ll find every classroom and exam question and answer for Persona 5 Royal. Good luck in school!

This answer guide is only for Persona 5 Royal. If you're playing vanilla P5, your answers will be different.

This guide contains slight spoilers for Persona 5 Royal.

Date

Question

Correct Answer

4/12

Tell me what the Devil’s Dictionary defined as the chief factor in the progress of the human race.

Villains

4/19

Between A and B… which line seems longer…?

They’re the same.

4/23

Between music, theatre and chariot racing, which sport did Nero win when he participated in the Olympics?

All of them

4/25

What’s that phrase meant to convey? “My country, right or wrong?”

You unquestioningly support it

But the original meaning was different? So I guess it’d be something like…

You have a duty to correct them

4/27

Do you know the name of the theorem named after this number?

Four color theorem

4/30

First off, the "wunder" part probably means...

Wonder

Next, the "kind" part. That's probably...

Child

So a "wunderkind" would be...

Prodigy

Date

Question

Correct Answer

5/7

So what’s the literal translation of the phrase “femme fatale?”

Fatal Woman

5/10

You know the time period Yoshitsune was active in, don’t you?

The Heian Period

Exam Period: 5/11-5/14

5/16

What do we call the phenomenon where believing in a treatment’s power is enough to improve your condition?

The placebo effect

5/19

Which famous ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period is said to have moved residence over 100 times?

Katsushika Hokusai.

5/21

The golden ratio is 1:1.618, but do you know the silver ratio?

1:1.414

5/23

If we think about what these words have in common, then maybe “syn” means…

Together

And “aisthesis,” huh? That’s a little like the word aesthetics. I wonder if it means…

Senses

So that means the full word basically means…

Senses coming together

5/26

Do you know which author Leblanc borrowed from?

Arthur Conan Doyle

5/31

Do you know which peg-legged, parrot toting historical figure’s appearance became a visual shorthand for pirates?

John Silver

Date

Question

Correct Answer

5/11

What historical figure inspired the term of “favoring the magistrate?"

Minamoto no Yoshitsune

Yoshitune had a brother, right? Oh, I think his name was…

Minamoto no Yoritomo

But they ended up coming into conflict. And in the end, when they had to oppose each other…

Yoritomo won

That’s probably because people tend to sympathize less with figures in power, and sympathize more with…

The weak

5/12

Which brain function is responsible for the phenomenon of seeing an illusion in this figure?

Cognition

Which of the following maps can you paint without any adjacent areas being the same color?

Both

5/13

Name the book that defined malefactors as the chief factor in the progress of the human race.

The Devil's Dictionary

What character archetype refers to a mysterious and seductive woman, typically with ulterior motives?

Femme Fatale

RELATED: Persona 5 Royal: Complete Confidant Gift Guid

Date

Question

Correct Answer

6/4

What do you think the name for this phenomenon is?

The Halo Effect

6/7

The red king crab is biologically related to the hermit crab. So how is it different from a crab...? Do you know?

The number of legs

6/8

Where does totalitarianism take things a step further than authoritarianism?

Controlling public thought

6/13

... What color do you think it turns?

Green

6/15

Between paper bills and coins, which one is issued by the government?

Coins

6/20

What do you think? One of these has minor metals in it, right?

Smartphone

6/23

Now, do you know what this woman’s position was?

A pope

6/27

Which of these animals is involved in an English idiom about the weather?

Dogs

6/29

What do you think it says on the back of this piece?

Gold

Date

Question

Correct Answer

7/1

What’s the meaning of the original Chinese phrase that these dumplings’ name came from?

Barbarian's head

7/4

Two people are responsible for July and August having 31 days. Do you know who those people are?

Julius and Augustus

7/7

So Tanabata's about gods crossing a starry sky to reunite once every year. It might have something to do with...

The Milky Way

What's the traditional food of Tanabata?

Soumen

7/9

Do you know what shape it is?

A triangle

7/11

What is long-term memory, anyway?

Memories that last a long time

Maruki mentioned something about the amount of memories you could store, right? Something like…

Infinite

If you have theoretically infinite space for them… then theoretically, you’d be able to retain them for…

Forever

7/12

Do you know what he did?

Thievery

Exam Period: 7/13-7/16

Date

Question

Correct Answer

7/13

If angle C is 28 degrees, and angles A and D are 88 degrees, what is the angle of B and E?

64 degrees

I think this came up in class. They were invented by that famous guy from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, right?

Zhuge Liang

And they were offering something to quell the river…

Barbarian's heads

This master strategist came up with the baozi to…

To offer them instead of heads

7/14

Write the name and biological classification of this creature.

Red King Crab (Paralithodes)

What happened when the government issued paper and hard currencies in Japan for the first time?

It caused confusion in the economy

7/15

What is the English equivalent of the Norwegian idiom ‘raining witches’?

Raining cats and dogs

Which of the following is another name for the soumen noodles traditionally eaten on Tanabata?

Demon guts

RELATED: Persona 5 Royal: Guide To Every Trophy

Date

Question

Correct Answer

9/3

Each hand in this famous statue means something, but… do you know what the right represents?

