FusionStorm, an award-winning IT solutions provider, has established a demonstration lab at its Silicon Valley Integration Center to give customers hands-on experience with Cisco's Digital Network Architecture (Cisco DNA).

The lab features a suite of hardware, software and services that enable robust testing and simulation to the end-user on how this technology would perform as part of a customer's technology stack. This provides the basis for a highly automated and digital-ready network that will help organizations boost innovation, reduce costs and lower risk. It also dramatically streamlines operational tasks through drag-and-drop provisioning, automatic device discovery, proactive troubleshooting, immediate remediation guidance and fast network segmentation.

The primary benefit of Cisco DNA is IT agility and scale. Through policy-based automation, IT can rapidly roll out services across hundreds of devices and sites.

"Our Cisco DNA Lab is designed to replicate an enterprise network," says Matt Harris, Technical Marketing Director for FusionStorm's Cisco Practice. "Customers can conduct real-time demonstrations of the platform to gather test requirements, create plans and documentation, and design POC and POV testing plans. This allows IT teams to go over details and discuss critical aspects of the project while utilizing Cisco networking, hardware, and software, giving them a complete snapshot of what their network would look like on Cisco DNA."

Testing with Cisco DNA can also help to minimize the risk of implementing new technologies. "Inadequately tested configuration changes or updates can expose customers to a variety of risks, so there's huge amounts of value in being able to test in a live demonstration environment," Harris adds. "The Cisco DNA Lab offers customers the ability to understand the impact of new technologies, without putting the production environment at risk."

Once POC testing with the DNA lab concludes, customers can easily roll out a network deployment. Organizations that design a network using Cisco DNA-ready solutions can leverage the power of the network to streamline operations, reduce costs, detect and contain threats, and continuously align the network to business needs. Increased levels of automation and analytics help create a network that is constantly learning, adapting and protecting to make sure applications, users and devices receive the service they need.

Cisco DNA utilizes an open, extensible and software-driven approach to make the network simpler to manage and more agile and responsive to business needs. Virtualized services enable a more dynamic network that can easily provision, expand and reallocate services quickly across different hardware platforms.

For more information on FusionStorm's Cisco Digital Network Architecture Lab, please visit fusionstorm.com/solutions/networking-collaboration/cisco-dna-lab.