“We are redefining the economics of mass-scale networking – Cisco”

In this interview with Pratima H, Anand Bhaskar, Managing Director, Service Providers - Cisco India & SAARC explains why, where, and how many are new forces helping, and being helped by, networking technology. From SASE, SDN to NFV to open platform controllers and IBN, he helps us interpret everything under the sun, and inside the pipe. Slide in.

By Pratima H

How is the network aspect shaping up after what enterprises went through during the pandemic? How is Cisco gearing up for these new realities?

The past 19 months have seen massive changes in enterprise networks. Businesses and governments around the globe have been forced to quickly pivot to accommodate the work-from-home population, which led to an unforeseen strain of all manner on networking technologies, causing bandwidth and security concerns. Today, data can be stored anywhere, in any environment. It’s spread across on-premises and offsite locations, public and private clouds, pure and hybrid installations. Networks have gotten more complex, and management is more siloed. At the same time, IT organizations are expected to maintain everything flawlessly, delivering high availability across the globally distributed infrastructure with disparate toolsets. As organizations go deeper into the digital-first world, they need to simplify enterprise networks and ramp up network security for better efficiency.

At Cisco, we are committed to using technology to empower a workforce and transform workspaces. Our collaboration portfolio, Webex, can provide simple, smart, and secure hybrid work experiences from anywhere. On the other hand, the explosion of bandwidth demands puts significant stress on network capacity, forcing organizations to deploy SD-WAN and secure access server edge (SASE), as it enables networks to access cloud workloads and SaaS applications securely.

With the depth and breadth of our hardware, software, silicon, and optics solutions, we believe that we have all that is needed to help companies adopt modern application architectures, shift to hybrid work and hybrid cloud, and help secure their enterprise over any network, anywhere users work.

The current internet infrastructure is not meant to handle applications such as VR/AR, AI, 5G, quantum computing, and more.

AI, SASE, low-code automation, and edge computing are changing the game of network infrastructure in a big way. How has that affected the company’s portfolio and market strategy?

Trends such as globalization, digital transformation, resilience, and sustainability shape the requirements for a new kind of network. The next 3-years are a defining period for Communication Service Providers (SPs) due to the growing need for connectivity, exacerbated by the pandemic, and technology shifts like 5G, WiFi 6, edge, and cloud-native architectures.

At Cisco, we are focusing on six key areas that are going to be critical to our future success and core to our technology strategy over the next three years: build secure & agile networks, help our customers optimize their application experience, define and deliver the future of work, architecture to build the Internet of the future, end to end security and deliver capabilities at the edge, as workloads & apps move closer to where data is created.

Any specific examples?

We are redefining the economics of mass-scale networking to improve costs and outcomes for Telecom Service Providers and Webscale providers to provide a high-performance, efficient, and trustworthy Internet across a more inclusive world. At the same time, we are helping customers define a migration path to 5G & WiFi 6 and address opportunities in Private Enterprise Networks, exploiting our leadership in Mobility and Enterprise wireless technologies and Open RAN. Additionally, more Edge use cases continue to emerge as applications and workloads become increasingly distributed, which is also changing how we connect, secure, and develop applications.

What is your approach in helping service providers accelerate enterprises on digital turning-points?

In the blink of an eye, the world realized how critical the Internet is to our daily lives. Video conferences replaced physical meetings, virtual events replaced get-togethers, and children began distance learning. The network traffic levels that were predicted to reach in two years arrived almost overnight, as earlier peak usage hours are now typical for most of the day. Our service provider customers and partners have been doing a great job managing the spikes in network traffic and balancing the shift in ‘peak’ online hours accordingly. They have been the backbone during the pandemic, as they ensured critical connectivity for humanity to function.

Today, service providers have a unique opportunity to play a critical role in the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis; network connectivity may prove to be the bedrock in supporting our society, diminishing the pandemic’s negative impact by allowing us to stay in touch with the world and our communities.

As enterprises become more distributed and amp up virtualization of their processes and workflow, they will increasingly become a significant market for telecom service providers. Enterprises that constitute a quarter of telecom service providers’ revenue will be a major contributor over the next few years. According to Gartner, by 2023, over 60 percent of enterprises will deem networking as core to their digital strategies, up from less than 20 percent today.

