A year after Cisco Systems announced its Borderless Network Architecture, the company is releasing a slate of new products that will continue to build on the original vision. The new products fall under Cisco’s routing, switching, security and mobility product lines.
This is the third set of announcements in the last year from Cisco about the Borderless Network Architecture. According to Inbar Lasser-Raab, senior director of network systems at Cisco Systems, more customers are finding the lines blurred between consumer and business technology as more consumer devices are making it into the enterprise, and the Borderless Network vision is meant to handle that IT issue. The latest news from Cisco builds on those capabilities further, expanding the network out from the traditional data center to encompass remote and mobile devices.
“With this announcement today, we are rolling out capabilities with four major elements of the Borderless Network,” Lasser-Raab said. She noted that the cornerstone that makes the architecture possible is the security that’s being integrated into the various components so that business users can connect all the elements of technology and services together without having to worry about data breaches.
According to Lasser-Raab, there has been much interest among customers for the Borderless Network vision. Market transitions like video, the explosion of mobile devices and the blurring of the lines between personal and business devices are the key drivers behind the architecture, she said.
“These are key transformations that are happening on the user’s side,” she said. Coupled with what’s happening on the infrastructure side (like the emergence and growing popularity of cloud computing), it means there is increasing importance on the WAN infrastructure.
New products are being added to the Borderless Network Architecture, including a router, a switch, a firewall and an entry-level access point.
Cisco is introducing the Catalyst 4500E Series, which is part of its mid-range 4500 switching platform line. The 4500E is a new entry-level modular switch that provides high-performance modular switching capabilities.
“What’s great about this switch is it’s now officially the fastest switch of its size,” Lasser-Raab said. She also noted it has the highest number of PoEP ports for its size. It can deliver 848Gbps of system bandwidth and has 384 PoEP ports.