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IN THIS WEEKS ISSUE Why Isnt Cisco Squashing Competitors A Request ForClarity Hey turn on those images they might be amusing Or not Probably not Butits worth a try

Table of Contents (aka The Project Plan)

1 Why Isnt Cisco SquashingCompetitors2 A Request For ClarityThanks InternetInternets Of Interest Product NewsPacketPushersnet - The LastFiveQuick Survey ProfessionalDevelopment FocusLast Issues Survey Results

Issue Number 69

11092017 The Try something different issue

Thought For The WeekDo we have any Halloween

candy left

1 Why Isnt Cisco SquashingCompetitors

by Greg Ferro Cisco is a sales bulldozer that crushes competition by making itdifficult for customers to NOT buy Cisco products Letrsquos be honest Ciscos technology isnt the best its software quality ispoor bug fixes take months and itrsquos slow to add features Yet thisdidnrsquot stop Cisco from outselling competitors for the last decade

Following Not LeadingCiscos mode of innovation is to buy successful companies Thisinstant innovation is much cheaper than internal research anddevelopment

After Cisco makes a purchase it adds the product to its supermarketFor example Viptelarsquos SDshyWAN goes next to the evershypopular branchrouters just above the branch switches and down the aisle frombranch security

This business model was a winner for John Chambers Cisco but itrsquosnot working so well now Why

Speed Of ChangeNetworking didnt change much from 1999 to 2012 or so Same routingprotocols same basic designs and customers didnt really want toinvest in networking except to go faster by moving from 100Mbps to1Gbps

We dropped fewer packets as silicon got faster but the software andfeatures were basically unchanged This slowshymoving market wasgood for Ciscorsquos salesshyonly focus customers kept buying the sameproducts and deploying the same designs

At the same time Cisco did very little to modernize and it avoidedresearch and development

In last five or so years dozens of networking startups have emergedacross a wide range of the market The first startups were attracted tothe 80 gross profit margins of everyday products like campusswitches and branch routers (see SDshyWAN)

Startups can move quickly going from concept to product in as little astwo years This is about the same amount of time it would take to get aconcept project approved internally at Cisco much less bring aproduct to market

Anti-AutomationCisco has many business units (BUs) internally and each is ruthlesslyfocused on its own profits Cisco pays generous bonuses when yourBU exceeds targets So itrsquos not a surprise that some BUs want to bringnew products to market but existing BUs fight hard to prevent them

Ciscos slow acceptance and implementation of automation is keyhere Many BUs simply refused to implement automation because itwas seen to impact their own profits If they did bow to customer pressure each BU acted independentlyand often with low quality Itrsquos a simple trick to undershyresource a projector allocate your worst people to something you dont like

But automation is now required if enterprise networks are to keep upwith the accelerated pace of application deployment Only recently hasCisco converged on a single YANG model Mandatory implementationfor automation and rumors of direct CEO intervention abound

Sales FirstCisco is a sales first culture where the deal is everything andsuccess is measured by the dollars sold this quarter Change causes

sales to slow down You can see the problem

Salesshyfirst cultures have problems when the products keep changingor when competitors have better technology or a better story Theability to close deals relies on sharp business practices like creatingartificial pricing schemes (list vs street price) to create reasons toengage sales

Cloud has changed this Selfshyservice models of limited but clearlydefined products dont need expensive sales humans

Commodity ProductsIn addition people realize that that sales dont add value Why wastehundreds of hours working on complex licensing and hardwarecomparisons Buy it from a website and move to the next problem

Itrsquos now true that Cisco is only one of many suppliers for hardware andsoftware for networking Indeed savvy customers are building theirown solutions with automation to avoid having to deal with vendors

Cisco Is Trying To ChangeTheres no question Chuck Robbins is forcing change at Cisco He ismerging BUs and forcing them to cooperate instead of compete (forinstance ACI was merged into single Data Center BU) Hersquos overhauling stale product lines launching initiatives such as SDshyAccess and moving rapidly into new markets like IoT as Enterprise ITshrinks Cisco has a mixed record of being successful at change in my view itgets about half of new efforts right Thatrsquos why Im standing back andwaiting to see signs of success before I would commit to Cisco as asingle source vendor

