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Over the last decade, a generational shift has taken place in the enterprise: the move from on-premise data centers to the cloud.
Organizations continue to face the same issues they have always faced in networking, but with much less control due to the distributed nature of data, applications, people, and devices.
As organizations move their workloads to the cloud, networks have to evolve. Cisco has historically led the network industry through many of these changes, which it should, given it’s the de facto market leader. The networking giant is constantly innovating to bring new capabilities to market that address the needs of today’s organizations.
Cisco Takes Nexus to the Clouds
I recently sat down with Ish Limkakeng, Cisco’s Sr. VP and General Manager of Cloud Networking, to discuss some of the innovations launching at Cisco Live 2022. The in-person event kicked off this week in Las Vegas for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Highlights of my ZKast interview, done in conjunction with eWEEK eSPEAKS, are below.
- The complexity is so much greater for organizations today since they no longer own the data centers or control the apps that people use. Organizations need high performance networking, as well as visibility into cloud networks and all the assets across the distributed enterprise. This is a top of mind challenge for Cisco customers.
- Organizations should be adopting a strategy that leverages the best of the cloud and meets all the traditional networking requirements. Much of the innovation announced at Cisco Live is centered on a platform strategy and operational simplicity. Cisco is bringing to market Nexus Cloud, a “gateway” to managing cloud assets. This cloud-delivered and cloud-managed platform is designed for running enterprise cloud networks with full visibility and ease of use.
- Additionally, Cisco is making enhancements in the Nexus switching platform, including the 400-gig solutions. Cisco is launching new Nexus 9800 hardware with 400-gig line cards. The hardware, which is 800-gig ready, has a long shelf life spanning multiple generations. Cisco will continue to enhance and roll out more products in that portfolio, particularly modular chassis.
- Other than high-performance networking, Cisco is addressing the needs of organizations moving their data and workloads to the cloud by enabling visibility between public and private cloud environments in Nexus Cloud. Going forward, more of the focus will be on management and configuration to make things easier for network operators.
- Sustainability is another key focal point for Cisco, as more products are developed with energy consumption in mind. It’s increasingly becoming a requirement for customers. Cisco believes there are many opportunities to bring sustainability to cloud networking, since the network touches many parts of business operations.
- Cisco has been leading the industry into building the “future cloud,” starting with the distributed enterprise. Very few organizations have a single delivery model for their workloads and apps. The distributed enterprise is the blueprint for the problems that the vendor is trying to solve for customers. For example, Cisco is tightly integrating Nexus Cloud with its software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) portfolio. Tighter integration across different products is where Cisco wants to add more value for customers.