I've spent a lot of time hearingfromour customers about cloud adoption and there are three things they all agree on: (1) it's essential to digitization, (2) not everyone starts the journey in the same place, and (3) there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. Some customers need support for new cloud native as well as older technologies like bare metal, multiple types of virtual machines, containers and clusters, and open technologies. Most want to balance private and public cloud but have valid concerns about security and control. And others have added cloud capabilities and now want to scale in order to provide more value for their own customers. There are many reasons and varying starting points at which customers adopt cloud, but rarely is it "point A" to "point B." Regardless of the starting point, enterprises are looking for flexibility, openness, and options. They don't want just a roadmap -they want the tools for successful digital transformation.

Many customers have resolved to do more with cloud in 2017. To be successful they will need a complete strategy that takes in to account the starting point of the journey, identifies business outcomes, and connects the right tools for successful digital transformation. In today's multicloud world, the difference between success and failure can come down to a piecemeal strategy that fails to recognize a company's unique requirements or potential roadblocks along the way.

Cisco is all about cloud. Everything we do is tied to cloud and enabling capabilities that our customers and partners need in today's digital world. We cover the complete landscape, including data center, private cloud, hosting and colocation, public cloud, and the edge and IoT. And we are continually innovating and expanding our cloud offerings to meet demands and provide the freedom to choose the best environments and consumption models for our customers.

Over the next blog posts, I look forward to diving deeper in to our offers and sharing what some successful companies are doing to drive better business outcomes with cloud.

I want to hear from you. Have you resolved to transform your business to digital this year? How's that going?

Share your comments here.

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• Cisco Powered Cloud Services
• Cisco Digital Network Architecture for the Cloud
• Cloud Professional Services