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Can Cisco Restore Confidence with SD-Access?

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At Cisco Live 2017, the world’s leading networking vendor shone a spotlight on their new line of campus switches and their emerging software platform coined SD-Access. Some of the buzz was familiar like a new programmable ASIC with more power to process packets. We heard the expected refrain of speeds and feeds, port density, redundancy, and PoE. But we heard new things as well.

After years of industry buzz surrounding Software Defined Networking, Cisco announced their first serious foray into the software-defined space. Software-defined Access combines a suite of Cisco software products to improve usability, build automation, and aid in troubleshooting. Combining ISE and two new software tools, DNA Center and Network Data Platform, Cisco promises a fully automated, secure campus fabric.  On it’s face, it’s difficult to not get excited about SD-Access. Many of us have been begging for more robust, software-driven solutions from Cisco. In many ways, SD-Access is the first coherent unified strategy in that direction.

But…

Those of us who’ve been around networking for any length of time have history. We remember the Cisco Live where OnePK was all the rage. Sessions were packed to the gills with eager networkers learning a new API that was going to be integrated into every Cisco platform. OnePK didn’t survive a year. We remember hyped, but incomplete, products that never delivered on their promises. Beyond the failed promises, we’ve given countless sleep-hours to unexpected production outages caused by software bugs. Many of us can’t remember the last TAC case we opened whose root cause wasn’t a software bug.

At the same time, we freely acknowledge that we’ve built our careers around Cisco solutions and products. We want to believe that Cisco is entering a new era, that the leadership of Chuck Robbins is bringing about transformation inside of an organization that’s grown bloated with success.

With all that in mind, what can Cisco do to restore our confidence in the next era of software-defined solutions?

  1. Ship working products. More than anything, we must be able to trust that the products we buy will work as promised.
  2. Stay focused on delivering real solutions to real problems. Stop creating solutions that look for a problem. We have plenty of problems to solve.
  3. Integrate. Cisco’s integration of newly acquired Viptela will speak volumes.
  4. Unify the organization. Customers have grown weary of inter-BU competition and inconsistent product messaging. We expect all of Cisco to be on one team.

Even with my cautious optimism following Cisco Live, it will take a few years of successful product deployments to renew my confidence. As a follower of SD-WAN in general, and a fan of Viptela in particular, I cannot overstate the importance of the successful integration of Viptela’s full SD-WAN platform.

By next Cisco Live we should know if SD-Access is just another marketing campaign or if it’s becoming a new way of life for Cisco. We will know if SD-Access works. We will see how Cisco rolls Viptela into the fold and if they make the difficult decisions required to do so.

Until then, many of us will continue to watch and wait.

Are we really headed for a post SD-WAN World?

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Last week, in our Network Collective show about the Cisco’s purchase of Viptela, I suggested that many vendors will soon be headed toward a post-SD-WAN view of the world. Jordan laughed and several people have mentioned it to me since. Let me explain what I meant.

In the past two years, the SD-WAN space has exploded in both the number of vendors and in industry hype. Anyone who has had a product that could be related to the WAN has begun to market an SD-WAN solution. And because Cisco, the leading networking vendor, did not have an offering that could compete on its merits, vendors clambered to fill the space championed by Viptela, VeloCloud, and other leading SD-WAN companies.

Cisco’s acquisition changes this entire dynamic. The 800 pound gorilla has entered the marketplace and the shift will be seismic. Now, SD-WAN vendors are not merely competing on merits (or more accurately marketing buzzwords), they’re also competing with the considerable name recognition and industry inertia of Cisco.

Companies who saw opportunity to scoop up customers in the absence of a strong Cisco presence will begin to reconsider their marketing strategy. Sales and marketing teams will gather to determine the next set of industry buzzwords and SD-WAN will become a phase.

What about the technology of SD-WAN? Over time, we will simply call it the WAN. The features of built-in encryption, intelligent traffic steering, and carrier agnosticism will become part and parcel to every serious branch connectivity solution. Eventually, we will talk about the old days of the WAN with nostalgia, just like 9600 baud modems.

Are we there yet? Not hardly. But mark my words, the post-SD-WAN days will be here before we know it.

Cisco Buys Viptela: What’s next for SD-WAN?

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Join me tonight (5/2) over at #NetworkCollective as we discuss Cisco’s purchase of Viptela live at 7PM. We’ll opine on this industry development and what it means for Cisco, Viptela, SD-WAN, and you!

 

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Viptela’s SD-WAN technology.  I presented at their FutureWan SD-WAN Virtual Summit. I talked about my experience with their solution in my video series on SD-WAN. I’ve been an SD-WAN evangelist for some time.

At the same time, I’ve not been a big fan of Cisco’s competing iWan offering — a cobbled-together collection of technologies which have been marketed as SD-WAN.  Two months ago, I wrote about Cisco’s growing identity crisis as it relates to SD-WAN with Viptela’s solution in mind.

Now that Cisco has announced the purchase of Viptela for $610M in cash, what does this mean for the future of Cisco, Viptela, and SD-WAN?

First, the SD-WAN space is crowded.  With more than two dozen vendors, every one that touches the WAN markets an “SD-WAN” solution.  Now that Cisco has a viable SD-WAN offering, I expect the market to thin and for definitions to become more clear.

