Happy Twelfth Birthday -Cisco Data Virtualization Customer Advisory Community

Customer success matters! Advancing Cisco Data Virtualization products and services offerings and our customer's successful deployment of them, has been the mission of the Cisco Data Virtualization Customer Advisory Community since the initial Customer Advisory Council meeting in 2004, and remains so in today's greatly expanded program.

360 Degree by 365 Day Engagement

Focused exclusively on Cisco Data Virtualization products and services, community members -including Cisco Data Virtualization customers, partners and employees -participate in the community via a variety of on-line and face-to-face activities. This unique in the data virtualization industry service provides 360 degree by 365 day engagement, delivering the shared insights and resources critical to mutual success.

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can."

George Bernard Shaw

Face to Face Meetings Span Six Time Zones

During 2015, community members participated in over a dozen local community meetings in venues ranging from San Jose in the West, London in the East, Toronto in the North, and Houston in the South. These included:

• Regional Customer Workshops,which are local events, typically held at a Cisco office, where community members can meet face-to-face to share plans, insights, use cases and more
• Annual Customer Advisory Council Meetingsin San Jose and Chicago which are by-invitation gatherings led by Cisco Product Management where the most active and advanced customers help shape Cisco's strategy and roadmap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHFW0FpcsLs&list=PLFT-9JpKjRTDSyR4jbCVS5e94fzzhIzWz&index=9

Virtual Meetings Broaden Community Interaction

Cisco also hosted nearly two-dozen online meetings to complement our in-person gatherings. These included:

• Quarterly Webinarsled by Cisco Product Management to keep the community up to date on new release schedules and capabilities
• Product Working Groupswhere community members participate with Cisco's Product Management in the specification, design and testing of key product capabilities
• Best Practices Working Groupswhere community members participate with Cisco's Advanced Services team in the specification, design and testing of best practices methods and tools
• Special Interest Groupswhich enable community members to form their own ad hoc groups where they can meet to share insights on topics of community interest

One-on-One and One-to-Many Further Personalize Participation

Complementing the myriad group meetings, the community also supports several modes of individualized interaction including:

• Discussion Threadswhich enable community members to launch and participate in free-form conversations online, anytime
• One-on-One Meetingsthat enable personalized conversations with Support, Product Management and CAC Program Managers to help customers take maximum advantage of program resources, activities and engagement

Community Website's Dramatic Expansion in 2015

The Cisco Data Virtualization Customer Advisory Community website serves as Community members' one stop shop to find product resources, participate in activities, engage with Cisco Data Virtualization Support, and collaborate with other community members. This powerful knowledge center includes hundreds of assets including:

• Product Documentationthat allows community members to easily find and review documentation for current and recent product releases
• White Papersthat are posted on the site provide community members with in-depth insights on a range of Data Virtualization topics
• Community Events and Archivesallowing community members to see and participate in upcoming events as well as review archives from prior events
• Product Demosletting community members experience Cisco Data Virtualization capabilities in action

And we plan a similar expansion in 2016. Stay tuned!

Support Portal Simplifies Customer Engagement

To optimize effective use of Cisco Support, Community members gain easy access to our full range of online support services including:

• License Portal Accessthat lets customers generate software licenses as appropriate for your contract
• Software Downloadswhich allows easy access to the latest release versions, service packs and more
• Knowledge Based Contentincluding known issues, troubleshooting guides, severity escalations guidelines, and more are readily available
• Support Case Managerlets customers record incidents and track their progress around the clock

How Can You Get Started?

If you are a Cisco Data Virtualization customer today, it's easy to join the community. Simply send an email to [email protected] for instructions.

If you're not a Cisco Data Virtualization customer and want to learn how customers are benefiting, check out this Forrester Total Economic Impact infographic and study.

Join the Conversation

Follow @CiscoDataVirt and @CiscoAnalytics.

Learn More from My Colleagues

Check out the blogs of Mala Anand, Mike Flannagan and Kevin Ott to learn more.