UPDATED 17:00 EDT / JANUARY 30 2019

CLOUD

From ports to software: Cisco transitions to managing multicloud networking

As major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC moved to capture enterprise market share over the past few years, observers of Cisco Systems Inc. openly speculated that the networking company was in danger of being left behind. Cisco’s answer has been to retool its business model to manage the evolving multicloud world.

“If you didn’t have a public cloud, you were going to be in trouble unless you developed a cloud strategy,” said Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, on the second day of the Cisco Live event in Barcelona. “They figured out that actually managing multiclouds is a great opportunity. Cisco has a viable strategy.”

Vellante spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, on the second day of the conference, and they discussed Cisco’s evolving multicloud strategy, its role with major public cloud providers and the company’s positioning as a leader in enterprise data management. (* Disclosure below.)

New partnerships with AWS and Microsoft

One element of Cisco’s strategy has been to form partnerships in the public cloud ecosystem. Among the announcements released by the company on Tuesday was the news that it would extend its software-defined networking initiative to embrace AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud environments.

“You can’t talk about cloud, either public cloud or multicloud, without first talking about Amazon,” Miniman said. “I need a player that’s going to help give me coverage in all of these environments, and Cisco is making a strong case to be there.”

Cisco’s path to a cloud strategy followed the trail of data it has been channeling since its inception more than 30 years ago. The company’s role as a dominant networking player has placed it in a good position to capitalize on the need to move and manage data in many different places.

“Moving data around is going to be a big networking phenomenon,” Furrier said. “It’s going to be in the networks. That’s where the action will be.”

Here’s the full video analysis, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Cisco Live event(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner of Cisco Live. Neither Cisco nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on SiliconANGLE or theCUBE.)

Image: SiliconANGLE

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SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation serving innovative audiences and brands, bringing together cutting-edge technology, influential content, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — such as those established in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology, and AI. .

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