Cisco accelerates the Cloud era

Cisco's latest research report says 2015 Global cloud computing traffic will be 12 times times higher than it is today, with a composite annual growth rate of 66%. Currently, cloud traffic accounts for 11% of data center traffic and will grow to over 33% by 2015.

In the face of the roaring Cloud, Cisco has hardened its position in cloud computing, a network-and computing-centric IaaS cloud, a PAAs cloud with video applications at its core, and a collaborative effort at the core of the SaaS Cloud, which makes up the overall solution for Cisco's cloud computing.

To achieve this goal, Cisco launched a new cloud computing framework Cloudverse, focusing on management and collaboration at the end of last year. The Cloudverse framework is said to be designed to allow institutions to establish, manage, and connect public, private, and mixed clouds. It includes existing Cisco products such as unified Computing Systems (UCS), Nexus switches, and network management applications, as well as software for collaboration, improved management and enhanced connectivity, and services to help customers design and deploy their environments. This means that the industry has a full range of cloud implementation products.

Cisco says Cloudverse will be available in 2012 and will support it with a new cloud implementation service. These services combine Cisco's professional services with its partners ' services to help organizations design, deploy, and optimize cloud computing for their business.

However, some analysts say Cloudverse will face stiff competition from Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand and other cloud it vendors, who are expected to soon announce their full cloud implementation offerings. But anyway, Cisco must be one of the first companies to take advantage of the cloud.

Adjusting organization structure to escort cloud

One months before the launch of Cloudverse, Cisco formed a cloud computing and Systems management Technology Group. The new cloud computing and Systems Management Technology group includes the original network management technology group, as well as Cisco's Intelligent Automation services business and service delivery platform business, which is the responsibility of Cisco CIO Jacqueby, according to a Cisco internal memo. The sector is primarily engaged in engineering development and services in the areas of cloud computing, infrastructure, services, platforms, services and software. The reason for this new division was to choose Jacques, mainly because of her experience in cross-sectoral operations.

In the following December, the Cisco Engineering Department's organizational structure was further adjusted. Cisco has formed five major groups and five strategic technology groups across the engineering sector.

The five major engineering groups include: Enterprise Network Group, by enterprise routing, switching, WAN optimization, wireless and other components, the leader is Rob Soderbery; Data center group, composed of data center switch, server/storage, load balancing, leader of David Yen; Security and government group, by security technology , the global Government solution, the company's security Project department, is in charge of Chris Young, who has just joined Cisco from VMware, the operator network group, including the operator Routing and mobile division, the Surya Panditi, video and collaboration group, by Collaborative Communications, network technology, Carrier video technology and emerging technologies, in charge of Marthin De Beer.

The five strategic technology groups include: Jacqueby responsible for the cloud computing and Systems Management Technology Group, Joe Wojtal's engineering, operations and Systems Group, Ben Fathi's network run software Technology Group, and Bill Swift's responsible Silicon and central engineering group; Joel Bion is responsible for research and advanced Technology Development Group.

"The new architecture will enhance the ability of the engineering team to implement Cisco's technology strategy and help Cisco's long-term success." Cisco's official Blog reviews the adjustment.

It is hoped that after this adjustment Cisco's organizational structure can be relatively stable. 2011 is a really hard year for Cisco. Cisco's business has finally picked up after May of big tweaks and layoffs. According to Cisco's fiscal year 2012, which was released last November, its net revenue was $11.3 billion trillion, up 4.7% per cent, above Wall Street's expectations. Cisco's share of the Ethernet switch market in the third quarter of 2011 grew by nearly 3% from a year earlier, up from 66.5%, according to IDC statistics. These figures suggest that Cisco's adjustment has been a success.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)