We are faced with challenges and driven by opportunities. Our job at Cisco Live Berlin was to show and demonstrate how we:

• Enable providers to generate new revenue:New service offerings with rich, personalized experiences optimized to each screen and environment with data and insights from all sources
• Help operators reduce operating costs:Reduce cost and complexity with open and virtualized platforms that support multi-vendor ecosystems with dynamic workflow orchestration and automation to simplify operations
• Provide tools to enhance agility:Rapidly deliver new services with SaaS deployment models and agile development methodologies that will deliver new capabilities in minutes, not months.
• Deliver technology to mitigate risks with effective security measures:Security is evolving to span from cloud infrastructure to IP distribution and consumption, from back office IT to production networks.

Cisco's strategy is to enable service providers to drive profitable business outcomes in a digital world. Cisco is an agent in:

• Transforming the Experience: The objective is to offer new, differentiated capabilities that enable more efficient management of existing services while increasing customer retention and satisfaction
• Transforming the Business: The objective is to create and manage new services in an efficient, cost-effective, and agile way to increase revenue streams and address new market opportunities
• Transform the Architecture: The objective is to leverage security, virtualization, automation, and disaggregated architectures to enable agility, increase operational efficiency, mitigate risk, and lower the cost to serve new markets

Our goal at Cisco Live was to deliver proof points to the above through the selection of the demonstrations that we had prepared for the event. We had business level demonstrations such as Visual Networking Index (VNI), Monetization and Optimization Index (MOI), Virtualization Orchestration Strategy (Evolved services platform), and Connected Analytics demos -all meant to paint a solid picture of the trends, opportunities, and architectures.

• The Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI)is our ongoing effort to forecast and analyze the growth and use of IP networks worldwide.
• With Monetization and Optimization Index (MOI), you'll know what's happening on your network and business premises at all times. You can use real-time insights from user activity to help your customers better monetize their environments.
• With the Evolved Services Platform (ESP), see for yourself how NFV orchestration and automation engine work together to create and provision services in real time to deliver desired business outcomes.
• With Connected Analytics (CASP),the tool shows analytics on integrated network, subscriber device, and application data for a complete view of the customer experience.

We had a fair share of technical deep-dive demos that complemented our business-level demos. We attempted to bring a comprehensive collection of demos to help service providers in their journey. Below is a list of the technologies that were also demoed in the service provider booth. We broke down the list into five categories that map onto the Cisco SP Strategy:

1.Evolved Programmable Network with new Cloud Scale Innovations

• IOS XR Innovations with telemetry and application hosting
  • Actionable Insight with Telemetry
  • Open Innovation with Application Hosting
• Cloud scale Infrastructure -Core (including ZPL/ZTL)
• Optical modernization (NCS 1000, NCS 2000, NCS 4000)
  • NCS 4000: Network Transport Modernization Using Circuit Emulation
  • NCS 1000: Data Center Interconnect with Industry Leading Scale: 1Tb/RU
• IOS XRv -Deliver Performance with Network Simplification
• NFV Infrastructure with EANTC Independent Validation
• EPN Manager -Multi-domain management system

2.EvolvedServices Platform with Orchestration and Management Software

• WAN Automation Engine
• Application Engineered Routing
• Network Services orchestrator with Tail-f
• Elastic Services Controller

3. Cisco Cloud Architecturefor Microsoft Cloud Platform

4. Applications

• Virtual Broadband Node -Residential Services
• Virtual Managed Services
• Cisco Infinite Video
• Universal Wi-Fi for SP
• Voice Over Wi-Fi

5.Security

• DDoS Mitigation: Cisco ASR 9000 + Arbor TMS
• SP Firewall + AMP: Cisco Firepower 9300

So putting it altogether, we had four business level demonstrations and 20 technical demonstrations that went in depth of what has been shown at the high-level demos.

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 transformation. And now they have been validated by an independent testing agency "EANTC". LightReading commissioned the European Advanced Networking Test Center team to evaluate Cisco's NFVI solution late last year and their full report is available here.

We also brought with us racks of equipment with the latest routers such as NCS 1002, NCS 5001, and NCS 5002-all part of Cloud Scale innovations. We also had on display NCS 2000 and NCS 4000 optical gear as well as access and aggregation gear: ASR 9904, ASR 907, and ASR 920.

We had a great turnout in the SP booth fostering great discussions on all of the topics mentioned above. These solutions are now available and ready for deployment. Cisco is proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. We don't just dream it. We do it! The connection of people, process, data and things is driving dramatic changes in organizations, communications and business models. Networked connections are becoming more relevant and valuable than ever before. Cisco is emerging as a strong partner to transform your business.

I have been personally very excited while working with my team on preparing the service provider booth experience for you. For those of you who joined us in Berlin, I am glad you were able to learn firsthand about the service provider transformation opportunities. At the same time, I would like to welcome all of you and especially, those whose schedule did not allow them to be in Berlin, to join us at Cisco Live Las Vegas in July 2016. There are more and new announcements waiting for you just as additional examples of our service provider Open Network Strategy. In the meantime, we have put together a list of key collateral that will help you understand the SP strategy.