Enterprise Networks

A toast to 2017, a great year for networking

David Goff
December 18, 2017

Well its nearly that time to raise a glass and toast the end of another year. Boy what a busy year it has been on the networking front….in fact I would count it as the busiest year EVER here at Cisco.

There’s been a lot going on, here’s my roundup of the best bits. If you are a networking geek (which I presume you must be if you are reading this) then there’s some really interesting stuff here. If you missed it, here’s your chance to catch up.

The year of the intuitive network.

In June this year Cisco ushered in the new era of networking. The Network. Intuitive. The announcement was the launch pad for an entirely new switching family, the Catalyst 9000 series. Together with DNA Center, the new centralised dashboard for managing switching as a single fabric from access to core, this heralds a significant leap forward in delivering on the promise of Software-Defined Access. We were pretty excited here in Cisco-land, and it turns out we weren’t alone.

Networktest recently gave Cisco SD-Access the thumbs up following an independent evaluation, concluding “Cisco SD-Access represents a major change in enterprise networking, making it far easier to design, provision, monitor, and manage networks than conventional CLI-based approaches.”

To cap it all off in style, and giving us real cause for celebration, CRN declared the Catalyst 9000 their networking product of the year 2017!

Fun alert: If you are a bit of a gamer (or even if you aren’t), you can have some fun, maybe win some prizes, and learn about DNA Center along the way with our Mars Network Challenge.

Branching out

And we didn’t stand still here either. While we were still dusting ourselves down from the intent-based networking launch we then focused our attention on the WAN. August 1^st saw the acquisition of Viptela. Viptela’s SD-WAN complements our existing Intelligent-WAN and Cisco Meraki SD-WAN offerings, making it even easier for our customers to deploy and manage SD-WAN. We welcome our Viptela colleagues and customers to the Cisco family.

Taking a bite of the Apple

This year also saw further advances in Cisco’s partnership with Apple. Apple Fastlane is now available across both Cisco on-premise and cloud portfolios. If you don’t know what this is all about, check out how Cisco and Apple are working together to help you: optimise your Wi-Fi experiences; deliver Wi-Fi analytics; and prioritise your business-critical apps, now.

Twiddling your thumbs over Christmas? Why not download the Apple FastLane app now and give it a try

Head in the clouds

And talking of cloud, our Cisco Meraki Cloud Networking Group have been busy. They celebrated their 200,000^th customer for Cisco Meraki this year, as well as refreshing the entire Cisco Meraki wireless portfolio. Plus, they introduced the MV security camera to UK shores which is Meraki’s fastest selling year 1 product EVER. I like to think the 3 I bought for my house made an important contribution…

Out and about

Unsurprisingly this was a busy year for our enterprise network team. Many of you will have bumped into us at one of the many events we ran and attended, big and small. We had a fantastic turn out to our Cisco Tech Events across the UK and Ireland.

It was our chance to give you, our customers and partners, the opportunity to hear directly from our amazing team about SD-Access and intent-based networking. Plus, we were overwhelmed with your interest at IPExpo Europe in October where we connected with many hundreds of customers and partners at our stand and during our presentation sessions. If you were one then my thanks for your interest and conversation.

IT Superheroes unite! Join us at Cisco Live EMEA 2018 for learning, networking and collaborating, taking place 29th January – 2nd February in Barcelona

So long 2017, you’ve been a blast

So, what’s top of my Christmas list for next year apart from a few bitcoins! Well 2018 will be very much focused on software defined as we continue to help you take advantage of the benefits of SD-Access and SD-WAN. Watch out for more announcements as we continue to build on our intent-based network to deliver even more capability and value.

Meantime it’s time to enjoy the festivities, shop for cheese (my crutch) put the feet up and watch box sets of classic Christmas telly. Roll on 2018!

Thank you for your custom and wishing you a fantastic festive season and a Happy New Year.

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