The Best of Webex, Now for Defense

By Mike Younkers, Cisco Senior Director, Federal Systems Engineering

There are a lot of lessons to come out of this once in a century pandemic. Among them: those who you can really trust to accelerate digital transformation when the world changes in an instant. 

At Cisco, we’ve had a long partnership with the federal government helping them meet their missions and provide the technical capabilities that keep our nation safe. During this unprecedented time, we’ve been proud to work closer than ever to help the warfighter and the workforce stay on mission. 

Around the world, customers have turned to Cisco’s Webex as every aspect of work went virtual. The explosion in telework taught us that the way we work is forever changed. The future of work is hybrid. 

Now, whether they’re working from a home office in Virginia or from a base halfway around the world, the federal workforce is increasingly turning to Webex, too. The reasons are clear: it’s best in class, it’s secure, it seamlessly integrates the best of meetings, messaging and calling, and it even integrates devices and survivable calling capabilities with the cloud so you get the best of both worlds. And now there’s a version specifically for the Department of Defense. 

The newly launched Webex for Defense has received provisional authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to operate at DoD Impact Level 5 (IL5) and offers end-to-end support of the DoD’s national security systems, higher sensitivity CUI, and mission-critical information across all workloads, including calling, meeting, and messaging. 

This all-in-one collaboration solution is connected to the DoD Information Network via DISA-managed Cloud Access Points and delivered out of Cisco-hosted, DoD IL5-certified data centers.

Webex for Defense integrates with our full Webex portfolio of devices, allowing users to connect securely from phone, desktop, or video. A full set of admin and end-user controls enables secure, seamless collaboration with internal and external users as well as DoD partners, and ensures that sensitive data never leaks and information is kept private. And with features like meeting context and classification indicators, it’s easy for administrators and organizers to apply agency-specific policies to meetings as necessary. 

When it comes to calling, Webex for Defense is built upon our industry-leading Cisco Unified Communications Manager and its large feature set, including local survivability.

Webex for Defense is designed to provide a best-in-class experience for our partners at the DoD and builds on our commitment to help government customers work in the increasingly hybrid workplace. Earlier this year, Cisco introduced FedRAMP-authorized Webex for Government for our federal and Defense Industrial Base customers. 

These specialized collaboration solutions are just the latest example of Cisco’s commitment to partner with the U.S. government. We will continue to innovate and work with them to always meet their missions.