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Stephen Speirs

No Longer at Cisco

Stephen Speirs is part of the Cisco Customer Experience Product Management team. This team is tasked with developing major new professional service offerings for Cisco. Stephen has worked on a range of technologies - 5G, NFV, Cloud, Data Center, SDN, DevOps and more. Working with customers and partners worldwide, Stephen has over 30 years industry experience in software development, IT, Data Centers and Service Provider Network Management. Working with and building a 30 partner consortium, Stephen brought to life the 5G RuralFirst project - potentially the world's most ambitious rural 5G trial - winning part government funding to take 5G to Orkney and Somerset in the UK. Before joining Cisco Services in 2009, Stephen was senior manager, product management, in Cisco's Network Management Technology group, where he brought to market the multi-award winning Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert product. In Cisco Services, Stephen drove development of the Cloud Enablement Services - rated #1 by IDC in their 2013 client survey. Stephen is based in Cisco's offices in Glasgow, Scotland, and was "acquired into" Cisco in 2000 through the acquisition of Atlantech Technologies Ltd. Since 2019, Stephen has served as non-exec director on the Ofcom Advisory Committee for Scotland (UK communications regulator). Stephen has a BSc (1st Hons) in Applied Physics from the University of Strathclyde, an MSc in Digital Systems Engineering from the University of Heriot Watt, and an MBA from the University of Strathclyde Graduate Business School.Outside of work, family, cycling, running, and skiing keep him busy. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Ofcom (UK telecoms regulator) Advisory Committee for Scotland. Believing in "Giving Back" with work-related skills, Stephen also is a guest speaker on the Strathclyde University MBA program, an advisory board member on MaaS Scoltand (Mobility as a Service), and a student project mentor with Dundee University's Product Management BSc/MSc

Articles

December 4, 2015

2

DATA CENTER

Ten Learnings and Observations from the 2015 London Gartner Data Center Conference (Part 1)

3 min read

This past week I attended the 2015 Gartner Data Center Conference in London.  This is always a great conference to learn from, although it always pays to look out...

September 23, 2015

3

DATA CENTER

Part 2: Why not Initiate a “Save to Invest” Program for your Data Center?

3 min read

Two weeks ago, in my previous blog, I invited you to consider ways in which you could initiate a “Save to Invest” program for your data center. That is, how can you save money from your current data center spend, in order to re-invest it into currently un- or -under-funded areas of your data center. Thanks to […]

September 9, 2015

6

DATA CENTER

Why not Initiate a “Save to Invest” Program for your Data Center? (Part 1)

3 min read

 As a Scot, I have a natural predisposition – almost a gene – for money saving initiatives!  As I’ve been researching new initiatives in my work for Cisco Services over the past few months, I’ve become aware of – for the first time I am ashamed to say in some cases – some huge sinks […]

August 25, 2015

1

DATA CENTER

5 Top Challenges of SAN Design: View from our SAN Design Experts – Part 2

3 min read

Last week, here, I started my 2 part blog on some of the top SAN design and deployment challenges we see.  As I mentioned, I put this together...

August 18, 2015

8

DATA CENTER

5 Top Challenges of SAN Design: View from our SAN Design Experts – Part 1

3 min read

One of the aspects I really enjoy about my job is that I get to learn from some of the world’s top network and data center design engineers, and...

July 21, 2015

1

DATA CENTER

Part 2: How Many Servers Do You Have …. Comatose and Sitting Idle?!?!

3 min read

Last week I introduced this topic, the pervasive problem of “comatose” servers in data centers, based upon an interesting recent eWeek article entitled “30 Percent of Servers Worldwide Sit Idle”, which in turn was based upon the research report by Stanford University in conjunction with the Anthesis Group.  In my blog, I described the costs […]

July 15, 2015

5

DATA CENTER

How Many Servers Do You Have …. Comatose and Sitting Idle?! (Part 1)

3 min read

In my role in Cisco Services, I’m more interested in the challenges of technology adoption and deployment than I am in speeds and feeds, statistics and technology fads. ...

May 28, 2015

DATA CENTER

Criteria for SDN/NFV Vendor Selection – Heads Up on Cisco Live

3 min read

Cisco Live US 2015 is just around the corner, and will start in San Diego on June 7th, running through Thursday 11th June.  I’m surprised and honoured to...

May 13, 2015

2

DATA CENTER

Discovering Application-Server-Network Dependencies to Facilitate ACI and Application Migration

3 min read

Earlier this month, I blogged about the challenges of Cloud Sprawl.  Let’s now turn to the challenges of “Application Sprawl”!If you are planning migration of applications inside or between data centers, or if you are planning a migration to Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), the understanding of your applications and how they tie to the […]