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I’m happy to welcome NANOG (October 2-4, 2017) back to Cisco’s hometown, San Jose. It’s only the fourth time in its history that NANOG is hosting its major event here—the last time was in 2008.

Cisco has always been a strong supporter of NANOG, and again we’re all in. Let me give you some insight into our presence at the event:

I glanced at agendas from past events and noticed programmability and automation presentations were getting increased coverage over the past few years.

This is clearly a major care-about for every Service Provider. Here’s what I’m hearing from them:

  1. Bandwidth consumption keeps increasing as more and more of everyday life depends on the Internet.
  2. End users are more informed than ever and want choice of solutions, delivered quickly and easily, often delivered over the top.
  3. Velocity and efficiency are driving fundamental shifts in operations. What used to be done by hand must now be automated with software.
  4. Automation requires programmable networks, optimized for software control.

We’ve come a long way enhancing our devices’ programmability, and I want to share with you some noteworthy updates on our strategy.

For several years, we’ve focused our efforts on model-driven programmability, which exposes the rich capabilities of IOS XR through a standardized data modeling language (YANG). We support a comprehensive set of IOS XR native models as well as industry-driven OpenConfig models and standards-driven IETF models. To make our operating system fit a service provider’s operational environment, we have multiple encoding (XML, JSON) and transport (NetConf, gRPC) options. Today, we are introducing the latest version (0.6.0) of the open source YANG development kit (YDK). YDK 0.6.0 represents a major leap forward to enable the adoption of model-driven network manageability. Here are some of the important capabilities introduced in the new YDK infrastructure:

  • RESTCONF and OpenDaylight service providers to act on the YANG data
  • Data validation with dynamic model downloads
  • Enhanced data filtering when processing data from network devices.

More information on YDK 0.6.0 can be found here. YDK will continue to be a complete, network-engineer and programmer friendly SDK for model-driven programmability of networking devices. We will bring out improvements regularly to facilitate model-driven API adoption and help drive YANG adoption across the industry.

In addition to our extensive data model support, I’m very happy to announce that we are offering a Service Layer API (SL API) in IOS XR that enables dynamic, programmatic control of a router. The SL API is designed as a scalable and convenient integration point for customers who want to build/extend the device’s control plane functionality. It is designed to be highly performant, and it provides programmatic access to routing functions such as route manipulations and label operations. Applications written using the SL API can be considered as a fundamental and natural extension of the device control plane. You can read more about the Service Layer APIs here.

Let me share a few use cases:

1) Bring Your Own Protocol: Enables custom protocols and agents to co-exist with the IOS XR routing stack. For sample code and libraries, refer to the Git repositories – route-shuttle and open-bmp controller.

2) Path Selection and Traffic Engineering:  Provides the ability to engineer routing paths based upon customer-specific logic. For sample code, refer to the Git repositories – SL MPLS and SL Route-group.

The ability to perform these operations over a highly performing channel (gRPC) using a language binding of your choice (e.g., Java, Python, GO) makes working with Service Layer APIs extremely powerful and flexible. You can find the complete API documentation here and sample libraries here. We look forward to collaborating with our customers to help them take advantage of this powerful and flexible capability.

We are releasing the first version of Cisco IOS XR service layer API, with enhanced versions available over the next few months.

We are looking forward to collaborating with our service providers to define new use cases.

If you’re interested in learning more about IOS XR programmability and service layer API, don’t miss this Tech Field Day session on September 27 at 10:30 am PT. The session is broadcast live over the Internet, or you can watch it later, on-demand.

Authors

Sumeet Arora

SVP Engineering

Core Software Group - US

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Trust gets a bad rap in the security industry, but in reality, it’s a necessary part of any relationship. Without trust, today’s organizations couldn’t function, and productivity would come to a screeching halt. The thing is – how do you know that the devices coming onto your network are trustworthy?

We already verify user access to the network. In fact, access to the corporate network is the critical juncture in which you need flexibility for your employees to connect while still enforce effective security control on your network. We are all familiar with the username and password method of authentication. While this is still is an effective way to authenticate the user, this does nothing to verify the integrity of the user’s endpoint (whether that’s a PC or mobile device) when connected to the network.

