Cisco Debuts New AI-Powered, Predictive Next-Gen Services

**Editor’s Note: Click here for our recently compiled list of new products and services.**

Two new predictive services – Business Critical Services and High-Value Services – announced today by Cisco, use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help businesses mitigate IT risk and anticipate failures. The new services are touted as a way for businesses to use advanced technologies to provide expertise that is tough to find.

Cisco says that the new services represent opportunity for partners to add to what they are already selling or to get started selling services as a part of their business.

Cisco’s Joseph Pinto

“These services are offered with our partners in mind. They support partners being able to offer their customers an end-to-end solution,” Joseph Pinto, senior vice president with Cisco technical service, told us. Cisco Services is the vendor’s second largest business and 90 percent of the services business represents recurring revenue, he noted.

Taking a closer look at the new service offerings:

Cisco Business Critical Services apply actionable analytics, automation and technology expertise to help customers predict opportunities, preempt risks and navigate technology transitions. Like the new High-Value Services, the Business Critical Services target the increasing IT complexity organizations face today. Cisco Advanced Services’ experts deliver capabilities that include analytics, automation, compliance and security, driving more informed decisions, lower complexity, reduced risk and threat protection, the company said. Cisco cites an IDC study that says the new Business Critical Services seek to help reduce downtime by 74 percent, resolve issues 41 percent faster and reduce operational cost by 21 percent.  

The new Cisco High-Value Services are designed to improve utilization of advanced software, solutions and the network. More specifically, the new services offer support for Cisco software via multi-level service options such as enhanced and premium, in addition to basic level support. There is centralized support for Cisco hardware and software, and third-party partner solutions from first call to resolutions. Solution support is the default service offering for the Cat 9K/DNA; technical services (TS) advantage offers network-level support.

“Over the past four years, we’ve been introducing more high-value services because that’s where the market is going because users want more advanced capabilities around onboarding, third-party solutions, and things of that nature,” Pinto said. As an example of how Cisco services are adding more capabilities, Pinto said that the advanced and premium offers for software support include working with partners or customers around integrating software into the workflows, and giving analytics around consumption to help customers achieve their objectives more quickly.

“Professional and managed services are core components of Carousel’s offerings,” noted Brian Davies, VP of Cisco sales for Carousel Industries, the VAR/MSP. “They are also increasingly important to our customers because their technology teams are constantly being …