Cisco, anticipating video tsunami, builds up network smarts

Saying video will soon dominate all types of data networks, Cisco on Monday launched a multipronged effort to make it better-suited for handling that traffic.

As is typical for Cisco, the strategy includes bringing functions into network infrastructure that have been carried out by applications. But this initiative aims to address the key thing Cisco has said is now driving demand for its products.

"Video is becoming the dominant traffic on networks at a very rapid rate," said David Hsieh, vice president of marketing for Cisco's Emerging Technologies group, which oversees new areas of innovation in the company. The video strategy announced Monday is among Cisco's stable of emerging technologies, which it looks to as possible big businesses of the future. The announcement came as the company geared up for its C-Scape industry analyst conference, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday in San Jose, California.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Saying video will soon dominate all types of data networks, Cisco on Monday launched a multipronged effort to make it better-suited for handling that traffic.

As is typical for Cisco, the strategy includes bringing functions into network infrastructure that have been carried out by applications. But this initiative aims to address the key thing Cisco has said is now driving demand for its products.

"Video is becoming the dominant traffic on networks at a very rapid rate," said David Hsieh, vice president of marketing for Cisco's Emerging Technologies group, which oversees new areas of innovation in the company. The video strategy announced Monday is among Cisco's stable of emerging technologies, which it looks to as possible big businesses of the future. The announcement came as the company geared up for its C-Scape industry analyst conference, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday in San Jose, California.

The "Medianet" technologies to be rolled out under the strategy announced Monday will span service provider, enterprise and home networks, according to Cisco. It kicked off the effort with a hardware and software platform for adapting video and other media to many different devices in an enterprise, as well as capabilities built into the recently announced ASR9000 edge router to improve home video coming over carrier networks.

Traditional IP networks are designed to transport packets and do a good job of delivering a Web-surfing experience, said Suraj Shetty, vice president of worldwide service provider marketing. But for video, streams are more important than individual packets and users' expectations are different, so networks need to be changed to deliver a good experience, he said. Earlier performance-enhancing technologies, such as MPLS, helped deal with video as one of many applications, Shetty said. Now it's time to address it as the main application, he said.

Cisco is the only company that has the broad capabilities to bring about that change, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Such a major undertaking will bring the company into areas where standards don't exist or have to be adapted, but Cisco has proved adept at leading new specifications, he said. (Indeed, the company has been accused more than once of forcing its own technologies into industry standards.)

The company's biggest obstacle is likely to be the weak economy, which could make service providers and enterprises skittish about making the large capital investments needed to ready networks for high-quality video, Kerravala said.

The most significant product announced Monday under the Medianet strategy is the Cisco Media Experience Engine 3000, the first of a set of offerings that will comprise the Cisco Media Processing platform for enterprises. The Media Experience Engine can take video content created for one platform and convert it for viewing on others, according to Cisco's Hsieh. For example, a meeting held over Cisco's Telepresence Meeting system, in high-definition video on large plasma screens, could be recorded and adapted automatically for playback on an employee's PC.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.