There are a few things Cisco must do.  First, they must tightly integrate Viptela’s software into their WAN offerings.  They cannot treat Viptela as a different business unit that runs independently like they did with Meraki.  Cisco’s entire WAN portfolio must run Viptela’s SD-WAN software and it must happen fast.

Second, they must embrace the culture of customer focus that has been so attractive at Viptela.  In recent years, Cisco has adopted a posture among their technical teams in which they tell their customers what they need instead of listening to customers. For example, in a meeting with high-level Cisco engineers, we had to justify running BGP on a WAN router.  We needed to dynamically distribute routing information from our sites — not an unlikely use case.

Most importantly, Cisco must continue the innovation that Viptela began.  Although the technology a huge step forward, there is much work yet to do.  The user interface of Viptela’s management console could use some improvement.  Better visibility into traffic flows and path selection would be helpful.  Viptela needs to refine their cloud deployment models and make it easier for customers to extend their infrastructure into the cloud.

I’ve been critical of Cisco in recent months, yet I choose to remain hopeful.  I’m hopeful that the meteoric rise of SD-WAN has shaken Cisco out of their complacency.  I’m hopeful that they will fully integrate Viptela technology into their WAN routing platforms.  And I’m hopeful that customers will see not only technology benefits, increased operational efficiency, and security, but also overall cost savings, from implementing Viptela’s (now Cisco’s) SD-WAN technologies for years into the future.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

SD-WAN Series Part 4: Viptela

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This week we take a look at another SD-WAN vendor, Viptela.

In this video I highlight:
  • The difference between companies who approach SD-WAN from a WAN Optimization background and those who have a routing background
  • End-to-end segmentation features
  • Encryption and key management
  • Zero-touch provisioning
  • Cloud connectivity
  • Observations from hands-on experience deploying Viptela in a production environment
For full details, watch the video below:

 

For more information about Viptela, check out their presentations from Networking Field Day 13

Cisco’s Identity Crisis: Complexity, Pride, and SD-WAN

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Our Cisco team has been reaching out to get feedback on our relationship with Cisco and its products — a healthy practice for any vendor. I’ve tried to be open, honest, and consistent in all our talks.

As I mentally review our conversations, I conclude I’ve been contradictory. On one hand, I’ve talked about how the industry is changing and Cisco’s products need to evolve in a software-defined marketplace. At the same time, I’ve decried their decision to move last-generation data center products to the campus portfolio to make way for newer technology.

My contradictions reveal that I haven’t articulated my true concerns. There’s a problem underneath these problems.

I’ve been watching presentations by Russ White on network architecture and complexity. He makes the point, and I’m paraphrasing, that many of our technological advances don’t solve complexity, they move complexity to a different place in the stack. Engineers and architects must determine if the complexity changes are worth the trade-offs. We must ask if added complexity solves the problem at hand without creating undo stress on the system.

With that in mind consider Cisco, a company in love with complexity. They’ve built their business making complex systems. Their culture breeds nerd knobs. They’ve built certification tracks — through which many network engineers have built their careers — to develop expert level understanding of their products.

At the same time, engineers operate in a culture where we believe configuration and operational complexity have inherent value. We unconsciously embrace the following logic: Networks are complex. One must be smart to understand networks. I understand networks. Therefore, I’m smart.

We extrapolate this logic and believe that complexity, for complexity’s sake, makes us superior. In truth, our pride has tied gordian knot with complexity and we don’t know how to unravel it.

Cisco has fallen into this trap. They don’t have a technology problem, they’re suffering an identity crisis.

Enter SD-WAN

SD-WAN is unravelling the knot. Cisco has insisted that the level of complexity we experience in managing our networks is inherent. If you want multi-path selection, prioritized traffic by application, and quality of service you have to make sacrifices. It’s hard of course, and barely possible. After all, we’re solving difficult problems. There are caveats, bugs, and boundary cases but there is no other way. It’s a pipe dream to expect simplicity in management and operation of a system so complex.

The best SD-WAN vendors are proving these assertions wrong. You can have multi-path selection, prioritized traffic by application, and quality of service with an operational efficiency previously unimagined.

Is there complexity in an SD-WAN enabled network? Sure! But strong centralized management tools significantly reduce configuration and operational complexity.

I’ve heard people say, “SD-WAN technologies are not new.”

Using this logic, you could argue that the iPhone wasn’t really something new. When the iPhone was first announced, we already had mobile phones, mp3 players, web browsers, digital cameras, and touch screens. Apple simply created a management interface and software platform to make all those technologies work well together in one small form factor. You could perform the same functions without an iPhone but you had to use 5 separate devices that weren’t designed to work as a unit. The iPhone married several technologies and sparked a movement, reimagined the internet, and enabled an entire generation to communicate in ways they couldn’t before.

Will SD-WAN have the same mass-market consumer enablement as the iPhone? No. But within the microcosm if network engineering, we may soon discover that SD-WAN has sparked its own movement. At the very least, SD-WAN vendors prove the challenges we face can be met in new ways. They’re forcing the stalwarts to sit up and take notice. They bring a promise that we no longer have to choose between unmanageable complexity and non-functional simplicity. In my book, that’s a win regardless of who wins the WAN.

Want more to think about?

Watch Engineer vs. Complexity, Russ White at NANOG