Avatar

Stephen Speirs

SP Product Management

Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

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

June 7, 2013

DATA CENTER

Services – the Missing “S” in the SDN Debate

While I’ve been writing about Cisco Domain TenSM, I’ve been watching the SDN debate evolve in our industry, and I have to say, I’ve had my concerns.  Don’t get me wrong – I personally see SDN as an important and very much required evolution (and note: ‘evolution’ – not ‘revolution’) of the networking industry.  Being […]

May 27, 2013

1

DATA CENTER

Desktop Virtualization Automation – Upcoming Webinar on Wednesday May 29th

Last week I blogged on Desktop Virtualization Automation – and how we in Cisco Services can help you develop custom automation software solutions for rapid provisioning of virtual desktops. If you are involved in desktop virtualization, or interested in automation and orchesration, you may want to attend our upcoming Bright Talk Webinar, scheduled for May 29th […]

May 23, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 9: Security and Compliance

Security and Compliance is the next domain in our Cisco Domain TenSM model that I will cover, following on from my previous post on Applications.  And following on from my previous posts around Cisco Domain Ten, I’ll give you a brief overview of the questions that come up when we discuss data center security and compliance […]

May 21, 2013

2

DATA CENTER

More on Management and Orchestration – Part 1 – Desktop Virtualization Automation

Over the past year or so, from time to time, I’ve blogged about what we in Cisco Services have been doing with our Management and Orchestration solutions – for example Cisco Intelligent Automation for cloud – which I discussed in the Automation domain in my Cisco Domain Ten series, and also here, when we introduced […]

March 29, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 8: Applications

“Applications?”  I hear you say.  “Why are Cisco talking about application?  They’re a networking company!?”  If this is what you are thinking, I’m glad you are reading this blog.  As we’ve broadened to be an IT company, we in Cisco Services have been quietly building our application migration capability for the past 2 years.  And with cloud, […]

March 1, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 7: Platform

Domain 7 in our Cisco Domain TenSM framework for data center transformation is what we call “Platform”.  More specifically, this term refers to the “software platform” upon which your business applications will run.  In short, this area is where we examine operating systems, databases and other types of middleware and help you figure out your […]

February 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten – The Story So Far

Over the past 2 months  or so, I’ve been blogging on Cisco Domain TenSM, Cisco Service’s framework to guide you on your path to data center and cloud transformation. We are just over half way through the discussion on Cisco Domain Ten, so I thought it worthwhile, especially for anyone reading about this concept for […]

February 15, 2013

2

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 6: Service Financial Management (with yet another free whitepaper!)

Service Financial Management is the focus of Domain 6 in Cisco Services‘ DomainTenSM Model for Data Center and Cloud Transformation. Closely related to the User Portal (Domain 4) and Service Catalog and Management (Domain 5), service financial management is one of those organizationally challenging topics for the data center management team – although with the advent […]

January 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 5: Service Catalog and Management (and free white paper)

I introduced the Cisco Domain TenSM framework for data center and cloud transformation back in December, and after my previous blog discussing “Domain 4: the User Portal“, it’s now time to discuss Domain 5, which considers Service Catalog and Management.  In this post, I’d like to illustrate the important, central role the service catalog has in […]