Security experts estimate one-third of all endpoints that connect to the corporate network are insecure. When the average employee is using multiple devices at work, this creates multiple chances for an insecure endpoint to access sensitive information, or an infected one to spread malware. Vigilance on what is on your network is just as important as who is on the network.

This is why posture is so important. But what is posture? Posture is the compliant state of an endpoint. Companies establish criteria on how an endpoint is supposed to be configured to allow it access to the corporate network. Posture can include:

  • Operating system patch levels and updates – Does the endpoint have the latest OS updates and patches installed on the system?
  • Critical applications – Is an anti-malware package installed, active, and up-to-date?
  • Endpoint Services – Is disc encryption and the firewall turned on?
  • Peripheral awareness – Is there anything plugged into the USB ports?

Posture also covers other aspects of overall endpoint operations such as:

  • Application inventory – Which endpoints are running applications with known vulnerabilities?
  • Hardware inventory – Which endpoints have high memory utilization?
  • Trust – Is this my endpoint, an unmanaged endpoint, or one that needs to be enrolled?

Enforcing proper posture is good hygiene for your network. For example, Wannacry could have been prevented from spreading by ensuring that endpoints had the MS17-010 patch Microsoft released last March. A proper posture check would only allow network access to those Windows devices that were patched while also ensuring that that non-compliant endpoints were segmented off to contain any potential damage.

Cisco’s integrated approach simplifies and automates posture checks on your network. With Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE), you have the ability set up the endpoint posture policies appropriate for your network based on employee’s role, location, type of devices, etc. Any endpoint could be denied access until it meets the requirements to connect.

Our AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client deployed on the endpoint collects a range of endpoint contextual information both on and off premises and then shares this information with ISE so that it can determine if the posture state of the endpoint warrants access. This is accomplished through the ISE Posture Module available in AnyConnect, one of the many different security services available within AnyConnect. AnyConnect’s flexible and modular approach enables different endpoint services, be it posture, VPN connectivity, roaming protection, or flow based behavior depending on your corporate needs. You don’t need to install another client on each of your endpoints for multiple security services. And in the latest release of AnyConnect 4.5, in conjunction with ISE 2.3, you can get detailed hardware information (e.g. memory and hard drive capacity and utilization) of the endpoint to further enhance your overall visibility.

Endpoint posture assessment is just one component of an overall effective security approach to providing secure access to your network. Now that you know a little bit more about posture, see how AnyConnect, ISE, and our other integrated technologies can help make your network more secure. For more information, please visit the Secure Access page.

Authors

Thomas Licisyn

Product Marketing Manager

Security Marketing Group

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The Network.  Intuitive.  Powered by intent. Informed by context. Growing more intuitive every day. 

At this year’s, Gartner Symposium ITxpo, we’ll be showing IT business leaders how Cisco can enable their networks to do the just that. The Gartner Symposium  ITxpo,  which will take place October 1st – 5th  in Orlando, FL is an annual event where more than 7,500 of the world’s top CIOs and IT leaders gain a strategic view of the emerging trends shaping IT and business. These leaders will have an opportunity to hear from and meet with analysts, industry experts, and peers to gain a broad view of where their industry is headed.  Understand how business and technology trends intersect now and discover ways to get ready for what’s next.

Cisco will be a Premier sponsor of this year’s event. We will communicate our innovative vision through speaking sessions, analyst activities, and booth presence. You won’t want to miss any of our speaking sessions, highlighted by Guillermo Diaz Jr. Sr. Vice President and Chief Information Officer and John Manville, Sr Vice President Global Infrastructure Services as they discuss the key elements to accelerate technology while driving customer outcomes; Culture and Innovation. For the full speaking schedule, please visit our dedicated ITxpo site.

 

The financial services industry will be uniquely highlighted at this year’s event with several sessions focusing on banking and insurance.  Take a look at the week at a glance to see all the financial services sessions available.  While you’re visiting the exhibitor floor, be sure to stop by our booth #331 for a demonstration of some of our key digital technologies and how they can enable your digital branch of the future.

