Cisco and Cloud Computing
Cisco Systems Inc. is a California based communications and networking technologies developer and vendor.
Founded in 1984, Cisco has, in a period of less than three decades, grown to become a force to be reckoned with and is, as of today, one of the most valuable companies on the globe.
In recent years, Cisco System’s revenue has been hovering around the $40 Billion mark, with a net income of about $8 Billion produced by its 60,000 strong workforce.
Cisco’s success has, to a large extent, been helped along by the demand for the communications and networking equipment the company designs and sells, which has been on an upward trend since the company’s birth.
Cisco’s Products
Cisco Systems provides both the hardware and software components that make computer networks possible. The most notable of Cisco’s hardware products, which are to be found in almost every Cisco network, include its network routers, switches and cabling—in addition to specialty hardware products like virtual private network equipment, network security appliances, Internet Protocol (IP) appliances and wireless networking products.
Cisco’s networking software products include their popular network operating system and network management software like the Cisco Intelligent Contact Management, the Cisco Virtual Private Network Client and Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Communicator.
Cisco Cloud Computing
As a leading provider of networking and communications solutions, Cisco has naturally played a pivotal role in building the cloud computing ‘revolution,’ which is currently taking shape.
It does so through the need for a hardware networking infrastructure and the software on which the cloud runs.
As it turns out, the cloud’s network requirements are unlike anything that has been seen before.
It takes a very robust network to actually run applications on a remote applications server—which is what cloud computing is all about—and it has been up to network infrastructure developers like Cisco Systems to come up with the hardware and software to make all of this possible.
Although the growth in Internet usage in the mid to late 90s increased due to unique networking needs, this power requirement was certainly nowhere near what is required by cloud computing.
This is because the network strength required to access a document on a remote server over the Internet is completely insignificant compared to the network strength required to actually run an application over the Internet in real time, as required by cloud computing.
Matters are not made any easier by the fact that cloud computing comes with its own unique network security requirements, as the companies who utilize the cloud essentially entrust their entire business to cloud computing providers.
To ensure that they don’t lose this trust, cloud computing service vendors naturally demand a new and higher degree of network robustness and security from networking hardware and software developers like Cisco systems—a demand Cisco Systems has responded to with remarkable alacrity, by offering new networking solutions tailor-made for cloud computing.
A good example of a product that Cisco Systems has developed in direct response to this need is its Nexus 7000 switch, which provides the switching power that is needed to make rapid data transfers (which are necessary in cloud computing) possible.
The Future of Cloud Computing at Cisco Systems
Cisco seems to be positioning itself well for the opportunities that cloud computing offers. As with many companies in the tech sector, Cisco Systems appears to have recognized the potential that cloud computing has and that it could be next frontier in enterprise (and possibly even consumer) computing.
After all, it is likely to change global approaches to computer networking. Cisco Systems looking to benefit from untapped talent, with the recent launch of a competition for developers to enhance its Applications Extension Platform (AXP), an enhancement that is likely to benefit its cloud computing clients through even better performance.
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