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Server Den: Cisco Turning UCS Into Server Battleground: Page 3 of 3

InformationWeek: What's going to be the focus for the next 12 to 18 months?

McCool: The borderless network, and how users are connecting to the network. Increasingly, there are more non-traditional-IT devices -- industrial devices, smart-grid devices -- that need to connect back to the data center. There's also the changing role of users and globalization, which are impacting the way enterprises are deploying their networks. That's a huge area of focus for us.

InformationWeek: Does this mean that the complexity of consumer networks is going to soon outstrip that of enterprises?

McCool: The consumers accessing the network through the consumer and service-provider network increases the complexity of the enterprise problem. A decade ago, we were probably all issued computers in our office or a laptop from our company. That method of controlling user access to the IT infrastructure is losing ground. We're expecting to access any information anywhere, anytime, including our corporate information from our smartphone, from our home computer, from a computer at a hotel. That requires IT to look at how they protect their assets.

Now, as a user and a consumer, I'm expecting to be connected all the time. That means I should be able to connect to my company as easily as I connect to Facebook. This should be a seamless operation, but still be secure from an enterprise standpoint.

InformationWeek: It sounds like this raises security, policy, and capacity planning issues, all at the same time.

McCool: You got it. That's it.

InformationWeek: I'm trying to understand what I perceive to be the dual nature of Cisco. It's an enterprise networking company, but there's also telepresence and consumer-oriented stuff like the Flip video camera.

McCool: We look at ourselves at our very core as a networking company. What we see converging on top of those networks are three things: Video, the interconnection of the data center on top of that network, and the collaboration stack that then rides on top, which we're using today through things like telepresence.

InformationWeek: Will video will be the humungous capacity sucking application?

McCool: It changes the nature of the way networks need to be built, both at services providers but also at the enterprise and in homes. If you think about our consumer thrust and what we're doing with Flip, that's about consumers driving video and more of a seamless operation in how they deal with video over the Internet.

InformationWeek: It also elevates QoS considerations, correct?

McCool: Absolutely.

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