Prosperity

9/6

Do you know the name of that phenomenon where the second hand looks like it’s stopped moving?

Chronostasis

9/13

What does a pawn shop offer that a secondhand shop doesn’t?

Money loans for collateral

9/17

What’s one of the origins for the phrase “cat got your tongue?"

Cats eating human tongues

9/21

Robot comes from a word in Czech. But where in Europe is the Czech Republic located?

Central Europe

9/24

How many white and black shapes are there respectively on a soccer ball?

20 white, 12 black

9/28

So “PVS”, referring to when you mistakenly think your phone is going off...

Phantom

The next part is the V part. That means it’d be “phantom…” what?

Vibrating

Last is the S. So if we have “phantom vibration” so far...

Syndrome

9/29

But the fishermen of Nagaragawa are actually civil servants as well. So, tell me which sector they belong to.

Imperial Household Agency

Date

Question

Correct Answer

10/3

If we use “three watermelons in the sun” to visualize a certain matter’s size against the universe’s, what are the melons?

Stars

10/6

Now, do you know who invented this instrument?

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

10/11

Which name was most commonly ascribed to shape B

Bouba

Exam Period: 10/17-10/20

Date

Question

Correct Answer

10/17

Counting both black and white surfaces, how many surfaces are there in total on a soccer ball?

32 surfaces

Didn’t the teacher say that the number of colors used to be different? Do you remember?

It used to be one color

Oh yeah, I remember. I think she said that unlike now, soccer games were broadcasted with…

Black and white picture

10/18

Who conducted executions using this device?

Charles-Henri Sanson

What is the reason that most people cannot become a cormorant fisherman of Nagarasawa?

It’s a hereditary profession

10/19

What is the meaning of “robota,” the etymological root of “robot?"

Slave labor

Which of the following describes the density of stars in outer space?

3 bees in all of Europe

Now, tell me the total count for each column in this magic square.

15

From a psychological standpoint, what is a key reason our memories can differ from reality?

Memory bias

RELATED: Persona 5 Royal: Complete Persona Fusion Chart And Arcana Fusion Guide

Date

Question

Correct Answer

11/2

Can you tell me the meaning of the word “wack” in the Thieves’ Cant?

A share of stolen goods

11/4

Clubs is a club, diamonds is a gem… So, what does a spade represent?

A sword

11/8

Tell me how old you have to be to listen in on a trial.

Any age

11/10

Do you know why it’s missing in the character for “crow?"

Crow eyes are hard to see

11/12

I wonder. Do you know why our voices sound so different over the phone?

Because the voice is synthetic

11/14

Tell me why that is.

Because of high altitude

11/15

How was he punished?

His head was put on display.

11/17

Do you know the name for this graph? Your hint is “snails”...

Cochleoid

Date

Question

Correct Answer

12/20

Choose the graph that became the origin for the name for the Chinese yoyo known as a diabolo.

D

He was a really famous thief from the Edo period, right? How much money did he steal, in the end?

Over one billion yen

As a result, he was sentenced to…

Having is head displayed

Criminals, especially famous criminals being paraded around, was mostly done for…

Public performance

12/21

Which suit of cards represents the Holy Grail?

Hearts

According to Japanese judicial law, what is possible for even an infant to do in court?

Attend

12/22

What country refers to a person who controls politics behind the scenes as a “prime minister in black?"

Japan

The Japanese word “dokyuu” translates to “massive.” What English word inspired the initial “do” in dokyuu?

Dreadnought

Date

Question

Correct Answer

1/11

What’s this phrase supposed to illustrate about the gods of Shinto?

How numerous they are

What’s that phrase again? The one about how many gods there are in Shinto…

The Eight Million Gods

1/14

Where do you think the fictional land of “Ihatov” is modeled after?

Iwate

1/18

What did the word “awful” originally mean?

Impressive

1/21

Do you know what she’s stepping on?

A snake

1/24

What does that mean when describing a person?

Kind-hearted

So what kind of connotation would “salty” have in that context?

Negative

So with all that in mind, “salty” probably means…

Resentful

1/27

How far did this study suggest personal happiness can spread?

To friends of friends of friends

Sometime throughout the year, if you're studying and following our guide to get all the questions in P5R right, you'll unlock the achievement or trophy, "A Most Studious Disguise" for placing first on an exam.

It requires not only a maxed Knowledge stat, but also getting all questions correctly on said exam.

Additionally, be sure to tell Sojiro Sakura that you've done well on your exams - he rewards you for doing well by offering Joker a handful of accessories.

Month

Accessory Reward

Skill

May (Midterms)

Tough Belt

Defense Master

July (Finals)

Dandy Mirror

Counterstrike

October (Midterms)

Leblanc Charm

Null Sleep

December (Finals)

Boss Undies

Endure

Be sure to check in with your Coffee Dad after getting your scores to let him know how well you did! You need to manually talk to Sojiro to get the rewards, but it's worth doing so.

NEXT: Persona 5 Royal: What Carries Over In NG+?