2 A Request For Clarityby Drew Conry-Murray The other day I was researching a product for a blog I was writingAfter twenty or so minutes on the Web page I still had no clear ideawhat the product did or how it worked Like a fortune teller reading entrails it was up to me to make senseout of a bloody mess of the marketing grizzle strewn among the bonesof ldquointentrdquo ldquoautomationrdquo and ldquomachine learningrdquo And then I realized that was the point If like a fortune a vendorrsquos language is broad enough and vagueenough it can encompass just about any problem a potentialcustomer is trying to solve The language that vendors use on their Web pages isnrsquot meant toinform Itrsquos meant to entice me into further contact and turn me into alead I canrsquot get my question answered until I hand over some contactdetails which starts me down a sales funnel like a pig through a chute

Good Leads And LeadershipI get that vendors need to sell products They have employees to payfacilities to operate and shareholders to satisfy And I understand that to sell products vendors need to keep the salespipeline flowing with leads But are 100 crappy leads from confused and irritated engineers moreworthwhile than 3 or 4 strong leads from engineers who actually know

what your product does and want to find out more Are you enhancing anyonersquos productivitymdashyour employeesrsquo or yourpotential customersrsquomdashby sitting through innumerable calls meetingsand white board sessions just to find out yoursquore not really a fit Tech organizations are always looking for ways to be thought leadersWell herersquos a great opportunity Demonstrate industry leadership by jettisoning all marketing bullshitand buzzwordshywashing Commit to clear descriptive language whendescribing your product or service It might mean a smaller pipeline but also one that requires lessfiltering of crap and waste Isnrsquot that better for everyone

Thanks InternetAll kinds of amusing things wash up in our social feeds Heresone that caught my eye

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

At the same time Cisco did very little to modernize and it avoidedresearch and development

In last five or so years dozens of networking startups have emergedacross a wide range of the market The first startups were attracted tothe 80 gross profit margins of everyday products like campusswitches and branch routers (see SDshyWAN)

Startups can move quickly going from concept to product in as little astwo years This is about the same amount of time it would take to get aconcept project approved internally at Cisco much less bring aproduct to market

Anti-AutomationCisco has many business units (BUs) internally and each is ruthlesslyfocused on its own profits Cisco pays generous bonuses when yourBU exceeds targets So itrsquos not a surprise that some BUs want to bringnew products to market but existing BUs fight hard to prevent them

Ciscos slow acceptance and implementation of automation is keyhere Many BUs simply refused to implement automation because itwas seen to impact their own profits If they did bow to customer pressure each BU acted independentlyand often with low quality Itrsquos a simple trick to undershyresource a projector allocate your worst people to something you dont like

But automation is now required if enterprise networks are to keep upwith the accelerated pace of application deployment Only recently hasCisco converged on a single YANG model Mandatory implementationfor automation and rumors of direct CEO intervention abound

Sales FirstCisco is a sales first culture where the deal is everything andsuccess is measured by the dollars sold this quarter Change causes

sales to slow down You can see the problem

Salesshyfirst cultures have problems when the products keep changingor when competitors have better technology or a better story Theability to close deals relies on sharp business practices like creatingartificial pricing schemes (list vs street price) to create reasons toengage sales

Cloud has changed this Selfshyservice models of limited but clearlydefined products dont need expensive sales humans

Commodity ProductsIn addition people realize that that sales dont add value Why wastehundreds of hours working on complex licensing and hardwarecomparisons Buy it from a website and move to the next problem

Itrsquos now true that Cisco is only one of many suppliers for hardware andsoftware for networking Indeed savvy customers are building theirown solutions with automation to avoid having to deal with vendors

