I've been in this industry for more than three decades, and so I've experienced every data center technology breakthrough and market transformation in that time.  We drove a market disruption ourselves with the introduction of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) in 2009, and after just five years, we have more than 33,000 customer-proven results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRG1MhIh99w

Now, we're doing it again, butthis time it's different.
We are in the midst of the next major inflection point, driven by a new wave of applications.  With the swipe of a finger, users can download an endless array of useful apps to their smart phones, tablets, and even wearable gadgets.  We bring our personal devices with us to work, expecting the IT department to deliver the same access and ease of use on the business side.

This consumerization of IT puts end users in the driver's seat.  Scrambling to meet growing consumer and employee expectations, organizations in both the public and private sectors have demands of their own when it comes to next-generation data center capabilities and improved outcomes.  Applications need holistic compute solutions, not just plain old servers.  The explosive growth of mobility, social media, collaboration, the Internet of Everything (IoE), and big data means their applications need to scale up and out.

Now applications must be serviced by compute solutions that can integrate performance needs, handle large data sets, and scale as needed while reducing operational complexity and OpEx budgets.  The requirements of these complex business applications are defining the infrastructure-not the other way around-because now more than ever, application performance translates into business results.  This requires fresh innovation in designing an integrated infrastructure that is highly responsive to business and IT needs, while keeping data center budgets from spinning out of control.

At Cisco Live, I'll show you how we're driving a market disruption once again, this time with our breakthroughs in compute solutions that we didn't think were possible just a few years ago.  Technology leaders agree that Cisco UCS and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) deliver solutions that put IT managers back in the driver's seat, able to meet user demands, where applications are no longer constrained by the data center infrastructure.

I look forward to seeing you in San Francisco.