What’s New from Cisco IT?

If you’ve seen the short introductory video to Cisco on Cisco, then you know that Cisco IT shares stories with customers. But – what kind of stories?

Well – let me turn that around. What stories would you like to hear? Because we have some good ones. And if we don’t have content to point you to, we’ll build it. Just let us know what you’d like to hear about.

For example:

COLLABORATION:

Cisco IT has some great stories to share about transforming Cisco into a global collaborative environment, based on two major cultural changes: mobility and video.

Mobility at Cisco is a function of IT, business process, and culture, but was enabled by wireless, Unified Communications, VPN, Jabber, and BYOD. We have enabled a highly mobile workforce, supported full teleworking and BYOD, and turned our offices into flexible, collaborative and power saving workplaces. The results materialize in cost savings, productivity improvement, and business resilience; and a new capacity to work together more effectively across the globe.

Video has carried collaboration further – being able to see meeting participants results in better global teamwork, as well as significant cost savings from reduced travel. Cisco uses a wide range of video services internally (from WebEx, Jabber, new video phones, new desktop and room video and immersive TelePresence, to massive virtual all-hands events that use all of the above) which bring people together into a single team from anywhere in the world. Because of these collaboration benefits, Cisco supports video for every employee, whether they are in the office or mobile.

Anything in there that looks interesting to you? Leave a comment.

Or – what about data center?

DATA CENTER:

Beyond Collaboration, Cisco IT is at the forefront of exceptional improvements in the data center. Cisco IT migrated Cisco’s entire $50B/year enterprise to new, heavily virtualized data centers that are based on the foundation of Nexus, UCS, and orchestration. This orchestration started with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), enabling private cloud provisioning of virtual data centers within minutes using Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (CIAC). This orchestration platform is now delivering dozens of application platforms to developers and, in combination with OpenShift and other best-in-class tools, is now delivering Software Delivery as a Service, enabling continuous application development, all in a matter of minutes.

More, Cisco IT is supporting the beginning of full IT as a Service (ITaaS). Additionally, IT is experiencing the benefits of ACI, including reduced costs and better visibility and security in its new data centers. Cisco IT’s portfolio includes success stories about harnessing big data for better business intelligence, and is now working to leverage ACI for full network automation and for autonomic bursting into hybrid cloud.

Could your business benefit from something like this? Leave a comment.

Or what about something in the networking space?

ENTERPRISE NETWORKING:

Cutting-edge networks feature in the Cisco IT portfolio, with stories focusing on how Cisco IT implemented IPv6 end-to-end, deployed Unified Access at all sites, and provided new layers of context-driven security for the company’s extensive wired and wireless networks. Cisco also supports one of the largest enterprise BYOD networks in the world. Cisco IT shares best practices on how to design, provision (often with Zero Touch Deployment), and manage these network solutions using Medianet capabilities and Cisco Prime tools. And we’re trialing some location-aware applications based on new 3700 access points designed to pinpoint user location, and enabling people to find and reserve meeting rooms, and log into UC and video equipment automatically as we walk to the room.

Cisco IT is also in the process of providing more WAN bandwidth and agility at lower costs, in several ways. We are migrating to more layer 2 VPN to replace some SONET and Layer 3 MPLS WAN connections. We are connecting to carrier neutral facility hubs to optimize the WAN for more cloud traffic (we already connect to over 400 cloud service providers). We’re planning
using intelligent WAN (iWAN) to take advantage of less expensive backup circuits to carry primary traffic, reducing WAN costs.

Anything in there that might make sense in your network? Let me know, and we’ll get some more information on this to you.

And last, what about the way we do business?

BUSINESS OF IT:

Beyond technology, Cisco IT has pioneered several internal processes that continue to improve speed, agility, and ability to deliver business-directed capabilities, thanks to:

• an IT operating model that brings business vision and direction and IT architecture together, and processes to continually update the network in advance of need while keeping CapEx predictable and level;
• an IT as a Service model that provides the business with clear and granular sales costs for better business decisions, and drives customer satisfaction up while driving OpEx down; and
• a long-term continuous infrastructure upgrade process that enables IT to control costs yet continuously update infrastructure to maintain agility and innovation.
• a vendor management process that enables Cisco to get the best out of our vendors, by partnering with the best and rewarding them for flexibly meeting our changing infrastructure needs

Which of these Cisco IT solutions would you like to hear more about? If we don’t have existing content I can point you to, we’ll build it and share it with you. Leave a comment.

By the way – you can find more about Cisco on Cisco externally at our website: www.cisco.com/go/ciscoit