Cisco Refreshes Its Enterprise Networking Franchise

As cloud and mobile trends continue to heighten the demand for quicker applications and services, Cisco is evolving its portfolio to respond immediately to the needs of applications. The company has taken another significant step, introducing new and updated Cisco Catalyst switching and Integrated Services Router products that provide high-performing, fully programmable enterprise networking solutions. The products are part of the new Cisco Enterprise Networks Architecture, which enables applications to get the networking information they need to offer more innovative services to end users with less hands-on administration from IT professionals.

The architecture expands the scope of Cisco’s Open Network Environment (ONE), a portfolio-wide strategy that applies software programmability to ASICs, operating systems, networking functions, and services across the datacentre, WAN and LAN. Cisco is updating its entire service provider and enterprise networking portfolio to become open and programmable, and today’s news addresses the campus and branch portion of that transition.

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The Enterprise Network Architecture positions Cisco’s enormous routing and switching franchise and much of the company’s customer base for the future of networking – a future that features increasing synergy between applications and network services software, and hardware networking functions. It helps prepare Cisco’s customers to capture the vision of the Internet of Everything, providing the network infrastructure for an ever-diversifying set of applications that run businesses and people’s lives.

The new and updated products include new platforms for the campus and the branch portions of corporate networks. For example, the Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches are the highest-performing Catalyst switches to date, and are built for campus backbone 10/40/100 Gbps services. They feature network programmability and investment protection through compatibility with the widely deployed Catalyst 6500 Series Switches. For branch deployments, Cisco is growing the most widely deployed routing family on the planet with the new Cisco ISR 4451-AX, the most significant performance breakthrough with service availability in integrated branch services since the introduction of the Cisco ISR in 2004.

With these innovations, Cisco is helping IT organisations make an impact on the business by quickly enabling new business models and accelerating service deployment. Cisco is also helping IT organisations better take advantage of technology transitions like mobility, cloud and the Internet of Things, while accelerating the rollout of applications by providing a services-rich, open and programmable architecture.

Cisco ONE is Cisco’s portfolio that addresses SDN and, more broadly, incorporates programmability across the network infrastructure to enable innovation, investment protection and lower operating expenses. Within the enterprise, the Cisco ONE Enterprise Network Architecture brings openness and programmability to the campus and branch, making them more agile, high-performance, and application-savvy, all while adding value to existing network resources.

A key element of the Cisco ONE strategy is the onePK API toolkit, which allows developers to create networking applications that help business applications. Cisco will support onePK across its entire enterprise routing and switching portfolio within the next 12 months, beginning with the ISR 4451-AX and ASR 1000-AX routers, which will support onePK in Q1 CY14.

This open API combined with the control services layer, allow application developers to view the network as a single entity, so they can write applications once and run them across multiple network environments whether wired or wireless, with consistent application performance. This means a consistent and innovative user experience, positioning organisations to more quickly capture new business opportunities.

Cisco ONE Enterprise Networks Architecture is a foundational element in enabling the “Internet of Everything,” intelligently connecting people, clouds and things. It ultimately allows organisations to introduce user services that are enabled by network wide visibility, intelligence and scale.