Cisco Crosswork is Cisco's network automation and orchestration suite for service providers. See what it does, its Essentials and Advantage suites, and 2026…
Cisco Crosswork is a portfolio of network automation and orchestration software aimed at service providers and large enterprises that need to design, provision, and operate complex, multivendor networks at scale. Cisco unveiled the portfolio in February 2018 as a closed-loop automation solution meant to reduce the manual work involved in running carrier-grade networks.
The suite is built on Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), a widely deployed model-driven orchestration platform used by many of the world's largest service providers, combined with the WAN Automation Engine (WAE) for network planning and optimization, then extended with additional Crosswork applications for monitoring, analytics, and event correlation.
Cisco groups its Crosswork applications into two licensing suites. The Essentials suite targets infrastructure operations teams and focuses on automating the device lifecycle: turning up new devices, managing configuration and operating systems, and monitoring and auditing the network.
The Advantage suite targets teams responsible for broader orchestration, offering advanced capabilities for multivendor support, complex workflow automation, multidomain automation, and richer visualization and analytics. Buying software bundled into either suite is designed to lower total licensing cost compared with purchasing individual Crosswork applications separately.
Crosswork licensing follows an annual Right to Use model with pricing determined by multiple factors and is not published as a fixed list price; buyers must work with a Cisco account representative or authorized partner to receive a formal quote, which is standard practice for Cisco's carrier and large-enterprise software.
Given its orientation toward large-scale, multivendor network operations and its quote-based enterprise pricing, Crosswork is built for telecom service providers and large enterprises with dedicated network operations teams, not for individual developers, small businesses, or self-serve SaaS-style buyers.
It is used by service providers and large enterprises to automate the design, provisioning, monitoring, and orchestration of complex, multivendor networks.
No, NSO (Network Services Orchestrator) is the orchestration engine that Crosswork is built on, while Crosswork is the broader portfolio that adds automation, monitoring, and analytics applications around it.
Pricing is not publicly listed; it is sold through an annual Right to Use licensing model and quoted by Cisco sales representatives or authorized partners.
Essentials focuses on automating the Cisco device lifecycle for infrastructure operations teams, while Advantage adds advanced multivendor, multidomain orchestration, workflow, and analytics capabilities.
Cisco introduced the Crosswork Network Automation portfolio on February 20, 2018.
Crosswork is aimed at telecom service providers and large enterprises with dedicated network operations teams managing large-scale, multivendor networks.
Yes, through NSO, Crosswork supports more than 170 multivendor device types rather than being limited to Cisco hardware.
Cisco offers Crosswork components in both on-premises and cloud-delivered forms depending on the specific application and deployment model chosen.