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New Cisco CEO Announces Executive Team

Courtesy - Cisco Blog

Today I’m extremely proud and excited to announce my next generation executive leadership team who will lead Cisco into the digital age.

With the increasing pace and complexity of today’s market, it’s critical that our leadership team understands our customers, delivers results, brings diverse perspectives and experiences, and builds world-class, highly motivated teams. This is what will differentiate us as a much faster, innovative organization that delivers the best results for our customers.

We have been developing and attracting our next generation of leaders for many years, and I’m confident that this team is ready to lead Cisco’s next chapter. They know how Cisco works, what makes Cisco great, and how we can accelerate our current momentum. Some have been with the company for as long as I have or longer, a third have joined Cisco in the last 3 years, and others are new to Cisco.

They have the capabilities, accomplishments, and the values required to lead us into the future. Their combined vision, passion and authenticity, along with a focus on strategy, results, and innovation truly differentiate this team. These unique characteristics reflect the remarkable culture of Cisco that has motivated and energized me for the past 17 years.

Let me explain why each person is the ideal leader to move us forward.

Pankaj Patel, Executive Vice President, Development

• Everything we do starts with our innovation. Pankaj leads Cisco’s 25,000 development engineers and the company’s $36 billion technology portfolio.
• He joined Cisco through the acquisition of Stratacom and has since overseen Cisco’s innovation in the cloud, mobility, data center, security, collaboration, software and the Internet of Everything markets.
• Over the last 2 years, Pankaj has led the transformation of Cisco’s engineering organization to drive focus and accelerate innovation. He is pioneering new ways of driving innovation at Cisco, including a new model of internal start-ups which he launched last year.

Kelly Kramer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

• Kelly joined Cisco three years ago after 20 years at GE working across numerous divisions and countries around the world.
• She quickly established herself as a business leader capable of partnering across and influencing the entire organization, particularly with her no-nonsense direct style.
• She has driven a disciplined focus on our financial model and delivered on our commitments to our shareholders.
• Her promotion to CFO 3 quarters ago was seamless, and she is extremely well respected internally and externally.

Rebecca Jacoby, Senior Vice President, Operations

• Previously Chief Information Technology Officer (CIO), Rebecca has a strong track record of operational excellence, innovative problem solving, and partnering cross-functionally. Her leadership and talent development skills have resulted in some of the best employee satisfaction scores in the company.
• She has elevated the role of IT at Cisco and positioned us as one of the best in the industry. She has exemplified Fast IT, enabling $5.4B of incremental revenue in the last 4+ years with just $400M of incremental expense. She did all of this while driving down costs by over 5% each year.
• Her experience in development, operations, supply chain and IT make enable her to drive Cisco’s continued focus on profitability, accountability, and world-class operational excellence.
• Her deep relationships with CIOs around the world make her extremely well respected across the industry and she was recently inducted into the CIO Hall of Fame.
• Guillermo Diaz has been promoted to CIO reporting directly to Jacoby. Diaz, most recently Cisco senior vice president of IT—Connected IT, has been accountable for the company’s enterprise IT architecture, technology strategy, and IT services/operating model.

Francine Katsoudas, Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer

• Fran is the architect of Our People Strategy and Human Resources Organization, focusing on how Cisco wins in the talent marketplace while creating a compelling and unique employee experience.
• She accelerates company transformation through leadership, attracting and retaining the best talent and building a culture of passion and innovation.
• Fran is committed to ground breaking HR solutions, analytics and new talent models.

Chris Dedicoat, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales

• Chris joined Cisco in 1995 and has served as Senior Vice President of EMEAR for the past four years where he has led the region to solid growth in a very challenging market.
• Chris has a keen understanding of technology and market opportunities, an ability to drive transformation while running the business, and an unparalleled ability to lead and motivate teams.

Joe Cozzolino, Senior Vice President, Services

• Joe has extensive global General Management experience in all facets of the business including engineering, sales, & services. He has a competitive edge and in his own words: “hates losing more than he loves winning.”
• He began his career more than 25 years ago as a Systems Engineer designing video voice on fiber optics. For the last 2 years, Joe led Cisco’s Service Provider Mobility and Video Infrastructure businesses.
• Before Cisco, he spent 12 years at Motorola in various executive roles successfully growing new businesses undergoing technology inflection.
• Joe has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and an MBA from Annie Maria College.

