Cisco Enterprise Networking Vision, Strategy, and Execution

Cisco presents its enterprise networking vision and strategy, detailing how it is executed from a platform perspective, particularly in the context of the rapidly evolving AI era. Kiran Ghodgaonkar, who leads product marketing for Cisco’s Secure WAN portfolio, introduced the session and outlined how the company is adapting its familiar routing, switching, wireless, and management products. With over 40 years of history, Cisco has been at the forefront of innovation through previous disruptions, including the internet, mobile, and cloud eras, consistently focusing on connecting people to users and applications. The current AI era, however, necessitates a fundamental rethink of how networking products are built to adapt to evolving application and data consumption.

In this new landscape, Cisco observes three consistent themes among its customers: increasing complexity from diverse devices and disparate product stacks; significant IT hiring and budget constraints exacerbated by a skills gap in networking and security; and the challenge of deploying long-lived networking equipment in a fast-evolving AI environment. To address these concerns and build an AI-ready, secure network, Cisco’s strategy is founded on three key pillars. First, it focuses on simplifying operations through Agentic Ops to assist IT leaders. Second, the strategy emphasizes integrating security directly into the network, leveraging it as a primary line of defence against emerging threats such as deepfakes and data leakage, while also adhering to new standards such as NIST post-quantum cryptography. Finally, Cisco aims to develop scalable AI-optimized devices that can simultaneously handle networking and security functions with low latency for demanding AI workloads.

Building hardware for the AI era means a significant evolution in Cisco’s approach. This includes developing custom silicon to deliver high bandwidth, performance, post-quantum readiness, and integrated security, moving beyond the limitations of off-the-shelf solutions. Enhanced observability, including deep packet inspection, is also crucial. For its operating system, IOS XE, Cisco is focused on easier deployment and upgrades without downtime, deep observability, efficient container execution, and robust programmability to support secure API communication for telemetry and management tools. From a broader systems perspective, the company is prioritizing visibility, programmability, and the maintenance of an open, interoperable ecosystem. A critical consideration for these systems is power efficiency, acknowledging networking equipment’s energy consumption and the growing importance of sustainability and carbon footprint management globally.