Part I: Attn: Networking Professionals -It's Time to Change the World Again.

My fellow networkers, it's time for the network to take the center stage once again. For a while now, IT professionals have been noticing the growing buzz around networking. Innovative new network developments -Open APIs, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), etc. -are converging with evolving demands to usher in an exciting new phase of networking. And it shouldn't surprise any of you that Cisco is playing a central role.

That's why today marks an especially important day in Cisco's network journey as we unveil the Cisco Digital Network Architecture, or Cisco DNA (#CiscoDNA), as we fondly call it. With Cisco DNA, we are re-defining networking with an open, extensible and software-driven strategy (See Diagram I below).

Watch this video for an overview on Cisco Digital Network Architecture.

Most of us have personally witnessed how networks over the last 30 years drastically changed every aspect of how we work, live, play, and learn: from the early days of email to the wonders of the web, and from e-commerce to immersive collaboration and mobile experiences.

While the last 30 years of networking have been exciting, we've not experienced anything game-changing yet until today. Networking, as we know it, is fundamentally changing to support the demands of digitization (See Diagram II above). Yesterday's networks primarily were a platform for connectivity. That alone was already powerful. Networks allowed us to overcome the barriers of distance and time. For example, I can work and collaborate with my colleagues 24