Enterprise technology opinions, analysis, and forecasts from Network World's experts
Cisco's record-breaking results confirm that networking is at the heart of the AI wave. For IT leaders, AI success depends on making the right investments in silicon programmability, campus Wi-Fi 7, PQC compliance, and AI-driven management.
AI-RAN is Nokia’s bid to turn the RAN into an AI computer — and a new revenue engine for mobile operators.
'Routine' network updates aren't low-risk; modern systems are so interconnected that a tiny tweak can break hidden dependencies miles away.
At the U.S. Open, Cisco and the USGA built a network that survives dust, rain, roving crowds, and cyberattacks — and the lessons for network engineers extend well beyond golf.
For IT pros, improving customer experience (CX) requires rethinking the architecture, governance, and operating models to support AI-native experiences.
Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel is turning Cisco from a sprawling holding company of dashboards into a unified, AI-native infrastructure platform.
Cloud Control is a consolidated management plane, but it's not a passive dashboard. Policy and identity are built directly into the control path. It's a sharp departure from the days when a dashboard’s job was mostly to display information and leave
AI is great at cutting down alert noise and spotting anomalies, but it can't fix your network if it's blind to 30% of the data paths in the first place.
Skills gaps and tool limitations are two of the barriers that network engineers face as they extend their automation capabilities to network monitoring, troubleshooting, and change management.
It's not too early to start planning for Wi-Fi 8. New features include non-primary channel access, seamless mobility domain (SMD) roaming, intermediate modulation and coding scheme (MCS) levels, and dynamic power-save modes.
EMA research shows chatbot-based AIOps is losing ground to agentic AI, with collaborative, proactive models delivering faster operations, fewer errors, and stronger results.
Cloud-hosted AI attracts extreme attention and investment. But what if the hype wave collapses? Nvidia's challenge is to build interest in the boring aspects of future AI business cases when the market’s focus is elsewhere.
AI agents and physical AI are no longer abstract risks. They’re changing how routers, switches, OT gear, and cloud paths must be monitored, segmented, and defended in real time.
Cisco report finds 86% of organizations struggle to hire wireless talent, increasing security risks and costs as AI draws skills away from networking roles.
SolarWinds report finds 80% of IT professionals say AI is shifting roles from operator to orchestrator, while challenges around trust, governance, and skills persist.
By bulking up AI observability with Galileo and identity with Astrix, Cisco is repositioning its secure network as the control plane for the agentic era. It's a calculated bet that the company best known for building the internet's infrastructure can
Security is improved when the network engineering team that’s responsible for the DDI stack—DNS, DHCP, and IP address management—takes the lead on DNS security, finds Enterprise Management Associates.
Blaming the insecurity of consumer Wi-Fi routers on foreign manufacturers is a red herring, and it’s not going to help revive US manufacturing.
Stop blaming the GPUs! Your AI feels slow because data is getting stuck in traffic. Fix the "supply chain" to keep those tokens flowing.
A glossary of essential networking terms with links to in-depth articles.
At the OFC 2026 conference, Nokia showed how its Infinera acquisition and vertical integration provide the optical infrastructure needed to address the widening gap between massive AI compute and networking.
Application delivery controllers, VPN gateways, and network management platforms are the de facto brokers of trust, and that makes them prime targets for attackers.
At Fortinet Accelerate 2026, Fortinet unveiled FortiOS 8.0 to combat agentic AI threats. The update prioritizes shadow AI visibility, deeper data protection, and unified security to close the machine-speed defense gap.
AI is pushing servers so hard that air cooling is literally shaking them to death; it is time to embrace liquid cooling or watch your hardware overheat and fail.
AWS is moving telcos from a box-shifting model to programmable, as-a-service platforms, using agentic AI and cloud partnerships to transform stagnant networks into revenue-generating engines.
When enterprise IT organizations view AI agents as software components, it allows them to be fit into project practices and business-case principles that have been honed through decades of experience.
The most difficult and expensive mission for network teams is responding to user complaints about service quality. That's a key reason for adding network capacity.
Cisco’s new AI Technical Practitioner (AITECH) certification is focused on practical, role-oriented skills for integrating generative AI, automation, and ethics into modern infrastructure management.
From Silicon One and Nexus One to AgenticOps and sovereign clouds, Cisco is working to position its networking and security infrastructure as the essential foundation for AI.
What Cisco has built at Levi’s Stadium is a blueprint for the future of the hyper-connected enterprise.
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