I'd like to know more about the path that Cisco pursued to evolve towards an "application aware" architecture. This back-story (how Cisco arrived at this juncture) would be very insightful to both industry analysts and customers. Here's some of the key questions on my mind.

- What were the primary roadblocks that inhibited the adoption of this innovative approach in the past?

- A purpose-built hardware solution seems to be the road less traveled, because it requires a greater R&D investment. Why did Cisco take this approach, and decide against using one of the alternatives?

- What legacy design challenges did Cisco have to overcome, before it could attain the advantages of the ACI fabric orchestration model?

I would appreciate it if you could share these details in a follow-on blog post. It would help to fully understand why Cisco specifically chose a solution deployment methodology that's somewhat different from competitors. Thanking you in advance for your consideration.