Cisco Prime is the SearchNetworking.com Network Innovation Award winner for network management. Cisco Prime integrates management across wired and wireless LAN, the WAN and data center networks, culling information from endpoints, network devices and application transactions, for a service-centric approach.

These days, every Cisco exec leads a conversation by reminding you that the company is now a software firm. If there were a Cisco mantra, it would be, “This is about the architecture – not about the boxes.”

What that really means is that Cisco is focused on selling an overall network architecture that acts as an application-delivery platform, providing unified access to any user, on any device, in any location.

In order to do that, admins need a management system that works across the LAN, WAN and data center network, providing monitoring information from devices, applications transactions and network streams. In other words, network management can no longer be about monitoring-specific devices or ports. Enter Cisco Prime, the winner of the SearchNetworking.com Innovation Award in network management.

Cisco Prime management approach focuses on services and applications

Cisco Prime weaves together a few old Cisco network management elements with some new ones. This pulls information from across endpoints and various layers of the network into one management console. This system also relies on a set of Cisco's service