 Schedule an appointment in our Blueprint Studio.

 

This one-of-a-kind executive briefing center is designed specifically for CIOs with aggressive goals, who don’t have a lot of time but would like to get answers to pressing questions and help to make more informed decisions.  During this meeting, our executives will work with you to sketch out solutions that address challenges that are unique to financial services and to your organization and provide guidance that will help you create an actionable digital plan.  It will be an experience unlike any other.

Cisco and its trusted ecosystem of partners are in a unique position to enable your digital transformation vision. We want to help you securely connect everything to make anything possible. Leave with actionable steps — two to three things that you can do right now — and solid advice as your compass.


Won’t be able to attend Gartner’s ITxpo?

Follow  @Cisco@CiscoFSI  for updates from the show!

To check out Cisco Financial Services online, click here.

 

Authors

Danny Vicente

No Longer at Cisco

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A rigorous and holistic approach to cyber security is critical for service providers, because trust is at the heart of their business

Cyber attacks are a growing risk for organisations of all types. But security breaches can be particularly damaging for service providers, because their network infrastructure is at the very core of their business. If the network suffers an attack, customers may lose connectivity. They’ll inundate call centres with queries and maybe even switch providers. Lose your customers’ trust, and you lose business.

Earlier this year, Arbor Networks’ latest Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report found that service providers are facing a growing number of threats, including increasingly severe distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The percentage of them who experienced DDoS attacks was 86% in the 2016 report, up from 77% in 2015. And 60% had experienced DDoS attacks targeting their data centres, compared to 55% the previous year.

The report also found that “peak attack sizes and the frequency of large attacks have increased dramatically this year”. So it’s no surprise that DDoS attacks were the top service provider concern, named by 88% of respondents. Other types of attack, including infrastructure outages and bandwidth saturation, were also major concerns.

Sam Rastogi’s blog  is a great place to learn more about the large-scale DDoS attack launched last year against the US Service Provider Dyn. The attack used a botnet of just 100,000 IoT devices, and find recommendations on how service providers can protect against this type of attack.)

Network-based technology, like IP video and the internet of things, is becoming more important. And this means that protection against cyber threats like this is increasingly critical for service providers and telecoms companies.

They need to make sure that their most important assets are protected so they can support new broadcast video and mobile network services, as well as their more established services. A reputation for patchy service is hard to shake off – and could be fatal in a fast-developing market.

Cisco can enable service providers to make sure their services are reliable. We have a comprehensive range of solutions, including Cisco ASR 9000 virtual DDoS protection  , which embeds Arbor Networks DDoS detection and mitigation technology, as well as the Cisco Firepower 9300 and 4100 Series Next Generation Firewall appliances  with integrated Radware Virtual DefensePro, into your network.

We can help you build an integrated security architecture using technology like this. But we don’t think that security is just about installing equipment – it’s about our entire approach.

We’ve established a Secure Development Lifecycle to make sure that our products are resilient and trustworthy. It means that security concerns are baked into everything we do, from conceiving the initial idea, to sourcing components and writing code.

It’s important that weaknesses don’t creep in at any stage in the process. So we consider security and trust when we’re designing a product, as well as thinking hard about the processes, technologies and policies involved with its development. We attack our own products to test their security. And we are transparent and supportive if things don’t go well for our customers.

Anthony Grieco, a senior director at Cisco who leads our security and trust organisation, sums up our approach by saying: “Thinking about security can’t be bolted on, especially when we think about the transition happening in the IoT world.”

We think that more service providers should be asking their security vendors tough questions about their approach. Because it’s only through thinking comprehensively about every stage of the process that trust can grow.

And when providers know that their network infrastructure is secure, they can be confident in delivering the reliable services that their business depends on.

Find out more about how Cisco can help you develop an integrated approach to security .

Authors

Yves Padrines

Vice President, EMEAR Sales

Global Service Provider

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We are now taking orders for Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack, offering customers a powerful cloud-ready solution that gives them full control over how they manage data, governance, security and performance.