Hilton Romanski, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology and Strategy Officer

• Hilton has been responsible for the ‘buy’ in Cisco’s “build, buy, partner, integrate” strategy for growth and innovation
• He has led over $20 billion in acquisitions in 40 deals, including Sourcefire, Meraki, and Airespace and was named Deal Maker of the Year in 2014 by The Deal.
• He has also led Cisco’s M&A and investment entry into the emerging markets by forming and expanding teams and activities in China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
• Hilton oversees Cisco’s corporate venture investment portfolio, currently valued at $2 billion, one of the highest performing corporate venture capital funds globally.
• In his new role, Hilton will lead CTSO and be chartered to drive strategic development and growth of Cisco by applying important tools to nurture technology disruption, build alliance partnerships, acquire companies, invest in start-ups, and engage the global marketplace of ideas to drive Cisco’s success

Karen Walker, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

• Karen joined Cisco six years ago from Hewlett-Packard, where she held business and consumer leadership positions including Vice President of Alliances and Marketing for HP Services, and Vice President of Strategy and Marketing.
• Her 20-plus years in the IT industry have included senior field and marketing leadership roles in Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific region.
• Karen is a Board member of the I.T. Services Marketing Association and a member of the CMO Council North America Advisory Board, the Marketers that Matter Council, Advancing Executive Women (AWE) in Silicon Valley, and CRN’s 2013 Women of the Channel. She also sponsors multiple initiatives to accelerate female leadership within Cisco.

Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel

• Mark joined Cisco’s Legal Department in 1996 when it had 12 employees; today we have a phenomenal team of legal, contract and compliance professionals of more than 400 people that is regularly ranked among the industry’s best.
• Before Cisco, Mark was General Counsel at Maxtor, a Fortune 500 disk drive manufacturer, and at StrataCom.
• Mark is a strong business leader with a keen ability to innovate, disrupt and provide tremendous input into our strategy. In 2010, The National Law Journal named him one of the 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Decade and in 2013, American Lawyer numbered Mark among the “Top 50 Big Law Innovators of the Last 50 Years.”

Ruba Borno, VP, Growth Initiatives and Chief of Staff

• Ruba will join Cisco from The Boston Consulting Group where she is a Principal and leader in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications, and People & Organization practice groups.
• She holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering with honors from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
• For the last seven years, Ruba has been advising enterprise and consumer technology executives on organizational change, increasing operational effectiveness, and accelerating business growth.
• Ruba has been an Intel Ph.D. fellow at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems, contributed to multiple peer-reviewed research publications, and is a supporter of Bay Area organizations tackling education and poverty challenges.

I am committed to investing in and developing Cisco’s extended leadership team over time. I plan to also look externally to fill several roles that will lead key growth initiatives in new markets. I am also committed to adding even more diversity of thought and experience over time, constantly strengthening both our bench and our decision making.

There are also a few individuals who have made tremendous contributions to Cisco who will be transitioning over the next few months. I am thankful for the years of partnerships I’ve had with these amazing leaders who will be leaving Cisco:

• Wim Elfrink has served as Cisco’s Chief Globalization Officer since 2006 and opened Cisco’s second global headquarters in Bangalore, India. His leadership on smart cities and connected industries has helped define our vision for the next wave of the Internet, the Internet of Everything. Wim will retire from Cisco on July 25th and I want to thank him for his exceptional leadership and his passion for what is possible.
• Padmasree Warrior is a highly respected leader who most recently served as Cisco’s Chief Strategy and Technology Officer. She is well known across the industry and the globe, and has been a champion internally for innovation, strategic partnerships, investments and mergers and acquisitions. Padmasree has led the success of many of our strategic partnerships and will remain with us until September to help finalize some of our key partnerships for the future. I am grateful for the impact she’s had on Cisco and her commitment to helping us finalize these important alliances.
• Edzard Overbeek in his role as Senior Vice President of Cisco Services has been an incredible partner to me for many years. He has made the decision to leave Cisco after 15 years at the company and leadership roles in every region around the world. Edzard has agreed to stay on through the transition as a strategic advisor on key disruptive strategies that he has shown great passion for while at Cisco. His vision and energy will ensure his success in his next venture, something I hope will be closely connected to Cisco.

