ORLANDO, Fla.—Virtualization will spur the next wave of networking, Cisco President and CEO John Chambers told a keynote audience at the Gartner Symposium and IT Expo here on Oct. 11.

"I'm very proud to be a plumber. Pipes will get bigger, faster and more intelligent. We believe that virtualization is going to happen," Chambers said, explaining that to him, virtualization means a user's ability to access any application from any screen.

"We need to mask complexity from the average person," he added.

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"It will be a gradual process but we are moving aggressively," said Chambers, pointing to the company's AON middleware platform as a key enabling technology. "We're in the first inning of a nine inning ballgame. It's inevitable," said Chambers.

Virtualization will enable better collaboration, which will boost corporate productivity, adding that collaboration will be enabled through technologies such as IP videoconferencing, or telepresence.

Cisco has said it will ship the capability in its CRS-1 high-end router in the weeks ahead. The video capability will fill out collaboration technologies already available from Cisco, including data and voice communications.

Chambers predicted rapid growth in video-over-IP traffic, which will be 300 percent to 500 percent greater than current levels within a few years, as services such as YouTube move to HDTV.

Cisco ties video streaming tot he network. Click here to read more.

Chambers also touted his company's push into SAN (storage area network) technology, saying Cisco's SAN growth is 60 percent per year.

"Each market we enter, we become the number one player and no one has ever done that in IT before," said Chambers.

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