We combined Microsoft’s robust Azure cloud platform with Cisco’s UCS server platform that is designed for cloud workloads, providing customers and partners with confidence and continuity for their investment in this evolving digital world.

In its initial release, Azure Stack includes a core set of Azure services, DevOps tooling, and Azure Marketplace content, all of which are delivered through an integrated systems approach. What does this mean? Cloud applications deploy faster because they are built on the same Azure Marketplace application components. The ability to run consistent Azure services on-premises ultimately means the flexibility to decide where applications and workloads should reside.

So why choose Cisco for Azure Stack?

An agile and scalable cloud infrastructure, Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack combines the network, security, and tools to build applications for public and private cloud deployments with simplified management and control.

Cisco’s 60,000 plus UCS customers enjoy proven operational advantages, with 40% faster infrastructure deployment, a 38% reduction in ongoing management costs, and over a 90% reduction in downtime compared to commodity server infrastructures. Cisco is also first to market with NVMe and 40Gb Ethernet end to end systems for Azure Stack to help ensure that our Azure Stack solution can accept additional workloads and efficiently deliver the performance that our customers demand.

Given Cisco’s Nexus leadership market position, customers have already decided to trust their IT data security and management to Cisco.  And Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack incorporates the latest in Nexus technology.  Why should IT staff have to learn a new “language” for their Azure Stack domain?  By selecting Cisco, customers can maintain their Nexus standard and ease any network integration concerns that diverse switch technologies can cause.

Our recent investment in AppDynamics layers application performance analytics on cloud applications built for the Azure cloud – both public and on premise. Cisco is the only Azure Stack supplier that delivers all components of a successful cloud application deployment – from high performance networks and compute systems to application performance management and analytics with AppDynamics.

Cisco’s automation tools, combined with UCS Manager allows our customers and partners to not have to worry about the day-to-day business of keeping the data center operational, they can now be deployed to strategic areas of the business to increase revenue and customer satisfaction.

Our partners are also a key ingredient for a successful hybrid cloud deployment. We offer them a recurring revenue stream from Microsoft Azure Stack deployments on Cisco UCS, and they can build or augment a thriving cloud business by reselling Azure services. They can increase the value of their solutions with an efficient and elastic cloud consumption model that grows to meet the needs of their customers’ business and offer pre and post installation services to assist customers with planning a successful Azure Stack deployment.

Microsoft Ignite is Sept. 25-29 in Orlando Florida. Come visit Cisco at Booth #735 and check out the Cisco Integrated Solution for Microsoft Azure Stack. In addition check out Microsoft’s blog of the release of Azure Stack

 

Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack

 

Cisco Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack

 

 

Authors

Liz Centoni

Executive Vice President

Chief Customer Experience Officer

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We recently celebrated our 5th Annual Women’s Professional Development Day on Thursday, August 31st, sponsored by Cisco’s Corporate Strategy Office (CSO). Our theme for this year’s event was Making Empowerment Happen. The invite-only event drew over 600 internal and external attendees, including members of the Cisco Empowered Women’s Network and employees from over 50 customers and partners including Google, Fidelity Investments, Dimension Data, Ericsson, GE Ventures, and Oracle.

This year’s Development Day was aimed to inspire both women and men within the Cisco community to embrace and foster empowerment in the personal and professional lives of themselves and others. The agenda included thought-provoking speakers who shared learnings about career development, personal brand, executive presence, and influencing others.

Spoken word poet Sarah Kay and New York Times best-selling author Cy Wakeman, each delivered a powerful morning keynote, covering themes such as recognizing breakthroughs and ditching the drama that happens in a workplace. This was followed by an energizing roundtable panel with Cisco’s Liz Centoni, SVP & GM of Computing Systems Product Group, Paul Chiswell, Senior Director of Services Engineering Allignment & Co-Innovation, and Jason Goecke, VP & GM of Cognitive Collaboration and Spark Platform. The agenda also included empowered leader Ted-style talks with Ana Corrales from Google and Fabiana Lacerca-Allen of Ethiprax LLC. The day wrapped with an inspiring and motivational afternoon keynote by Grace Killelea, best-selling author of The Confidence Effect.