We are so fortunate that these leaders are able to remain with us in the near-term to finish key projects and ensure a smooth transition. I believe this is a testament to the Cisco culture as well as their commitment, service, and leadership.

Going forward, my new team will define and build the next chapter for Cisco together. I’m extremely confident we will move even faster, innovate like never before, and pull away from the competition. This is an incredible team with a diverse set of experiences, expertise and backgrounds to accelerate our innovation and execution, simplify how we do business, drive operational rigor in all we do, and inspire our amazing employees to be the best they can be.

This new leadership team, along with the deep talent and passion of all of Cisco, gives me absolute confidence that we will lead, and our customers will win. I’ve never been more excited to build our future together.

Wait is over - Cisco CCNA & CCNP Cloud Certification Available

Cisco Cloud certification programs build and validate basic through advanced knowledge of the skills required to design, install, and maintain Cisco Cloud solutions. The curricula emphasize real-world best practices through labs and course materials.

Cisco Cloud certification programs are practical, relevant, and job-ready certification curricula, closely aligned with the specific tasks expected of today’s in-demand Cloud professionals. The Cisco Cloud certification program validates the skill set of individuals on industry-leading Cloud solutions and best practices as well as offering job-role-based curricula for all levels of IT staff.

Cisco Cloud portfolio consists of an associate CCNA level and professional CCNP level certifications. The program gives students an opportunity to take advantage of the promise of cloud and receive training that enables them to start a career in Cloud and/or make the transition from Data Center and Networking job roles.

The cloud portfolio covers the breadth of cloud products and technologies deployed in mid-sized to large networks utilizing Cisco cloud solutions.  The curricula emphasize real-world best practices through labs and course materials covering:

• Private and Hybrid Cloud Design
• Cloud Security Design
• Cloud Infrastructure Implementation
• ACI and APIC Automation
• Private and Hybrid IaaS Provisioning
• Application Provisioning and Life Cycle Management
• Cloud Systems Management 

CCNA Cloud

CCNA Cloud is a job role-based career certification that trains and certifies Cloud engineers, Cloud administrators, and network engineers. Cloud engineers and administrators can enhance and demonstrate key skills, while network engineer can extend their careers into Cloud. This certification prepares you for work in an SMB Cloud environment and to support a senior Cloud engineer in an enterprise environment.

Job duties include entry-level provisioning and support of Cisco Cloud solutions.

The CCNA Cloud certification can also provide career opportunities for employees of business and channel partner organizations transitioning from other technical areas such as Data Center or Networking.

Topics covered in CCNA Cloud include:

• Cloud Characteristics and Models
• Cloud Deployments
• Basic Knowledge of Cloud Compute
• Basic Knowledge of Cloud Networking
• Provide End-User Support
• Cloud Infrastructure Administration and Reporting
• Chargeback and Billing Reports
• Cloud Provisioning
• Cloud Systems Management and Monitoring
• Cloud Remediation

The CCNA Cloud certification is an associate-level certification that is valid for three years.

Achieving CCNA Cloud Certification

There are no prerequisites for CCNA Cloud certification. Completion of the CCNA Cloud certification requires the exams and recommended training shown in the table below.

Exams & Recommended Training

Required Exam(s)	Recommended Training
210-451 CLDFND	Understanding Cisco Cloud Fundamentals (CLDFND)
210-455 CLDADM*	Introducing Cisco Cloud Administration (CLDADM)*

*More information available July 2015

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/certifications/associate/ccna_cloud/index.html



CCNP Cloud Certification

The CCNP Cloud is a job role-based career certification intended to distinguish Cloud engineers, administrators, designers, and architects, who design, implement, provision and troubleshoot Cisco Cloud and Intercloud solutions. It provides you with the skills to help your IT organization meet changing business demands, technology transitions, and deliver important business outcomes.

This certification prepares you to work in a SMB Cloud environment as well as perform the duties of a senior Cloud engineer in an enterprise environment.

The CCNP Cloud certification is a professional-level certification that is valid for three years.

Achieving CCNP Cloud Certification

Prerequisite Skills and Requirements

A valid Cisco CCNA Cloud or any Cisco CCIE certification can act as a prerequisite. Completion of the CCNP Cloud certification requires the exams and recommended training shown in the table below.

Prerequisites

Valid CCNA Cloud certification or any CCIE certification can act as a prerequisite.

