Hello, and welcome to my blog. As a new member of the Enterprise Networking’s Solutions Marketing team, I’ll be writing about connectivity to the cloud, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and virtualized routing. You can expect to learn details around Cisco’s architecture and product offerings in these topics. Further, based on your comments, I can go into as much detail as necessary.
First, a brief background. I moved to the Bay Area last November from Boston after almost 20 years in New England (in Boston), so I will be musing about culture shocks between the two coasts. I may also learn to like the Warriors and Niners, but I will always be a Celtics and Patriots fan. Read More »
Segment routing (SR) is a concept that’s been working its way through the IETF standards process but is finally becoming ready for real world deployment. It’s a network technology that provides enhanced packet forwarding behavior while minimizing the need for maintaining awareness of mass volumes of network state. SR satisfies essential requirements for application-enabled routing in software defined networks, including the ability to provide strict network performance guarantees, efficient use of network resources and very high scalability for application-based transactions. Segment Routing relies on a small number of extensions to IS-IS and OSPF and can operate with an MPLS or an IPv6 data plane and integrates with the rich multi-service capabilities of MPLS such as L3VPN, VPWS, VPLS, E-VPN, etc.
SDN has become a popular topic – so much so that this year’s MPLS/Carrier Ethernet/IPv6 World Congress in Paris added an SDN Summit component. It’s an area of high interest for Cisco as we develop our Open Network Environment, a portfolio of Cisco technologies and open standards which brings programmatic control and application awareness to the network, combining the benefits of hardware and software across physical and virtual domains. Read More »
Based on the online dialog on Easy Virtual Network (EVN) that I’ve seen, it appears that some people still have questions. We thought our story was as simple to understand as EVN is to use, but there is a need for clarification. Here’s a bit more information about what EVN is and what it isn’t.
One online comment was, “It’s a Cisco proprietary version of MPLS for the enterprise.” No, we believe in MPLS. It’s supported on a number of Cisco platforms and is used by many of our customers. MPLS is the most scalable and perhaps the most capable means of network virtualization. But it’s also overkill and far too complicated for many enterprises.
One of the many, but popular announcements at CiscoLive in London last week is the release of Cisco Easy Virtual Network. We did our part by releasing a ‘Fundamentals of EVN’ that we think can give you everything you need to know in about 6 minutes.
Big thanks to the EVN team who worked with us to produce this. Andy Kessler (who is featured in our upcoming episode 112), Sehjung Hah and Gary Proefke.
