2931: Discussing AI and Automation in Networking With Cisco

[00:00:00] What's driving the evolution of networking today? And how are leaders like Cisco shaping the future of data centres and connectivity? Well on this episode of Tech Talks Daily, live from Cisco Live, I'm joined by the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco

[00:00:20] Networking Data Centre and Provider Connectivity. His name's Kevin and with decades of experience and a finger on the pulse of industry transformations, Kevin's going to join me today to share his insights into Cisco's latest networking innovations. And during these discussions we'll also learn

[00:00:40] how these advances are addressing the complex challenges faced by some of the largest service providers and data centres around the world. So buckle up and hold on tight because no matter where you're listening in the world right now, it's time for me to beam your ears

[00:00:55] all the way to the show floor at Cisco Live here in Vegas. So a massive warm welcome to the show Kevin, can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Kevin Yeah perfect thanks, thanks for having me.

[00:01:09] Kevin Wollenweber, I am the SVP and General Manager for our data centre and provider connectivity businesses, really focused on everything we're doing to transform data centre and working with our service provider and hyperscale customers on their network build-ups.

[00:01:24] A big thank you for joining me today and there'll be a lot of people listening around the world that are not unable to attend, so what would you say the big takeaways, the big themes

[00:01:32] at Cisco Live this year and especially what are people talking about on the show floor? I think we're going to mention a two letter acronym maybe but... Kevin I was going to try to save that till the end

[00:01:41] but yeah, there's definitely a lot of discussion around AI and actually one of the things I'm most excited about is how we're trying to transform our customers operational and usability in their network.

[00:01:55] One of the things that we see with AI is obviously there's dramatic growth in bandwidth and there's a lot more interesting technologies that are going to come into play for them but because the network's changing they have to think about operating the network different ways

[00:02:07] so we talk about things like digital experience assurance which is looking at end-to-end how can we transform how our customers not only build networks but operate and run them. I'm curious, how have you seen the networking landscape evolve in recent years?

[00:02:21] We've seen so much big changes in the last two years alone and two and five years but what are the most significant trends driving change in things like data centers and provider connectivity to that?

[00:02:33] So I've been in this industry for a long, long time let's just say nearing three decades I've seen a lot of changes and a lot of transformations. What we're seeing right now is multiple transformations happening at the same time and so while we're

[00:02:45] preparing our customers for what an AI-based network or what AI impacts will have on their network infrastructure we're also looking at just the pure growth, everybody going back to work and COVID's over and dealing with bandwidth growth at the same time as a complete

[00:03:02] transformation of applications around AI and having to figure out how to actually build networks that are capable of that growth today but focused on what might come over the next few years which realistically we don't fully understand what those long-term impacts of AI are going to be.

[00:03:17] Yeah, 100% and I'm not sure how much you'd be able to share here but are you able to share some of the latest innovations in specifically Cisco's data center and provider connectivity portfolio? What are you most excited about there and how do they address the current industry challenges?

[00:03:33] Yeah, I'm really excited because there's so much that we're talking about here with not only data center but also our server provider connectivity technology so we're launching new 400 and 800 gig routers and switches to handle the bandwidth and capacity growth needs.

[00:03:49] We're announcing innovations around how we want our customers to manage their data center infrastructure, more use of AI-based technologies to help them actually understand and visualize what's happening in the network but probably what I'm most excited about is something we

[00:04:04] call the Cisco Nexus Hyperfabric and this is really a solution that we're developing to enable our customers to much more easily roll out data center fabrics, manage those data center fabrics and then extend them into AI-based compute.

[00:04:19] So we've partnered with NVIDIA, we're bringing NVIDIA technologies into the compute infrastructure and actually extending the reach of that data center footprint all the way out to the NICs and to the GPUs and building clusters that enable our customers to focus on running AI

[00:04:34] workloads and getting value out of AI and not managing that IT infrastructure. Yeah, I've heard a lot of excitement around the NVIDIA partnership there and the recent merge of the data center and routing teams. I was reading how that also aims to build the world's most advanced network.