Cisco Is Trying To ChangeTheres no question Chuck Robbins is forcing change at Cisco He ismerging BUs and forcing them to cooperate instead of compete (forinstance ACI was merged into single Data Center BU) Hersquos overhauling stale product lines launching initiatives such as SDshyAccess and moving rapidly into new markets like IoT as Enterprise ITshrinks Cisco has a mixed record of being successful at change in my view itgets about half of new efforts right Thatrsquos why Im standing back andwaiting to see signs of success before I would commit to Cisco as asingle source vendor

2 A Request For Clarityby Drew Conry-Murray The other day I was researching a product for a blog I was writingAfter twenty or so minutes on the Web page I still had no clear ideawhat the product did or how it worked Like a fortune teller reading entrails it was up to me to make senseout of a bloody mess of the marketing grizzle strewn among the bonesof ldquointentrdquo ldquoautomationrdquo and ldquomachine learningrdquo And then I realized that was the point If like a fortune a vendorrsquos language is broad enough and vagueenough it can encompass just about any problem a potentialcustomer is trying to solve The language that vendors use on their Web pages isnrsquot meant toinform Itrsquos meant to entice me into further contact and turn me into alead I canrsquot get my question answered until I hand over some contactdetails which starts me down a sales funnel like a pig through a chute

Good Leads And LeadershipI get that vendors need to sell products They have employees to payfacilities to operate and shareholders to satisfy And I understand that to sell products vendors need to keep the salespipeline flowing with leads But are 100 crappy leads from confused and irritated engineers moreworthwhile than 3 or 4 strong leads from engineers who actually know

what your product does and want to find out more Are you enhancing anyonersquos productivitymdashyour employeesrsquo or yourpotential customersrsquomdashby sitting through innumerable calls meetingsand white board sessions just to find out yoursquore not really a fit Tech organizations are always looking for ways to be thought leadersWell herersquos a great opportunity Demonstrate industry leadership by jettisoning all marketing bullshitand buzzwordshywashing Commit to clear descriptive language whendescribing your product or service It might mean a smaller pipeline but also one that requires lessfiltering of crap and waste Isnrsquot that better for everyone

Thanks InternetAll kinds of amusing things wash up in our social feeds Heresone that caught my eye

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

sales to slow down You can see the problem

Salesshyfirst cultures have problems when the products keep changingor when competitors have better technology or a better story Theability to close deals relies on sharp business practices like creatingartificial pricing schemes (list vs street price) to create reasons toengage sales

Cloud has changed this Selfshyservice models of limited but clearlydefined products dont need expensive sales humans

Commodity ProductsIn addition people realize that that sales dont add value Why wastehundreds of hours working on complex licensing and hardwarecomparisons Buy it from a website and move to the next problem

Itrsquos now true that Cisco is only one of many suppliers for hardware andsoftware for networking Indeed savvy customers are building theirown solutions with automation to avoid having to deal with vendors

Cisco Is Trying To ChangeTheres no question Chuck Robbins is forcing change at Cisco He ismerging BUs and forcing them to cooperate instead of compete (forinstance ACI was merged into single Data Center BU) Hersquos overhauling stale product lines launching initiatives such as SDshyAccess and moving rapidly into new markets like IoT as Enterprise ITshrinks Cisco has a mixed record of being successful at change in my view itgets about half of new efforts right Thatrsquos why Im standing back andwaiting to see signs of success before I would commit to Cisco as asingle source vendor

2 A Request For Clarityby Drew Conry-Murray The other day I was researching a product for a blog I was writingAfter twenty or so minutes on the Web page I still had no clear ideawhat the product did or how it worked Like a fortune teller reading entrails it was up to me to make senseout of a bloody mess of the marketing grizzle strewn among the bonesof ldquointentrdquo ldquoautomationrdquo and ldquomachine learningrdquo And then I realized that was the point If like a fortune a vendorrsquos language is broad enough and vagueenough it can encompass just about any problem a potentialcustomer is trying to solve The language that vendors use on their Web pages isnrsquot meant toinform Itrsquos meant to entice me into further contact and turn me into alead I canrsquot get my question answered until I hand over some contactdetails which starts me down a sales funnel like a pig through a chute

