The Cisco name has long been synonymous with attaining the highest degree of proven expertise in the realm of Routing and Switching technology. From quite literally the first router to the 7200 and 12000 to the more recent ASR 1000 and ASR 9000 platforms, Cisco focused on and delivered ground-breaking innovation. And I believe we did it again this week with the introduction of the CRS-3 – what we believe will be the foundation of the Next-Generation Internet.

In Anticipation of Forecast Demand
When you set out to find a lasting solution to service provider’s core networking needs, you have to envision what the requirements will likely be in the foreseeable future. You must look beyond the short-term benefits of incremental enhancements.

Already, there’s an explosive growth of all types of IP traffic. Plus, the fundamental mix of traffic is changing – dramatically. Ninety percent of all consumer traffic, which in itself is about 74% of total traffic, is going to be some form of video. Mobile traffic will see a 6500% growth by 2013. Then there’s the traffic generated from the evolution of the new IT model of cloud computing - that market will witness a 300% growth by 2013.

The networking infrastructure solution to these daunting growth forecasts requires a platform architecture that delivers capacity, precisely where it’s needed most, in full anticipation of the inevitable groundswell of traffic.

That architecture needs to scale to meet the accelerating bandwidth requirements, possess service intelligence to make network and data center/cloud work as one, and provide the SP with the ability to meet these objectives with reasonable CapEx and OpEx - making this growth financially viable.

• The ROI for Cloud Computing