[00:04:50] So how is that integration enhancing Cisco's ability to deliver these cutting-edge solutions that you're being asked to deliver? Well if you think about it, so I told you I've been doing this for a long time and there

[00:05:00] used to be a really big difference between switching infrastructure and routing infrastructure and switches were really high capacity with very low functionality. Routers were much, much lower capacity but you know a much higher scale and routes and features and functions.

[00:05:14] And as silicon technologies have evolved, we're getting to a point where there's a lot more consistency between those. So the businesses are very, very different, the customer bases are very, very different but a lot of the technology building blocks are getting more and more similar.

[00:05:27] So by bringing these together, we can build a lot more consistency across those portfolios. Most of our customers that are deploying data center and a lot of our service provider equipment are actually deploying all of that across their network infrastructure.

[00:05:40] And so providing consistency in the building blocks and then consistency in the management infrastructure that sits on top of it is going to allow them to deploy these technologies in much, much easier ways.

[00:05:51] And something we must also talk about as well is the increasing complexity of network architectures. So how is Cisco leveraging automation and indeed that AI word again to simplify network management and improve operational efficiency for service providers? That's probably a question you get a lot.

[00:06:07] They want to simplify things but it is complex, isn't it? It is. And look, I've always been in the world of big iron and hardware and we have to continue to meet bandwidth needs and build new ASICs and build new systems.

[00:06:18] But if you listen to most of our customers, because their networks are transforming for AI and actually just in general, the way applications run, they're much more distributed. It's no longer running fixed on a single device. You have cloud operations and on-prem solutions.

[00:06:34] And so what our customers are involved in terms of network design and operations is much, much more complex. And so although they want us to continue to build world-class hardware solutions, most of the conversations are around how do you help me automate? How do you help me operationalize?

[00:06:50] How do you give me more visibility into that network infrastructure itself? So we talked about something in the keynotes called digital experience assurance. And really what that's about is taking all of this different data that we have around

[00:07:03] the networks, whether it's from things like Thousand Eyes or from companies like Excedion which we acquired, which give us really granular view of what's happening inside of the network or even with the acquisition and bringing in of Splunk.

[00:07:17] We now have data sources around the network that we can leverage in very different ways and give our customers much better view of what's happening across their entire ecosystem. And how are you at Cisco supporting your customers in modernizing their data centers?

[00:07:32] We hear a lot about technical debt and we can't afford that anymore. And also provider networks to meet the demands of emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, edge computing, and they're all beginning to converge just to make it even more complicated.

[00:07:45] So for me, it comes down to the building blocks. And if you think about it, we can now put more forwarding capacity and more functionality into a single ASIC or a single forwarding chip than we could in a large seven-foot tall system

[00:07:58] or even these multi-rack systems that we used to build in the past. And so anytime you have new building blocks, some of the things we're doing in silicon photonics and with optics, you can take these building blocks and you can think about building

[00:08:09] the network in a very different way. So technologies that we've pioneered like routed optical networks where you're taking what were discrete devices in the network and collapsing them into a much smaller footprint and a much more efficient device because the biggest burden and bottleneck for our customers

[00:08:25] moving forward, especially with that AI infrastructure that we're seeing is really power, space, cooling, and cost. And so these new building blocks are enabling our customers to build much more distributed networks, push a lot of these technologies out closer to their customers.

[00:08:41] But in doing that, they have to think about operating the network in different ways as well. So just as much focus on automation and operations as there is silicon innovation and systems, building different building blocks, and then looking at how we can take these architectures

[00:08:53] out to our customers and help them modernize everything from the data center preparation for AI to the server provider networks that are connecting customers to those AI infrastructure components. And of course, there's a great quote that we often overestimate what we can achieve

[00:09:08] in 12 months but underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. And looking ahead, what do you believe will be the biggest challenges and equally opportunities in the network industry? And how are you at Cisco? Maybe be preparing to help your customers navigate this future landscape because there's

[00:09:24] a lot of people feeling overwhelmed and daunted by what they're seeing at the moment. Actually, those are two really interesting questions because the first side of it, actually the second part of the question, for some of these things, we want customers to just move forward.