Good Leads And LeadershipI get that vendors need to sell products They have employees to payfacilities to operate and shareholders to satisfy And I understand that to sell products vendors need to keep the salespipeline flowing with leads But are 100 crappy leads from confused and irritated engineers moreworthwhile than 3 or 4 strong leads from engineers who actually know

what your product does and want to find out more Are you enhancing anyonersquos productivitymdashyour employeesrsquo or yourpotential customersrsquomdashby sitting through innumerable calls meetingsand white board sessions just to find out yoursquore not really a fit Tech organizations are always looking for ways to be thought leadersWell herersquos a great opportunity Demonstrate industry leadership by jettisoning all marketing bullshitand buzzwordshywashing Commit to clear descriptive language whendescribing your product or service It might mean a smaller pipeline but also one that requires lessfiltering of crap and waste Isnrsquot that better for everyone

Thanks InternetAll kinds of amusing things wash up in our social feeds Heresone that caught my eye

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

2 A Request For Clarityby Drew Conry-Murray The other day I was researching a product for a blog I was writingAfter twenty or so minutes on the Web page I still had no clear ideawhat the product did or how it worked Like a fortune teller reading entrails it was up to me to make senseout of a bloody mess of the marketing grizzle strewn among the bonesof ldquointentrdquo ldquoautomationrdquo and ldquomachine learningrdquo And then I realized that was the point If like a fortune a vendorrsquos language is broad enough and vagueenough it can encompass just about any problem a potentialcustomer is trying to solve The language that vendors use on their Web pages isnrsquot meant toinform Itrsquos meant to entice me into further contact and turn me into alead I canrsquot get my question answered until I hand over some contactdetails which starts me down a sales funnel like a pig through a chute

Good Leads And LeadershipI get that vendors need to sell products They have employees to payfacilities to operate and shareholders to satisfy And I understand that to sell products vendors need to keep the salespipeline flowing with leads But are 100 crappy leads from confused and irritated engineers moreworthwhile than 3 or 4 strong leads from engineers who actually know

what your product does and want to find out more Are you enhancing anyonersquos productivitymdashyour employeesrsquo or yourpotential customersrsquomdashby sitting through innumerable calls meetingsand white board sessions just to find out yoursquore not really a fit Tech organizations are always looking for ways to be thought leadersWell herersquos a great opportunity Demonstrate industry leadership by jettisoning all marketing bullshitand buzzwordshywashing Commit to clear descriptive language whendescribing your product or service It might mean a smaller pipeline but also one that requires lessfiltering of crap and waste Isnrsquot that better for everyone

Thanks InternetAll kinds of amusing things wash up in our social feeds Heresone that caught my eye

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

what your product does and want to find out more Are you enhancing anyonersquos productivitymdashyour employeesrsquo or yourpotential customersrsquomdashby sitting through innumerable calls meetingsand white board sessions just to find out yoursquore not really a fit Tech organizations are always looking for ways to be thought leadersWell herersquos a great opportunity Demonstrate industry leadership by jettisoning all marketing bullshitand buzzwordshywashing Commit to clear descriptive language whendescribing your product or service It might mean a smaller pipeline but also one that requires lessfiltering of crap and waste Isnrsquot that better for everyone

Thanks InternetAll kinds of amusing things wash up in our social feeds Heresone that caught my eye

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

Join the Packet Pushers new membership program and get benefitsincluding our weekly Link Propagation newsletter and more Click herefor details and to sign up

Internets Of Interest A collection of pre-loved links that might interest you Pre-lovedbecause I liked them enough to put into this newsletter Its not true love By Drew Conry-Murray

The Three Paths Of Enterprise IT Ivan Pepelnjak posted a blog that speculates on the different waysenterprise networking could diverge in the coming years

