Cisco sees technology future in RFID, utility computing and IP networks

IN CONVERSATION WITH/ Brad Boston, senior vp and Chief information officer, Cisco

Since joining Cisco in 2001, Brad Boston, senior VP and chief information officer of the networking leader has advocated security as one of the principle factors his counterparts should pay attention to worldwide.

He has also adhered to checking Cisco's products internally and giving a feedback to the R&D division before they are released to the public.

In India recently to take part in Nasscom's India Leadership Forum 2005 and talk on the 'Changing Role of the CIO: Does IT Matter', he spoke to Business Standard on some of the toughest issues faced by the CIO of today and how Cisco plans to evolve with the new technologies of tomorrow. Excerpts:

What do you think will be the next big disruptive technology of our times and how do you see Cisco evolving with the technology?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that holds ramifications we have not even thought of . The amount of data it can generate and the things that you can do with it is huge.

Cisco will provide network elements, like routers and switches, which are optimised to run RFID applications.

Utility computing with its capacity to add or detract capacity easily is another big thing of the future. Cisco will help in identifying whether the need for additional capacity is genuine. For it so happens that most of the spikes in demand are not valid and in fact can be caused by viruses too.

IP networks are another big growth area of the future. Cisco will launch a product this summer that integrates web, audio and video conferencing over a single IP line. We have already implemented and completed integration within Cisco. We believe we should be one of the earliest adaptors of our technology.

We will also be launching a model of the Cisco IP phone, which will automatically recognise web camera presence on the other end of the call and if it does, switches immediately to video conferencing mode.

That's how Cisco will grow with the changing technologies of tomorrow.

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing CIOs worldwide today?

I believe that security is one of the biggest issues facing the CIO of today. Even though I have been talking about this extensively since 2002, I believe that security has become much more complex and difficult with the entry of mobile devices.

We at Cisco are investing a lot of our own technology and our networks have become much more proactive instead of being just reactive.

How is Cisco handling the problem of mobile dvice security within the organisation?

The entry of mobile devices in the network not only necessitates protection for them but also the preventing of viruses and problems that they bring into the network.

The biggest problem is probably when a device is introduced into the network. So at Cisco we created a security programme for these devices. The Cisco Security Agent is to ensure that the devices are scanned and entered in the network before being enabled for business.

This would be irrespective of whether the devices are supplied by the company or owned by the individual.

When is this coming?

We started rolling out this agent in January. The first phase involved the movement of it to laptops and later it will be replicated from the desktop to the PDA device. In the first quarter, we are looking at the implementation of this security agent.

The second stage will involve enabling mail. We have found the Blackberry to be the best, but since most employees work on the Windows or Palm platforms, we are looking at replicating the Blackberry mail experience in these systems.

The third phase will involve the movement of business applications on the browser to mobile devices. We hope to get something in that area only by early 2006.

For one thing, not many people think about the mobile device when making allowance for security. CIOs sometimes do not understand how much data can be saved and transported via these devices.

For another, the Sarbanes Oxley Act is turning out to be a big concern of MNCs and companies wishing to operate in the US. It consumes a lot of time and energy.

Cisco's big idea since 2002 has been the Intelligent Network or the Self Defending Network. What do you see as the next big idea from Cisco?

I think the future for Cisco is more an extension of the intelligent network concept by building more intelligence into the system. That means building more proactive elements into the network. It involves us working on each and every port in the network and protecting it at each of those points.

We started with firewalls and patches and moved onto anomaly detection which helped us in the case of the Slammer.

The next generation would involve active monitoring of the traffic coming in and the network picking up and pushing away whatever it senses as not secure.

With the Cisco security measures the amount of time to clean up viruses and worms has been cut down from 7000 hours to less than 100 hours on average.

What is on the horizon in the medium term?

In the next two years, you will see Cisco's products that help hand-held security and also at the network admission level(routers, switches).

We are also working on the Enterprise Class Teleworker, which is a combined router and Virtual Private Network which allows home devices to connect to the network.

With the growth of high speed connections from home it was important to ensure security from that end too. That should be launched in the market sometime this summer.

How do you think the role of the CIO has changed over the last five years?

The CIO has become more of a business focussed and productivity aware individual. He has to have technological knowledge but now he has to be tuned to business optimisation with technology.

He should also play a part in getting finace guys to understand the importance of IT in the growth of a company.