Cisco Introduces Panoptica For Application Security, New Full Stack Observability Platform

Networking, cloud and cybersecurity solutions provider Cisco has introduced a new cloud-native application security solution, Panoptica, which will provide end-to-end lifecycle protection for cloud-native application environments. It will address modern application security needs of enterprises along their cloud journey, from development, deployment and production, the company said.

Cisco also launched its new full stack observability platform, which will deliver contextual, correlated and predictive insights for quick resolutions, optimised experiences and business risk minimisation, it said.

Panoptica will secure modern applications from the start and help teams identify risks easily, prioritise alerts and remediate the most critical vulnerabilities with a new attack path engine.

As demand surges for applications to drive core business processes, enterprises face complex challenges in securing application development and deployment across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Panoptica will allow Cisco to better assist enterprises in securing their networks, devices, users and now applications also, the company said.

“Our customers deserve a true partner and total confidence in the protection of their critical applications, data and workloads,” said Liz Centoni, executive vice president and general manager, applications, at Cisco. “Panoptica offers a differentiated experience by bringing these powerful capabilities together for complete code to cloud security coverage,” she said.

According to Cisco, Panoptica will include an integrated and simplified visual dashboard and allow scalability across clusters and multi-cloud environments. This will make it simpler for technology teams to secure APIs as well as serverless, containerised and Kubernetes environments.

Enterprises will be able to derive data and insights from security tools such as API logic protection and infrastructure as code scanning. Combining these insights with Panoptica’s new attack path engine will allow organisations to better secure activity and cloud infrastructure code, apply policy management and remediate using automated support.

Cisco's FSO platform will bring data together from multiple domains, including application, networking, infrastructure, security, cloud, sustainability and business sources. The unified, extensible platform also permits developers to build their own observability solutions.

“Cisco full-stack observability brings together network intelligence, security insights, and application observability across the multi-cloud environment and the full technology stack to enable enterprises to deliver unmatched digital experiences with deep business context,” said Centoni.

Different modules on the platform will offer insights into application-level costs and performance metrics; visibility into Kubernetes workload resource utilisation so that businesses can optimise resource usage and cloud spend; security insights through an application-based business risk score; and visualise contextualised data pertaining to infrastructure, network, incidents and performance of a business application.

Cisco said it will also integrate its security insights module for cloud native application observability, built on the FSO platform with Panoptica. This will offer real-time visibility, prioritised insights and continuous risk management using vulnerability risk scoring and telemetry. It will also help enterprises prioritise business risks and drive actions to the right set of people.