[00:09:37] It's easy to do the analysis paralysis and not make any decisions. And so we've got to start to evolve our infrastructure. We have some customers, and it's great when you hear from the customers themselves and

[00:09:47] not just from me, but we have some customers that have seen a 97% decrease in the amount of power and an increase in efficiency as they move from some of their legacy devices to some of these modern devices.

[00:09:59] And so with AI coming and all of these high bandwidth workloads and use cases, we really need people to start that modernization process because the data centers that we've been building for the last few decades and the service provider infrastructure to move all of that around

[00:10:15] the network is just not going to be capable of what we see over the next few years. And so it's about preparing for the future, but it's really about making decisions and moving and starting on that journey now. And coming towards the close of Cisco Live now.

[00:10:29] So after soaking up all that Cisco Live has to offer, reflecting on the countless conversations, keynotes and interviews that you've been doing as well, what will you be thinking about on that plane ride home?

[00:10:40] I mean, first of all, I'm just excited about the innovations that we've announced, especially in the data center part of the network where a few years ago, data center wasn't as exciting of a place to be.

[00:10:51] But with the growth of the hyperscalers and with the advent of AI, there's so much more focus now on the data center that it's just exciting to be in this space. And it's fun to watch people coming in really wanting to see how they can modernize and

[00:11:05] how they can get themselves prepared and sort of future-proof their data centers for the future AI applications that are coming. But yeah, these are long weeks for us. We do a lot of interviews and a lot of customers. Happy to see all the customers. Love the show.

[00:11:17] It was amazing. But I think I'm going to definitely close my eyes and listen to some music and try to relax a little bit before I get right back to the work world Monday morning.

[00:11:25] Well, before I let you get back to the show floor and more interviews, a question I've got to ask. I always like to allow my guests to bust a few myths or misconceptions. Is there any myths or misconceptions around data centers that we can finally lay to rest

[00:11:40] today? I think the first one is, you know, Ethernet as a technology is here to stay. You know, there's been a lot of discussions around what are the right technologies for AI, where these technologies going to go.

[00:11:51] In my entire career, you know, spending almost 30 years, we've seen a lot of things that compete with Ethernet over time and the pace of innovation in Ethernet and the pervasiveness of Ethernet as a technology is going to drive the investment in that direction.

[00:12:06] And it will continue to evolve at a pace that nothing else can. So not only are we going to start to see a lot more Ethernet for AI applications, but we're moving to 800 gigabit Ethernet and we're building out 1.6 terabit Ethernet in the future.

[00:12:18] And so it's going to be fun to watch the pace of innovation in that data center space. So we're definitely not at the end of the line for data center technologies and we'll see continued evolution for a decade to come.

[00:12:29] And do you still have your crimping skills making Ethernet codes? I am definitely the IT professional in my house. Every Wi-Fi problem, every Cat6 connection I need to make, it all comes to me. For anyone listening just wants to find out more information about anything we talked

[00:12:44] about today. Is there a particular area of the Cisco website you like to point everyone? Yeah, obviously everything we do is on Cisco.com. We have some splash pages for both our server provider and our data center solutions, and

[00:12:55] I'll make sure that those are contained in the notes for the podcast. But Cisco.com is the place to go and generally there'll be a focus area for all the things that we've launched at Cisco Live.

[00:13:04] Well, there's just so much going on here and I know we're all running around talking, having so many conversations. So just a big thank you for sitting down with me today and sharing your story. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

[00:13:14] So, as we close today's episode, I'd love to ask you listening, wherever you are located, whether you've been to Cisco Live or been following it online, what future networking challenges do you think are most critical? And how should companies like Cisco continue to innovate in response?

[00:13:33] As I say at the end of every episode, this is not a monologue. It's a dialogue and I invite every listener to share your thoughts with us today. So email me tech blog writer outlook.com X Instagram LinkedIn just at Neil C Hughes. Let me know your thoughts.

[00:13:49] If you've got any questions, any viewpoints or you'd like to join me on the podcast, give me a shout. But that's it for today and for my time at Cisco Live. So just so thank you for listening and hopefully you'll continue to listen and join me again

[00:14:03] tomorrow morning where we have another guest ready for your listening pleasure. But more than anything, thank you for listening as always and until next time. Don't be a stranger.