As I mentioned in my last blog: "Cisco Live Hosts Enhanced Cisco Collaborative Operations Solution Demonstration", Cisco Live excited many delegates this year, and one of the highlights was indeed the World of Solutions. I talked about how the industrial section of the 'Cisco Campus' not only showed off lots of new advances, but, for the first time, the small but important process industries (including Oil and Gas) booth opened up showing the services-based solutions Secure Ops and Collaborative Operations. Now let's talk about Secure Ops.

In the video, I interview Cisco and Partner representatives to discuss the Secure Ops Solution from Cisco: What it is, what the business need is, and how Cisco is helping customers get better better business outcomes -especially when it comes to cybersecurity! Having the Secure Ops solution can increase availability of systems and critical infrastructure, reducing downtime in, for example, the oil and gas industry, or or any industry that relies on critical infrastructure such as process manufacturing, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals or other industrial automation environments.

Cisco Secure Ops delivers a standardized, comprehensive and integrated approach to security. It is supported by automation suppliers such as Yokogawa and Rockwell and technology providers such as McAfee and Symantec and provides a framework for a wide range of partners to participate. It's currently installed at customers such as Royal Dutch Shell.

Rob Arlic of Cisco is joined by Galina Antova at Cisco Live. Rob talks about what Secure Ops is, how it helps provide not only cybersecurity protection, but also demonstrable regulation compliance. It therefore provide companies with higher availability and better Operational Excellence.

Galina talks about what's new. Added capabilities include going deeper than just the IP network to gain more profound visibility into operations. Then gaining a view of what's normal/abnormal in those other networks which can be assessed. Managing all that is key, and included.

Rob concludes by summing up: "It's all about up-time and availability. If there are security vulnerabilities, (making sure) those are addressed proactively, proactively and preemptively".

To learn more go to www.cisco.com/go/oilandgas.

And, as always, tell us what you think.