Exams & Recommended Training

Required Exam(s)*	Recommended Training*
300-504 CLDINF	Implementing and Troubleshooting the Cisco Cloud Infrastructure (CLDINF)
300-505 CLDDES	Designing the Cisco Cloud (CLDDES)
300-506 CLDAUT	Automating the Cisco Enterprise Cloud (CLDAUT)
300-507 CLDDACI	Building the Cisco Cloud with Application Centric Infrastructure (CLDDACI)

*More information available August 2015

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/certifications/professional/ccnp_cloud/index.html

Massive Route leak causes Internet Slowdown

Earlier Yesterday a massive route leak initiated by Telekom Malaysia (AS4788) caused significant network problems for the global routing system. Primarily affected was Level3 (AS3549 – formerly known as Global Crossing) and their customers. Below are some of the details as we know them now.

Starting at 08:43 UTC today June 12th, AS4788 Telekom Malaysia started to announce about 179,000 of prefixes to Level3 (AS3549, the Global crossing AS), whom in turn accepted these and propagated them to their peers and customers. Since Telekom Malaysia had inserted itself between these thousands of prefixes and Level3 it was now responsible for delivering these packets to the intended destinations.

This event resulted in significant packet loss and Internet slow down in all parts of the world. The Level3 network in particular suffered from severe service degradation between the Asia pacific region and the rest of their network. The graph below for example shows the packet loss as measured by OpenDNS between London over Level3 and Hong Kong. The same loss patterns were visible from other Level3 locations globally to for example Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Packet loss London to Hong Kong over Level3

At the same time the round trip time between these destination went up significantly as can be seen in the graph below.

Round trip time London to Hong Kong over Level3

Time line

By just looking at the number of BGP messages that BGPmon processed over time as can been seen in the graph below, there’s a clear start where all of a sudden the number of BGP updates increased. When we look closer at the data it becomes clear that this increase in BGP messages starts at 08:43 UTC and aligns exactly with the start of the leak and the start of the packet loss issues. At around 10:40 we slowly observed improvements and at around 11:15 UTC things started to clear up.

BGP update messages

Let’s look at an Example
An example affected prefix is 31.13.67.0/24 which is one of the Facebook prefixes. The AS path looked like this

1103 286 3549 4788 32934

If we look at this path we see that AS32934, Facebook, is the originator of the prefix. Facebook peers with 4788 and announced it to its peer Telekom Malaysia (AS4788) which in turn announced it to Level3 (AS3549) which announced it to all of its peers and customers, essentially giving it transit and causing a major routing leak.

Because Telekom Malaysia did this for about 176,000 prefixes they essentially signalled to the world that they could provide connectivity for all these prefixes and as a result attracted significantly more traffic than normally. All this traffic had to be squeezed through their interconnects with Level3. As a result all this traffic was now being routed via Level3 and Telekom Malaysia was likely to hit capacity issues, which then resulted in the severe packet loss issues as users reported on Twitter and as we’ve shown with the data above.

The 176,000 leaked prefixes are likely all Telekom Malaysia’s customer prefixes combined with routes they learned from peers. This would explain another curious increase in the number of routes Level3 announced during the leak time frame.

The graph below shows the number of prefixes announced by Level3 to its customers. Normally level3 announces ~534,000 prefixes on a full BGP feed. These are essentially all the IP networks on the Internet today. Interestingly during the leak an additional 10,000 prefixes were now being observed. One explanation for this could be that these are more specific prefixes announced by peers of Telekom Malaysia to Telekom Malaysia and are normally supposed to stay regional and not visible via transit.

Number of prefixes on Level3 full IPv4 BGP table

Since Level3 was now announcing many more prefixes than normally, it would have hit Max prefix limits on BGP session with its peers. These peering sessions with other large tier1 networks carry a significant portion of the worlds Internet and the shutdown of these session would cause traffic to shift around even more and exacerbate the performance problems as well as causing even more BGP churn.

So in conclusion, what we saw this morning was a major BGP leak of 176,000 prefixes by Telekom Malaysia to Level3. Level3 erroneously accepted these prefixes and announced these to their peers and customers. Starting at 8:39 and lasting for about 2 hours traffic was being redirected toward Telekom Malaysia, which in many cases would have been a longer route and also caused Telekom Malaysia to be overwhelmed with traffic. As a result significant portions of traffic were dropped, latency increased and users world wide experienced a slower Internet service.