Cisco Emphasizes Need for Modern Network Architecture

The global pandemic that continues to lay waste to economies, bring life to a standstill, and has claimed the lives of nearly 81,000 people to date around the globe, is emphasizing the importance of network architecture and performance. “There’s a lot of innovation going on from a networking point of view as far as how the IT teams are dealing with this crisis,” Scott Harrell, SVP and GM of Cisco’s Intent-Based Networking Group, said during a conference call with analysts today. IT professionals are meeting the need, but rapid changes in user behavior and shifting resources are also highlighting the opportunities that 5G and WiFi 6 will unlock for enterprises, he said. This is a huge innovation cycle we have to go through,” Harrell explained. “But just doing it from a hardware point of view won’t be enough. We’ve also got to become more flexible to be able to deal with things like COVID-19 but also just to deal with the changes in user behavior because … the users, and devices, and applications are becoming more dynamic.