Cisco Mandates Cloud Control Integration for All Future Products

Cisco will cease developing products that do not integrate with Cloud Control, as The Register first reported. The SaaS-based management platform is designed to provide network administrators a single tool for managing the company's software portfolio and devices. According to reporting from The Register, Cisco announced the platform in June 2025, though it has remained limited to U.S. customers.

Speaking at the company's Live conference in Australia, Jeff Schultz, Cisco's senior vice president for portfolio strategy and marketing, stated that the company believes operational complexity is the primary barrier preventing customers from purchasing additional Cisco products. Schultz described Cloud Control as a "platform advantage" that improves resilience and manageability by integrating security, observability, and networking.

While Cisco will stop shipping non-integrated products starting next year, the global rollout of the portal will occur in stages. The Register reports that Cloud Control is scheduled to launch in the UK, European Union, and Australia in February 2027, followed by Canada, India, and Japan in May 2027. Cisco previously told The Register the slow deployment was necessary to establish infrastructure and address regulatory and privacy requirements.

In addition to the management portal, Schultz announced that Cisco will bundle its Thousand Eyes security and observability tool with "Advantage" and "Essentials" licenses to simplify a deployment process he admitted was previously difficult. The company is also expanding Live Protect, a tool for implementing compensating controls against software flaws. Per The Register, Live Protect will extend to Cloud Control, campus gateways, secure firewalls, 8000 series routers, and others in December, with ASR 9000 series service aggregation routers and the Network Convergence System added in May 2027.