Cisco refreshes its Enterprise Networking franchise

Recently, the company took another significant step in the evolution of its networking portfolio, introducing new and updated Cisco Catalyst® switching and Integrated Services Router products that provide high-performing, fully programmable enterprise networking solutions. The products are part of the new Cisco® Enterprise Networks Architecture, which enables applications to get the networking information they need to offer more innovative services to end users with less hands-on administration from IT professionals.

The architecture expands the scope of Cisco’s Open Network Environment (ONE), a portfolio wide strategy that applies software programmability to ASICs, operating systems, networking functions, and services across the data center, WAN and LAN. Cisco is updating its entire service provider and enterprise networking portfolio to become open and programmable, and today’s news addresses the campus and branch portion of that transition.
The Enterprise Network Architecture positions Cisco’s enormous routing and switching franchise and much of the company’s customer base for the future of networking – a future that features increasing synergy between applications and network services software, and hardware networking functions. It helps prepare Cisco’s customers to capture the vision of the Internet of Everything, providing the network infrastructure for an ever-diversifying set of applications that run businesses and people’s lives.

The new and updated products include new platforms for the campus and the branch portions of corporate networks. For example, the Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches are the highest-performing Catalyst® switches to date, and are built for campus backbone 10/40/100 Gbps services. They feature network programmability and investment protection through compatibility with the widely deployed Catalyst 6500 Series Switches. For branch deployments, Cisco is growing the most widely deployed routing family on the planet with the new Cisco ISR 4451-AX, the most significant performance breakthrough with service availability in integrated branch services since the introduction of the Cisco ISR in 2004.

With these innovations, Cisco is helping IT organizations make an impact on the business by quickly enabling new business models and accelerating service deployment. Cisco is also helping IT organizations better take advantage of technology transitions like mobility, cloud and the Internet of Things, while accelerating the rollout of applications by providing a services-rich, open and programmable architecture.

Cisco ONE Enterprise Networks Architecture
Cisco ONE is Cisco’s portfolio that addresses SDN and, more broadly, incorporates programmability across the network infrastructure to enable innovation, investment protection and lower operating expenses. Within the enterprise, the Cisco ONE Enterprise Network Architecture brings openness and programmability to the campus and branch, making them more agile, high-performance, and application-savvy, all while adding value to existing network resources.

A key element of the Cisco ONE strategy is the onePK API toolkit, which allows developers to create networking applications that help business applications. Cisco will support onePK across its entire enterprise routing and switching portfolio within the next 12 months, beginning with the ISR 4451-AX and ASR 1000-AX routers announced today, which will support onePK in Q1 CY14.

This open API combined with the control services layer, allow application developers to view the network as a single entity, so they can write applications once and run them across multiple network environments whether wired or wireless, with consistent application performance. This means a consistent and innovative user experience, positioning organizations to more quickly capture new business opportunities.

Cisco ONE Enterprise Networks Architecture is a foundational element in enabling the “Internet of Everything,”intelligently connecting people, clouds and things. It ultimately allows organizations to introduce user services that are enabled by network wide visibility, intelligence and scale.

Cisco Enterprise Networks campus and branch innovations include the following:
· Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL modular switch for the next-generation campus backbone, optimized for 10/40/100 Gbps, sharing the DNA of the Catalyst 6500 for investment protection and operational consistency. The Catalyst 6807-XL is a 7-slot, 10-rack-unit modular chassis with up to 880 Gbps per slot capacity and 11.4TB per port switching capacity.
· Cisco Catalyst 6880-X semi-fixed switch enhances Cisco’s midmarket portfolio with 10 Gbps advanced services for smaller and mid-size campus deployments. The Catalyst 6880-X is a 3-slot, 4RU switch with 16 fixed 10 Gbps port Supervisor engine and four half slots for optional 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps line cards, supporting up to eighty 10 Gbps ports or twenty 40 Gbps ports.
· Cisco Catalyst 6800ia Instant Access switch provides programmable, one-touch deployments for simplified Catalyst 6000 campus operations. The Cisco Catalyst 6800ia simplifies campus network IT by virtually consolidating access switches across multiple locations into one extended switch, and includes all the feature richness of the Catalyst 6800 and 6500 switches for access networks.
· Cisco 4500E Supervisor Engine 8E brings Cisco Unified Access™ to the most widely deployed modular access switch, allowing customers to preserve their wired infrastructure investments by extending common features, resiliency and granular QoS to wireless. The fully programmable Cisco UADP ASIC, introduced in January with the Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch, will be featured in the new Cisco Catalyst 4500E Supervisor Engine 8E, extending wired and wireless convergence to chassis-based switches.
· Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) 4451-AX addresses the needs of the largest, most demanding branch offices, extending the branch router portfolio up to 2 gigabit forward performance with native services and pay-as-you-grow purchase model. ISR 4451-AX enables IT professionals to deploy application services in minutes and includes native WAN optimization with a services aware data plane for LAN-like experience at the branch.
· Cisco Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 1000-AX provides application services for WAN aggregation by integrating Application Visibility and Control and AppNav with Virtual Wide Area Application Services (vWAAS) into the most popular customer configurations.