Those who move primarily into public cloudThose who adopt a hyperconvergedprivate cloud

Those who control their own destiny by investing in networkingsoftware

What path are you on LINK

Looking Back At Questions About IPNetworking Russ White takes a journey to the (recent) past to look at a 2003technical paper from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)entitled Will IP really take over the world (of communications) Russ notes the papers conclusionshyshythat packet switching is superior tocircuit switchingshyshyand then examines the reasons for this conclusion tosee if they hold true today LINK

The Cure For Revenge Porn Send Nude Pics ToFacebook Revenge porn in which a disgruntled ahole posts nude images of anex online is a reprehensible crime Its also difficult to prevent becausedigital images are easy to copy and share Now the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a partnershipbetween Facebook and an Australian government agency with a trialsolution

Send your nude pics or videos to yourself via Facebooks Messengerapp Facebook will run the images through an algorithm to generate ahash value and block content with the same hash value from beingposted on Facebook Instagram and Messenger The government agency in the article claims Facebook wont store theimages or videos OK I get the concept behind this idea and Im glad Facebook takesthe problem seriously But I have a hard time trusting the security ofthis content with Facebook It seems both countershyintuitive anddownright creepy Am I wrong here LINK

Join the Datanauts on their missionto bust silos and explore the latestdevelopments in cloudconvergence data centers andmore Sign up free here

Network Break is a weeklypodcast that delivers news ampanalysis on the networking industryin a fun fastshypaced style Subscribehere

Product News Find out about interesting new products or get essential informationabout things you might already be using

ThousandEyesrsquo New Device Layer IntegratesSNMP With Performance MonitoringThousandEyes has announced a new capability for monitoringnetwork performance Called Device Layer the new capability usesSNMP to collect data on routers switches APs firewalls and othernetworking gear

The company integrates this data with the agentshybased active testing itperforms to give administrators and operators more visibility into thenetwork and more context to measure performance and identify theroot cause of problems

LINK

Barracuda Networks Adds DDoS Protection ToIts Web Application Firewall Barracuda Networks has added a new DDoS protection service to itsWeb Application Firewall (WAF) The new feature called Active DDoSPrevention (ADP) is designed to filter out volumetric attacks againstWeb application targets LINK

Briefings In Brief A New Packet PushersPodcast Want more tech news Subscribe to our newest podcast channelBriefings In Brief We take five minutes or less to summarize andanalyze tech news product announcements or other interesting itemsthat come across our desks LINK

Recent PodcastsThe last five podcasts published on Packet Pushers

PacketPushersnet - The Last FivePQ 135 Mastering Python Networking ndash The Book Datanauts 109 Run VMware Apps In The Cloud With Ravello (Sponsored) Network Break 160 VMware Buys VeloCloud Qualcomm Sues Apple Show 364 ThousandEyes Adds Infrastructure Visibility (Sponsored) PQ 134 Meet ZeroTier ndash Open Source Networking

Full Stack Journey tells personalstories about the ongoing quest tobecome a full stackengineer Subscribe today

Priority Queue tackles niche andnerdy tech topics and cuttingshyedgeresearch projects Subscribe here

Quick Survey ProfessionalDevelopment Focus A lot of IT pros invest personal time and money on professionaldevelopment Where are you putting the majority of your efforts A AutomationCodingScripting B Business studyMBA C Certification in my primary field D Certification in a secondary field E Selfshydirected study (ie a bit of this a bit of that) F Other

Last Issues Survey Results

Did We Miss Something Got an link or an article to share Email it tohumaninfrastructurepacketpushersnet

The End Bit

Sponsorship and Advertising - Send an email to humaninfrastructurepacketpushersnet for more information Youcould reach 5013 people Human Infrastructure is bi-weekly newsletter with view perspectives and opinions It is edited andpublished by Greg Ferro and Drew Conry-Murray from PacketPushersnet If youd like to contribute emailDrew at drewconrymurraypacketpushersnet We dont give away your email address or personal details because that would suck

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