The event closed with attendees being asked to take action by taking their learnings and sharing them with others. Some of the learnings that were shared included:

  • Know your worth.
  • Don’t be afraid to stand up for what you believe in.
  • Stop judging, start helping.
  • Never underestimate power of breakthroughs.

One of my favorite quotes of the day came from Karen Ashely, VP of Corporate Development and my co-host for the day, who said “empowered women, empower women”. I’d like to hear from you what steps you’re taking to foster diversity and inclusion so we can all be empowered. Join the conversation on Twitter.

Authors

Hilton Romanski

No Longer with Cisco

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Calling all digital health enthusiasts: Here’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

For one hour, from the privacy of your computer, you have the chance to hear directly from three technology experts currently working in some of the nation’s most cutting-edge medical facilities. Find out how they took trends like virtual care, location analytics, and mobile experiences and turned them into real value for their facilities and the patients they serve. During the event, you’ll discover real-life use cases and learn best practices–all in an informal panel interview format.

When

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

10 – 11 am PST

12 – 1 pm CST

1 – 2 pm EST

What

Three topics and speakers will be featured at our event, “Digital Health Across the Continuum of Care.”
Here’s just a taste of what you’ll learn:

Harnessing the power of virtual care
At Atlantic Health in New Jersey, they’re breaking boundaries in telehealth every day. Pat Zinno, Director of Infrastructure Information Services and Support will share his experiences.

Driving maximum efficiency with location analytics
Ed Martinez, SVP/CIO of Miami Children’s Health System will discuss how his facility is using geo-location to track down equipment, people, and more–helping to drive productivity and control costs.

Elevating the mobile experience
Steve Leblond, VP of Technology/ CTO, Ochsner Health System will share how his organization is revolutionizing mobile experiences to boost patient and workforce satisfaction.

Who

You! Register now to reserve your seat for this one-of-a-kind, free event.

 

Authors

Amy Young

Marketing Manager

Healthcare

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Come September, it is tech. events galore for us here at Insieme Business Unit, Cisco. It is a busy week for us starting Sept 25, with action unlimited at Splunk Conference 2017 (Washington DC). First, let us pick up action at Splunk 2017 conference, where Cisco is a Peta sponsor.

Riding on the success of ACI and Tetration ecosystem momentum, we have forged a strong business partnership with Splunk, with lots on menu in joint integrated solutions, featuring ACI-Splunk and Tetration-Splunk. Our solution suite is feature rich, with comprehensive and extensible use-cases, aided by the openness of our ACI and Tetration platforms. At the Splunk conference next week we are showcasing all these solutions via breakouts, Theater min-presentations and demos featuring ACI, Tetration and UCS, all in perfect alignment with our central theme “Innovation with Analytics-Driven Insights and through integration with Splunk”

Cisco Exec Ranga Rao is leading Cisco presentations and audience are in for a treat, as he sets out to explain how customers are benefiting from the ACI & Tetration solutions with Splunk. Ranga will focus on how Tetration’s application insights and policy enforcement capabilities can augment data in Splunk’s SIEM (Splunk’s SIEM is called Splunk Enterprise Security) and enforce policies to address any compliance issues flagged in Splunk. You will learn how you can leverage Splunk & Tetration together to gain complete visibility into IT and security operations and build agile, secure and compliant data centers. Ranga’s session also features ACI App for Splunk Enterprise, including most recent ACI 3.0  integrations such as ACI Multi-Pod visibility, Micros-segmentation support, ACI App Center support etc., Mark it on your calendar to attend Ranga’s session “Cisco ACI and Tetration integrations with Splunk” on Sept 26 (10.30 am and 1.30 PM) to get a ringside view of our solution excitement.