Unlike last year, companies are not only enabling work from home but also converting their employees’ homes into enterprise-grade, secure workplace environments to emerge as future-ready organizations. Therefore, a service provider has a much larger and more significant role play in this hybrid world; they have the ability to help people connect, access, and collaborate in a seamless and secure manner.

At Cisco, we are engaged in 360-degree partnerships with all leading service providers to help prepare their networks for 5G by enabling an open, intelligent and secure network platform, enhancing their go-to-market strategies, and ensuring greater returns on their 5G investments.

Investments are needed in three key components – spectrum, sites, and fiberization on mid/low-band spectrums, which would stand between $18 billion and $30 billion for pan-India coverage.

Is Cisco aiming for a strong sweet spot in offering an end-to-end stack in areas that were initially perceived as a threat to its core business model - like NFV, SDN, Conferencing, etc.?

In the last few years, the telecom industry has altered drastically amid changing technology landscape, innovative service delivery models, evolving consumer behavior, and regulatory requirements from various regulatory agencies. Innovations in the area of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Intent-based networking (IBN), virtualization and programmability, and open platform controllers are making automation a reality in networks today. Automation, AI, multi-cloud networking, wireless, and network security will power the biggest wave of network transformation seen in decades.

Cisco Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) introduces services faster, delivers a high-quality user experience, and can scale on demand even to unpredictable traffic models. It also reduces the TCO by 40 percent, as the single-pane-of-glass management software module simplifies the management and operation of all components.

We have already been working with leading communication service providers and web-scale companies, including Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Google Cloud, Jio and Rakuten Mobile, and more to design the building blocks for the ‘Internet for the Future.’ Globally, we have committed $5 billion in funding to help build 5G networks over the next three years to support our customers in accelerating their 5G deployments.

How crucial is the intersection between chip development and networking as we move towards a new form of IT estate?

Building networks to grow and extend the Internet to more areas has been challenging for network operators. The current internet infrastructure is not meant to handle applications such as VR/AR, AI, 5G, quantum computing, and more. By rethinking silicon design entirely, we can deliver industry-leading performance today and create a “fast lane” to the future. Our programmable chipset, called Silicon One, is built for high-performance networking for future 5G applications. Additionally, today, Cisco is helping to further simplify the constructs of the Internet with its Routed Optical Networking solution aimed at collapsing IP and Optical networks

How significant is the 5G core for the industry?

Long ago, data ran over voice networks – dial-up modems over telephone lines. At higher speeds, the economics inverted, and VoIP ran over data networks. The 5G era will be marked by a similar transformation of monumental significance. IP services will no longer primarily run over optical networks. Instead, optical services will join the rest of legacy services and primarily run over IP networks.

The advent of 5G opens a new world of possibilities for every industry. The benefits are spread across industries that are on the cusp of their digital journeys, such as Healthcare, Manufacturing, Education, Automobile, Smart Cities, BFSI, etc. These networks play a crucial role in providing a competent platform to support the widespread adoption of critical communications services and driving the digitization agenda. Undoubtedly, 5G will push us into a world of interconnected networks, devices, and applications.

What challenges and inflection points does it bring?

One of the biggest challenges is that a comprehensive, secure and efficient 5G infrastructure requires investments in fiber, network densification, and specialized base stations, which equates to significant CapEx investments for telecom players. Investments are needed in three key components – spectrum, sites, and fiberization on mid/low-band spectrums, which would stand between $18 billion and $30 billion for pan-India coverage. It will also need spectrum across low, mid, and high s ranges to ensure maximum coverage and enable a plethora of use cases.

At Cisco, through innovation in cloud-based packet core, seamless business-to-service provider network connections, automation advances, and trusted secure infrastructure, the road to a profitable mobile network has never been clearer. We’re also working across providers, enterprises, and industries around the world to help them understand how they can deliver those 5G capabilities to private networks as simply as possible as that means agile, controllable, and secure networks.

Bhaskar is Managing Director, Service Providers, Cisco India & SAARC

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