In 2015, Cisco and the analyst firm ZK Research argued that the enterprise workspace would only change as fast as the network under it. Dave West, Cisco’s chief technology officer for Asia Pacific and Japan, and Zeus Kerravala, ZK Research’s founder and principal analyst, made the case. Their argument was that smartphones, tablets, cloud services, HD video and the growing number of connected devices had outpaced the ability of IT teams to manage them.
The argument was set out in a feature commissioned by Cisco. It rested on three ideas: wireless speeds were about to outrun the cabling in office ceilings, power and connectivity could be delivered over one cable, and software-defined control would let the network change in days rather than months.
What would a next-generation workspace look like?
The 2015 picture was of a workspace that was untethered, flexible and tuned to how each person works, with the user’s business profile following them from place to place. West described a building intelligent enough to switch off lights when a room was empty. It would also power down unused switch ports and deliver services according to where and when an employee needed them.
The same location data was expected to inform property decisions, since knowing where staff actually worked and met would help firms cut real estate costs. Collaboration across offices and countries was treated as equally important.
Why did the network come first?
Kerravala said the existing IT model could not scale. The gap between what it cost to run IT and the budget available kept widening, and he argued that a faster IT model had to start with the network. He added that no investment in compute or applications could deliver agility until the network itself became agile.
The feature listed the new demands on the network: easier provisioning and scaling, lower wiring and cable costs, efficient support for Power over Ethernet devices and secure access.
What was the cabling problem?
The feature pointed to 802.11ac Wave 2, which it said would bring multi-gigabit, LAN-like speeds to wireless networks, with figures of 3.5Gbps and 6.8Gbps. Cat5e and Cat6 cable struggles at 10GBASE-T over normal distances. The NBASE-T Alliance was therefore working on 2.5GbE and 5GbE over twisted pair, to avoid ripping out cable or running several cables to each access point.
Cisco’s Catalyst Multigigabit Technology, built on those specifications, auto-negotiated 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps on existing Cat5e and Cat6 cabling. Support for PoE, PoE+ and Cisco Universal PoE meant 15W, 30W or 60W could reach access points and downstream devices over the same cable. Cisco said that 60W UPOE could power IP phones, IPTVs, cameras and virtual desktop clients, and bring five times the earlier data speeds over existing cabling.
The compact Catalyst 3560-CX was the example for desk-level deployment. Its 240W PoE models ran silently without fans, so they could sit near users and connect to the corporate backbone, removing the need for overhead wiring closets. Role-based access control could protect departmental data.
Cisco also cited uses beyond offices. Retailers could consolidate cabling for point-of-sale terminals, phones, cameras and access points. Hotels could keep phones and internet running for guests during a power outage through UPOE pass-through. Cruise ships could cut network cabling by as much as 80%, which meant less weight and lower fuel use. Cisco stressed open standards and interoperability, so that IT could adapt over time without lock-in.
How would software-defined networking fit in?
The automation layer was Cisco’s Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module, or APIC-EM. Cisco presented it as a central point for policy-based automation, and as a low-risk, step-by-step way into software-defined networking. It was meant to push out and check network policies for threat detection and remediation, and to provision infrastructure from end to end so applications could be rolled out quickly.
Mark Krischer, a Cisco senior consultant for enterprise networks in Asia Pacific and Japan, said SDN was about making network changes faster and in an operational rather than manual way. IT projects had been measured in weeks and months, he said, but the business would soon expect results in days or even hours.
How did the multigigabit idea develop?
The multigigabit approach became a formal standard. IEEE 802.3bz, covering 2.5 and 5Gbps over twisted pair, was released in 2016. Cisco’s French blog described the standard as the follow-on to the NBASE-T Alliance’s work, and said Cisco’s Catalyst implementation conformed to the Alliance specification. The blog listed multigigabit support on the Catalyst 3850, 3650, 3560-CX and 4500E.
Cisco’s own white paper later described the NBASE-T Alliance as now part of the Ethernet Alliance, and named Cisco, Aquantia, Freescale and Xilinx as its founders. The paper said the portfolio was powered by 802.3bz and included the Catalyst 9300, 9200, 4500E and 3850 series. It said ports negotiate 100Mbps to 5Gbps on Cat5e, and up to 10Gbps on Cat6a. Cisco also described itself as the first major vendor to deliver multigigabit support for Wi-Fi 6 speeds in a ready-to-deploy solution.