That is not all. We have cool demos featuring ACI & Tetration with Splunk on the show floor during the entire course of the event. Stop by Cisco booth P6, meet our product experts to get a live demo and get a sneak preview of what’s on the roadmap between the two companies. Cisco has planned impactful breakouts and demos to complement Insieme activities.  The major draw is presentation titled “Cisco and Splunk Innovation through the Power of Integration” by a group of Cisco experts, on Sept 28, 1.20 PM at Ballroom C. Do not miss this session, since it is unique in that Cisco Technical experts present jointly on how the power of Cisco (Security, Meraki, UCS, ACI, Tetration) and Splunk together will make your environment easy to manage, and safer to operate.

In conclusion, I want to draw your attention to the new ecosystem partner web page where ACI-Splunk and Tetration-Splunk solution assets are featured prominently. What is unique about this web page? For starters, user experience like never before. With simple drop-down filters customers can get to required asset intuitively and fast. To further help in selection, we have visual logo based partner selection. You can get to the asset you are looking for in seconds. Screen-capture below  illustrates the ease of use. Check out the web page here:

Hope you have a gala time at the conference. Do not forget to check our Cisco booth P6, and give us a chance to wow you with both our technology and cool give-aways. Our Cisco team eagerly awaits your arrival.


Related Links:

Tetration Analytics – Splunk solutions overview: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/data-center-analytics/tetration-analytics/solution-overview-c22-739622.pdf

ACI-Splunk solutions overview : http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/data-center-virtualization/application-centric-infrastructure/solution-overview-c22-731967.html

Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/explore-new-cisco-aci-and-splunk-innovations

 

Authors

Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions

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IT organizations are constantly looking for ways to streamline operations, take advantage of new capabilities, and adopt technologies that can reduce IT lead-time thus improving service to the business. Many  enterprises are adopting hybrid cloud and virtualization capabilities as a part of overall data center transformation. Increase utilization, Reduce costs, Automate  the data center.  These are all strategic activities that  companies are embarking on to remain competitive in their Industry. Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides core capabilities that enhance hybrid cloud and virtualization solutions.

A good SDN converges the management of network and application services into a centralized, consolidated solution that automates provisioning and configuration of the entire network. It is not enough to just centralize management but leave the complextites of a legacy network in place.  The language of the network must be transformed to enable centralized IT policies that deliver a modern infrastructure that can deploy new applications and services in a matter of minutes verses days or weeks that were previously required. Simplicity and faster time to value; reduced operating expenses; easy scalability; and enhanced security. The benefits are real and Cisco’s SDN solution,  Application Centeric Infrastructure ,provides them.   Cisco customers are seeing application deployment time reduced by over 85% and boosting the efficiency of network operations staff by over 75%.

Cisco Software Defined Networking is delivered through Cisco Nexus 9000 switches and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). Cisco ACI uses a unique application-based policy model to blend the mapping of hardware and software capabilities for software defined networking. The policy based approach of Cisco ACI offers unique automation and agility of the network that doesn’t only apply to Virtual Machines but to all network attached devices in the DataCenter. Cisco ACI is open and programmable allowing you to leverage APIs and a global partner ecosystem. It enhances security and analytics through policy enforcement, enhanced security with a whitelist model, and micro-segmentation. And it provides workload mobility at scale, allowing you to deploy, scale, and migrate applications seamlessly across multiple hybrid data centers.

To help customers take advantage of the business and IT benefits of ACI, Cisco has partnered with IBM Global Technology Services. IBM has built a full lifecycle service on top of Cisco ACI.  This service assists customers in realizing the complete benefits of ACI including software based programmability, automated control of networks, network function virtualization, and network virtualization to give businesses the much-needed IT agility and support for hybrid cloud and IT-as-a-service deployments.

IBM provides complete lifecycle services for SDN including: high-level architecture, selection and procurement of components, installation and integration, and solution deployment and testing, and training. To learn about how IBM helps customers transform their data center networks using Cisco ACI, watch the video located under “Optimize your network” here. To learn more about the Cisco and IBM alliance, you can visit the IBM alliance page here.

Authors

Jeff Gatz

Manager, Sales Development

Global Enterprise - Business Development