Guest blog by Igor Dayen, SP Product and Solutions Marketing
Cisco Live Milan 2015 has just concluded and concluded with a bang of record-breaking attendance and increased customers' understanding of the IoE and service provider Technologies. In my first post-show blog, I focused on the overall booth offerings and discussed relevance of Evolved Services Platform (ESP) and Evolved Programmable Network (EPN) to service providers' success and the importance of properly addressing their requirements. I decided that it is important enough to provide additional highlights on the Cisco Live event.   Before I share with you the remaining demo information, I wanted to recap the technologies that I described in the first post-show blog:

1. nV Technology to simplify operations in the Network edge
2. Segment Routing to enabled SDN-based routing and simplifying network operations
3. Operational Simplicity enabled by Autonomic Networking in the Access
4. Network Service Orchestration using Tail-f
5. Virtualized Managed Business Services: delivering Cloud VPN

The above mentioned technologies are key innovations and bring a wealth of choices to the service provider when they create and deliver services to their business and residential users.

We attempted to bring a comprehensive collection of demos to help service providersin their journey. Below is a list of the technologies that have also been demoed in the service provider booth. I broke down the list into three categories that map on the Cisco SP Strategy:

Evolved Programmable Network

1. Core Routing and Cisco AnyPort technology powered by CPAK optical transceivers
2. Optical transport powered by GMPLS UNI Multilayer provisioning
3. Carrier Ethernet network management enabled by Prime Carrier Management

Evolved Services Platform Solutions

1. WAN Domain Controller enabled by the WAN Automation Engine
2. Service Lifecycle Management with Cisco Elastic Services Controller
3. Service Broker powered by Cisco Prime Order Fulfillment

Applications and Services

1. Premium Mobile Broadband enabled by the virtualized Packet Core (vPC)
2. Voice over LTE -powerful Voice over WiFi solution
3. Residential Services enabled by Virtual Broadband Node (vBN) -a VNF function

The above products and solutions have provided a full gamut of capabilities and exemplified Cisco Open Network Strategy. All of these demos presented powerful mapping of Cisco's capabilities and the opportunities that will allow service providers to be successful in their transition. And now they have been validated by an independent testing agency "EANTC". Early March, Light Reading published the results of an industry-first independent validation of the virtualization and cloud solutions from Cisco.   Light Reading's evaluation is highly significant because service provider virtualization is by far the most talked about technology in the market place. EANTC stated that: "those who enable service providers to master new service life-cycle paradigms will thrive in the future."   The main question that service providers mainly ask has been put to test: "How can I build and run a programmable, intelligent, responsive, efficient, flexible, secure yet open network that has a high degree of automation, meet customer needs and helps me make money? Please read the report and see for yourself how it all got unveiled and answered.

The validation test also shed additional light on why service provider business transformation is important. I attempted to address this subject in my previous blog on the SP community page. I discussed the subject: "Are we ready for NfV and SDN"? The answer is: that is why we are taking time to help our prospective and existing customers not only see the potential in going on a transformational journey, but on the necessity to change and becoming profitable. You, as a service provider, will benefit by allowing enterprises and SMBs focus on the core business. This is exactly the type of conversations we held at Cisco Live Milan where we provided proof points of the Cisco Open Network Strategy.

In conclusion, I would like to share with you that new videos just became available that can help you gain better perspective on how SP businesses are transitioning. In addition, one of the videos will map out a journey of how service provider customers have been asking Cisco for NfV and SDN tools to automate mundane tasks to help reduce operational costs and, at the same time, create new revenue opportunities. Finally, these videos will put in perspective the value of the business agility that customers are looking for and Cisco helps customers attain that.

Watch this interview with Kelly Ahuja, SVP of SP Solutions, to learn about how Cisco helps with business transformation.

1. Watch an interview with David Ward, Chief Architect, who talks about innovations and tools for the service providers.
2. Watch the recording of an executive Spotlight where Dave Ward and Kelly Ahuja sit down and talk about some of the emerging technologies for the SP.
3. Watch the unprecedented Keynote given by David Ward in which he explains all the cool stuff for customers and partners to use to transition to high profitability and being competitive.

While Cisco Live Milan is now over, we pass the baton to Cisco Live Melbourne. It is a smaller show, but the power of the SP transformation journey message is as strong as ever. Cisco Live San Diego is already in the planning and I encourage you to start thinking of good questions and ideas that you may want to discuss with us when you come to visit us at the SP booth at that event. I am looking forward to us having conversations via social media in the meantime. You can also download our latest collateral from the Cisco Live site and read it to gain more insight and take a deeper dive into the innovations you choose that stand behind your decisions and enable your success.

For more questions or comments, tweet us @CiscoSP360.