So is this another Cisco's attempt at AON (Application Oreinted Networking) and SONA (Service Ofiented Network Architecture)? Those two failed miserably 5 years or so ago. Because customers hated closely coupling application level switching into Networking stack, and forever locking themselves into Cisco's proprietary solutions.

It sounds like Cisco just keep trying the same tired approach, as the temptation to lock in their customers under the pretense of "application aware network" is just too great. Eventually, Cisco will learn its lessons, as Microsoft, Nokia and Blackberry are now learning theirs.