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Shankar Varanasy

Leader, Product Management

Data Center Switching

Shankar Varanasy is a Product Management Leader on Cisco's Data Center Networking team, working on networking software, automation, security, and modern data center designs. He has over 20 years of experience in product management, solution architecture, network consulting, and system integration, helping teams take products from idea to launch and grow the business. In his current role, he defines the strategy and roadmap for data center networking platforms. Earlier at Cisco, he worked as a Senior Product Manager for Data Center Compute and as a Solution Architect and Network Consulting Engineer. He holds an MBA in Product Management.

Articles

June 30, 2026

DATA CENTER

Protecting against rising cybersecurity risks in data centers

6 min read

Secure your data center against evolving threats, including quantum computing and AI. Discover how resilient, quantum-safe infrastructure from Cisco provides real-time protection to keep your business running smoothly without downtime.

November 10, 2021

DATA CENTER

Cisco NX-OS licensing gets Smarter: Simplified license management using policy

3 min read

With the 10.2(1) release, Cisco NX-OS adopted Smart Licensing with Policy to simplify license management. Learn about the new friction free experience data center network operators will have while onboarding Nexus Products and managing their license inventory with Smart Licensing with Policy.

October 13, 2020

DATA CENTER

Cisco NX-OS VXLAN Innovations Part 2: Seamless Integration of EVPN(TRM) with MVPN

4 min read

In today’s world, multicast senders and receivers are not limited to a single network. They can be spread across enterprise and data center locations. Multicast can be generated or consumed anywhere and can be present in various security contexts - be it a tenant of VXLAN EVPN -based data center or within a traditional IP multicast network.  

August 24, 2020

DATA CENTER

Cisco NX-OS VXLAN Innovations Part 1: Inter-VNI Communication Using Downstream VNI

4 min read

Acquisition and mergers involve integration of both business and IT infrastructure and there is a need for fast and seamless integration. Similarly, in shared-services scenario, tenants in a network need transparent access to the extranet or shared services in more flexible fashion. Cisco VXLAN EVPN Downstream VNI provides greater flexibility and time savings when it comes to integration of disjoint networks and shared-service deployments.

September 30, 2019

DATA CENTER

Continuing innovations on Nexus9K ITD – Additional server load-balancing use cases

3 min read

Announcing Cisco's new Intelligent Traffic Distribution (ITD) features on NX-OS 9.3.1 release. Developed to address concerns with respect to capacity limitation on network service appliances in a multi-terabit environment.