Cisco is Evolving the Network into the iPhone of the Enterprise

It’s an exciting time in the networking industry. According to IDC, the worldwide programmability market will experience huge growth over the next three years and be worth nearly $12.5 billion. Cisco is leading the charge in this market and recently unveiled a new generation of intent-based networking solutions. This enables a new and programmable network that can anticipate actions, stop security threats in their tracks, and even learn to solve previously unsolvable challenges.

For IT professionals, this is life-changing news as they try to adapt their skillsets to a new era of networking, or risk being left behind. For app developers, the shift to intuitive and programmable networks is also creating a new world of opportunities. Traditionally, app developers wouldn’t think twice about the network, but as the network becomes code, the app developer gains a new platform to innovate to their hearts content.

This presents a tremendous opportunity to leverage the network as a modern software system with APIs, programmable ASICs and software layers that add analytics and intelligence. If you followed the discussions last month at DevNet Create, you understand how important this relationship between apps and infrastructure has become.

Today, we’re taking big step toward giving developers the power to unleash a new generation of network-powered applications by offering the resources a developer needs to delve right in. The new Cisco DNA Developer Center allows developers to:

Leverage the Programming the Digital Network Architecture (DNA) Learning Track to get started with controller- and device-level network automation APIs.

Play in the IOS XE Developer Sandbox and try out Guest Shell, RESTCONF, OpenConfig, #Python, and more with this early demo!

Play in the APIC-EM Developer Sandbox and reserve a hardware-backed APIC-EM MiniLab, which provides a small network of five devices so you can get hands-on with the APIC-EM APIs with real networking kit!

Whatever you choose, your apps will thank you.

A decade ago, the iPhone created a new breed of applications for the consumer. I believe the programmable network will have the same impact for the enterprise. Over the next decade, we’ll see a new breed of network-powered applications emerge and a new category of network-powered developers will emerge.

With these new tools, developers can bring applications directly into the network and create smarter software. The combination of smart software and a programmable network provides limitless opportunities for the developer, which is especially important as cloud, IoT and mobile ecosystems grow. Through APIs, apps can talk to the network, allowing for improved performance, security and quick provisioning to get the network resources needed. In essence, apps now have super powers. How cool is that?

Success is dependent on breaking down silos between the network and app developers. Enter DevNet. We built a community of more than 450,000 developers that can grow and learn together. With more than 150 events each year, there are numerous opportunities to learn and, as a result, take advantage of a massive new market.

For Cisco, the network has become code. Just as early developers monetized the iPhone ecosystem, developers that act now will pioneer dramatically more powerful apps in IoT, analytics, AR, VR, data science and other areas incomprehensible to us now. ’m really excited to see what happens next. So, how will you make your mark?