It’s great to see, hear and read various points of view on the evolution of networking.  It’s a hot topic right now, highlighting the fact that the network is at the center of the market transitions driven by Mobile, Cloud, new breeds of Apps and the Internet of Things.  Technical leaders from my team have become road warriors recently, talking to customers, media and investors about the evolution in networking, sometimes referred to as Software Defined Networking (SDN)

There’s a healthy debate in the market about SDN, and with any debate comes confusion. SDN’s initial definition (the logical separation of routing and switching control plane and data plane) has been stretched so far that it has come to mean something different to everyone.

There are plenty of use cases driving the attention that SDN is receiving today.  For instance, Service Providers are looking at trends like Network Functions Virtualization for network elasticity as an opportunity to create greater business value by launching new services quickly.  Traditional enterprises think about SDN as a way to rein in the operational and management complexity of data centers to scale infrastructure.  Academic institutions want open source controllers, so they can economically slice campus networks for both production and research purposes.  At least one thing is crystal clear: one size does not fit all when it comes to deploying SDN.

In some circles SDN has become synonymous with the erosion of value in the underlying networking infrastructure – the hardware and the ASICs. There is an argument purporting that when network intelligence is abstracted into software, hardware and silicon innovation will become less important and even commoditized.

I’m going to take this opportunity to address these misperceptions about the changes taking place in networking with three truths about the next chapter in networking as Cisco sees it.

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Tags: IDC, Internet of Everything, IoE, SDN

Today, I am pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire Ubiquisys, a privately-held company headquartered in Swindon, UK for $310 million in cash and employee retention incentives. Ubiquisys is a leading provider of intelligent 3G and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) small-cell technologies that provides seamless connectivity across mobile heterogeneous networks for service providers.

The acquisition of Ubiquisys exemplifies Cisco’s innovation framework based on a build, buy and partner approach. The Ubiquisys acquisition also complements Cisco’s mobility strategy along with the recent acquisitions of BroadHop and Intucell, reinforcing in-house research and development, such as service provider Wi-Fi and licensed radio. These technologies will tie together the mobility architecture that leverages the intelligence of the network from the wireless edge of the network into the wired core.

As carriers around the world increase cellular data capacity to serve the rapidly growing population of smartphone and tablet users, adding small cells is one of the most cost-effective ways to multiply data capacity and make better use of scarce spectrum assets. Ubiquisys’ indoor small cells expertise and its focus on intelligent software for licensed 3G and LTE spectrum, coupled with Cisco’s mobility portfolio and its Wi-Fi expertise, will enable a comprehensive small cell solution to service providers that supports the transition to next generation radio access networks.

The acquisition of Ubiquisys further reinforces Cisco’s commitment to service providers and strengthens Cisco’s mobility capabilities to continue to extend the intelligent mobile network.

Ubiquisys’ product portfolio and team will be integrated into our Small Cell Technology Group led by Partho Mishra.

Tags: acquisition, Hilton Romanski, M&A, mobility, small cells, Ubiquisys

We’re 13 years into the new millennium and we still don’t have flying cars, house cleaning robot maids or refrigerators that talk back to us.  Not everything predicted for our Jetson-like future came true — or maybe not as quickly as expected.  Yet, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.   Our industry talked about triple play voice, video and data services for more than a decade.  Today we watch videos or TV on smart phones, tablets, PCs and television sets while texting friends, playing games or surfing simultaneously on any number of devices from anywhere.   Technology has a way of catching up to our vision of the future.  So don’t bet against innovation.

The next big thing is the Internet of Everything (IoE).  It’s one part evolution and one part revolution.   Network traffic is migrating from people-to-people communication to people-to-things.  The network shift to machine-to-machine (M2M) or Read More »

Tags: Cisco ONE, Cisco Open Network Environment, Internet of Everything, Service Provider, software defined network

For those who are on the learning curve on various aspects of network programmability, open networking and SDN (like we are), I’d like to invite you to the third in a series of educational webicasts on these topics. Brought under the umbrella of the Cisco Open Network Environment, this particular webcast focuses on “An introduction to onePK”, and will be broadcast on April 9^th, 2013 at 9 AM PST. You can register here.

The Cisco Open Network Environment is all about bringing the network closer to applications.  One way of doing that is by exposing network devices to applications through a rich set of APIs, that can help tap into the intelligence inherent in the hardware and ASICs as well as in the network operating systems. This is what onePK is all about – it’s a single platform kit that will span all of Cisco’s network infrastructure portfolio across Enterprise and Service Provider, exposing them to applications in a homogenous way, allowing app developers to tap into the power of the open network.

Cisco announced its Open Network Environment or Cisco ONE strategy on June 2012 and has been in execution mode since then. onePK happens to be a key proofpoint of this cross-architectural strategy.  

Join me on this webcast, as I host Ayman Sayed, SVP of Cisco’s Network Operating Systems Group as the lead Cisco expert on this topic.  We will also be joined by two of the development partners that are working on onePK trials including Brendon Whateley, Principal Solution Architect at Starview Inc., and Kamil Knotek, Chielf of R&D at Pramacomm Prague spol s.r.o, as well as some new demos.

If you missed the last webcast on “An Introduction to OpenFlow” with David Ward, CTO, Cisco Engineering and Chief Architect,  we had a turnout from 84 countries and over 120+ questions answered by our question managers in a one-hour period. You can watch a reply of the webcast here.

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Tags: Ayman Sayed, Brendon Whateley, Cisco ONE, Cisco onePK, Cisco Open Network Environment, David Ward, Kamil Knotek, lew tucker, OpenFlow, OpenStack, SDN, Shashi Kiran

Yesterday Cisco released the results of a global survey of 1,800 IT professionals across 18 countries and a broad range of industries: the Cisco® Connected World Technology Report (CCWTR). The survey explored their views on the potential and challenges of Big Data and beyond. The survey found that we are still in the early stages of Big Data adoption, and many IT managers feel they are not yet realizing strategic value from their data. You can view some of the top survey results here:

Cisco is also very interested in exploring the possibilities of Data in Motion – the practical uses of data that is often most valuable when interacting in real time. This data is generated by sources such as devices, sensors and video. You can view Cisco’s vision of Data in Motion here: