One of the marvelous things about community and teamwork is that it allows us to engage with people in a way we couldn't as individuals. When we pool our strength and work together, we can create something in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the philosophy of our Cisco? software developer strategy.

As Cisco adds powerful software and services to our market-leading hardware portfolio, we recognize that developers are critical to creating value for our customers. With the advent of so many market transitions-mobility, cloud, the Internet of Everything (IoE), the application-centric infrastructure; driving and accelerating innovation-the value of our networked platforms is greatly enhanced by the applications that run on them.

Cisco is enabling customers to unlock intelligence from the network using applications, and help drive new business models and benefits including improved customer experiences, faster time to market, and increased efficiencies.

To fuel software innovation, Cisco has created DevNet, its new developer program, to enable an open community of software developers -including ISVs, customers and Systems Integrators/Channel Partners -to help them easily and rapidly build Cisco-enabled applications to sell and use, on top of Cisco APIs to enhance or manage Cisco networks and platforms. Cisco is encouraging the adoption of APIs across our products and fostering integrations with third-party products.

Traditionally, developers struggled to marry software applications with networking hardware; the network simply wasn't software-friendly and programmable. Today the development environment is rich and ready to take advantage of the open and intelligent network. As a result, developers now have a huge opportunity to monetize and differentiate their offerings using the network.

Cisco DevNet -It Takes a Community

Core to the Cisco developer strategy, Cisco DevNet is a new and growing developer community that offers the tools and resources for them to integrate their software with Cisco infrastructure. Developers can tap the DevNet ecosystem and use the tools and community to create innovative network-aware applications.

DevNet helps developers drive productivity and innovation by lowering barriers of entry and by providing a variety of resources, including engineering platform APIs, SDKs, ready-to-use code samples, a developer sandbox, developer support, and community management. Cisco partners, Citrix, Davra Networks, and Glue Networks are all using DevNet to drive application and network automation for our mutual customers.

At the DevNet Zone at Cisco Live! San Francisco, the developer interest was phenomenal. In order to meet their demands, we are using DevNet as the delivery vehicle for our Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) approach to SDN. Currently, the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (APIC EM) for WAN and access edge is in beta. When available, customers and developers can download APIC EM via DevNet at no charge.

With the introduction of DevNet, Cisco continues to invest in our developer platform as part of our broader software strategy. Our investments in the DevNet initiative include:

• API Development:In areas such as SDN, IoT, Collaboration, Connected Mobile Experience and Security, Cisco is      investing in API development, providing developers with everything required to build Cisco technologies into their applications quickly and efficiently, and enhance our core offerings. Currently the DevNet portal features more than 100 fully documented APIs, with more being added each week.
• API Management:Cisco is building API management capabilities through a partnership with Mulesoft to enable developers to more easily access REST-based APIs.
• Development Tools:Cisco is investing in SDKs, API tutorials, and a Developer Sandbox so developers can easily integrate with Cisco technology with minimal investment. Cisco's DevNet Sandbox program eliminates the cost and time of acquiring lab equipment and the technical staff to maintain it. Additionally, it allows developers to test application use casesbeforedeployment.
• Shared Expertise:To fuel and support the DevNet community, Cisco is building a team of developer evangelists, community managers, and developer support engineers. These resources provide networking professionals with the guidance on programmable networks and how to best utilize DevNet for developer productivity.

As I stated before, the beauty of a community lies in teamwork to foster innovation and creativity for the greater whole. Ultimately, a developer community like DevNet and other open source communities are critical to unlock the value of the Internet of Everything, and it is Cisco's commitment to empower developers to capitalize on the next generation of application development using the network as a platform for innovation.