Simple: not a word that you generally associate with IT and network management -until now.

At Cisco Live Milan, we introduced a Cloud-Managed IT solution based on Cisco Meraki, and showed over 8,000 Cisco customers and partners how easy IT management can be. It's so easy, that practically anyone with a basic understanding of the network can use the Meraki dashboard to manage and configure the network quickly and easily.

During the opening keynote, we kicked off theMeraki Challenge, a fun contest which allows customers and partners to experience first-hand how fast IT can be with Meraki. It was particularly enjoyable to watch Cisco's marketing team compete against and beat the systems engineering team on stage -it brought back fond memories of the Tortoise and the Hare story from my childhood.

Over a thousand partners and customers have already taken the challenge. Internally at Cisco, the contest inspired some fierce competition amongst us Type A sales and marketing folks. I completed the Meraki Challenge in 3 minutes and 55 seconds; do you think you can beat me?

Take the Meraki Challenge now!

Don't take my word for it, see for yourself andtake the challenge today.   You can win an Apple or Android watch or even an all-expenses-paid tropical vacation. Not to mention serious bragging rights with your IT friends.

Cloud Managed Simplicity and Speed:  Enabling Fast IT

With the digital business transformation, the role of IT is becoming more critical to business success. More and more IT managers are rethinking how to make their networks more agile and accelerate the roll out of applications that are critical to the business. The IT organizations for Motel 6 and Forever New are two recent customer examples where IT made a big difference in helping to deliver positive business outcomes for the company. Motel 6 deployed one of the world's largest wireless networks supporting 1100 locations and 70,000 guestrooms in less than five months.  Forever New provided point of sale iPad in more than 260 retail stores in 11 countries in less than 10 minutes per store.  With Meraki, they were able to do it in just 5 months.

Cisco's Meraki Cloud-Managed IT made it happen with a simple business philosophy: make IT dramatically easier to manage and monitor using cloud management.  With one view of the entire IT landscape -applications, users, devices, network and compute - including critical LoB and IT metrics, IT managers are able to resolve problems quicker and make better decisions.  With more than 200,000 Meraki networks deployed, the value of cloud-managed IT is clear.

So there is only one thing left for you to do now -learn more about Cisco Meraki and try it for yourself. Visit the Cisco Meraki Cloud-Managed IT solution website for more information. You can even try Cisco Meraki for free by requesting an evaluation, watching a demo, or getting a free access point.