Cisco To Integrate Applications With Networks

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- No longer content to just help move packets around, Cisco Systems now wants to let its networking hardware talk directly to the application information inside those packets -- which the company hopes will produce better results for customers, and more cash for Cisco.

At its user and partner conference here, Cisco on Tuesday [June 21] officially unveiled a strategy called "Application Oriented Networking (AON)," which will attempt to embed what Cisco calls "intelligent application message routing" technology directly into Cisco's networking gear. The new technology, Cisco said, will allow the network to make routing, security and administrative decisions based on application-level information, in a manner faster and cheaper than current implementations, which can include multiple layers of hardware and software.

The AON plan appears to be Cisco's long-term strategy for a developing networking market trend, where networking devices are able to look deep into the packets in data streams and make administrative decisions about routing, security and application performance without affecting application or network performance. It is an area Cisco has been active in via acquisitions, including its purchase last month of application-security specialist FineGround Networks.

Such devices are becoming increasingly important to service providers and large enterprise users (two of Cisco's biggest customer groups) because of the performance, security and administrative problems raised by networks and applications that span wide geographic areas and cross multiple network boundaries. The AON announcement here at Cisco's Networkers user event also provides a competitive answer to Juniper Networks' announcement earlier this year to purchase two independent vendors, Peribit Networks and Redline Networks, in the same technology arena. Citrix Systems also recently said it would purchase NetScaler, another previously independent entrant in the application-acceleration arena.

Cisco CEO John Chambers told a packed-house crowd Tuesday at his keynote speech that the AON architecture represents "one of the most fundamental changes of IT in my lifetime." Having application intelligence in the network, Chambers added, "changes IT forever."The first fruits of the AON effort will be blades for Cisco's larger 6500 series routers and for its smaller 2600 and 3700 series routers. Charlie Giancarlo, Cisco's chief technology officer, said the products are currently in beta testing, with general availability expected within a few months. Cisco said it will also ship a standalone appliance version of the first AON product by the end of the year. The company did not disclose pricing for any of the planned products.

Initially the AON technology will use XML hooks to link networking hardware to applications, to allow for application performance load-balancing, security and message-based routing tasks. Cisco said other application protocols, such as IBM's middleware protocol, could also be used by AON gear in the future. Cisco announced partnerships with a list of application vendors, including IBM, SAP and SAIC, who all pledged to help make their applications work better with Cisco's AON-enabled devices.