On this day one year ago I was sitting in a hotel room in London, hanging out online with Vint Cerf and engineers from Google and Comcast, discussing how tech leaders around the world had come together in unprecedented fashion to declare it time to turn on IPv6, together, all over the world. It was an ambitious plan. Only one year earlier the world had tested IPv6 on a global scale for the very first time. Now, the IP Industry was boldly declaring victory. No more tests, no more trials. IPv6 had left the laboratory — for good. It was now, or never.

Months before, at the towering headquarters of Comcast in a room high above downtown Philadelphia, the Internet Society organized one of the planning sessions for the World IPv6 Launch. With a sparkling backdrop of the earth’s horizon in the distance, representatives from the founding World IPv6 Launch participants (Akamai, AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, D-Link, Facebook, Free Telecom, Google, Internode, KDDI, Limelight, Bing, Time Warner Cable, XS4ALL and Yahoo!) discussed what it meant to “Launch” IPv6. There was a white board, with a hand drawn chart as our goal. We talked, argued, compromised, and ultimately came to consensus on how we could “move the needle”, and whether it was too bold a proposition to even try. We settled on 1% as an individual ISP goal, knowing that this value as measured from a content provider would correspond to more than a simple trial. Many ISPs reached, and exceeded, that by June 2012. A few months later, the world reached that goal.

I’m thrilled to see that, even a year later, end-to-end IPv6 adoption shows no measurable sign of stopping. IPv6 deployment has been doubling every 9 months since World IPv6 Day. Large scale DSL, Fiber, Cable, and Wireless deployments have joined Enterprises and Content providers across the world, stitching together a new Internet infrastructure. Fit Google’s global IPv6 deployment data to a logistic curve of technology adoption, and the 50% tipping point where IPv6 takes over IPv4 is only 5 years away.

IPv6 is not only important to the Internet of today, it is critical to the Internet of Everything to come. Working on IPv6 over the past several years has been exciting and rewarding in many ways. I have made a lot of good friends along the way, and am witnessing the birth of a New Internet Protocol first hand.

Happy First Birthday, World IPv6 Launch! May you have many, many, more.

Tags: Cisco, ip, IPv6, ISOC, townsley, v6launch, World IPv6 Launch

Congratulations to Cisco EVP and CFO Frank Calderoni for winning the Bay Area CFO of the Year Award!

The award recognizes Frank’s leadership in helping transform Cisco’s business over the last few years.  He has been instrumental in helping to improve long-term planning and operational processes so that Cisco is more efficient and more focused on customers, shareholders and employees. Frank has made it his personal mission to connect with investors and ensure that Cisco is maximizing shareholder value while continuing to manage a balanced portfolio of growth initiatives. To find out more about the award – a partnership between the Larkin Street Youth Services and San Francisco Business Times – click here.

Shortly before we released this year’s Cisco VNI Forecast 2012-2017* on May 29^th, I had a chance to contemplate the implications behind all the report’s data. The Forecast makes it clear that IP traffic will continue to grow “in leaps and bounds” through 2017, but there is so much more information lying hidden within the report.

* an annual projection of global Internet Protocol (IP) traffic, now in its seventh year,
used by companies, analysts, media, academia, and governments wordlwide.
For a quick overview of this year’s findings, read Thomas Barnett’s VNI blog post.

Here are six significant conclusions that came about in my review of VNI’s findings and what they mean for the future functioning of the Internet: Read More »

Tags: forecast, internet, internet protocol, ip, mobility, network, report, takeaways, visual networking index, vni

Hello Cisco Live attendees!  As your host this year, I am looking forward to seeing you at Cisco Live in Orlando, running June 23rd through June 27th.  We have an incredible time planned for you and already, with record attendance, we are certain this will be the best show yet!

This year’s Cisco Live is dedicated to you – our customers – and how together we are changing the world.  As we enter an era of The Internet of Everything (#IoE), the role of the network is growing and shaping the future of the ICT industry.

While it’s my first year as your host, I’m a 14 –year Cisco veteran and a huge Cisco Live fan. I’ve been attending Cisco Livefor years, and whether its Anaheim, San Diego or Orlando, this is my favorite event of the year. I know first-hand how valuable this event is for you and for the entire Cisco team. There is no better opportunity for fellow innovators and Cisco experts to meet with and learn from each other. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, cisco live, Internet of Everything, IoE, orlando, Tomorrow Starts Here

President Obama yesterday provided executive leadership on an issue that is of critical importance to American businesses, consumers and the U.S. economy.

The U.S. patent system has long been held up as a model for promoting ingenuity and encouraging our national history of invention and entrepreneurship.  Recently, however, abusive patent litigation brought who have figured out how to game the system for personal gain has become an assault on innovation.  As evidenced by a new White House study out today, this impact on our economy is significant.

This issue has moved from being a tech issue to being a Main Street one where consumers and the middle class are being affected. 

Read More »