Since the announcement of our unprecedented next phase of analytics with IBM, the wave of steady validation from the market has been growing. We are approaching analytics like never before, leveraging our strengths in hardware, software, services, and partnership to embed powerful analytic capabilities-from the data center to the cloud to the edge, providing insights across the most  distributed and remote data, to solve critical challenges in multiple industries like energy, manufacturing, and financial services. Until now, IoT data has been managed in centralized, cloud-based systems. In traditional settings, data is moved from a connected 'thing' to a central system over a combination of cell-phone, Wi-Fi and enterprise IT network, to be managed, secured, and analyzed.

For companies generating data in many different places with intermittent connectivity to a central cloud system, the solution optimizes data for immediate analysis and decision making at the edge of the network and beyond. For the first time ever, customers have the first holistic experience of the connected condition of things (machines, networks, apps, devices, people, etc.) through the combined power of Cisco and IBM. I'm thrilled to see this momentum and it's just the beginning of great things to come.

In September,you'll be able to get an in-depth view of this solution, Cisco's ongoing data and analytics innovation and more when you join us at the 2016 Data and Analytics Conference. You will hear how Cisco, our partners, and customers are using data to gain insight through analytics, both at the center and the edge of the network to accelerate digital transformation.

Our partnerships with heavy-hitters like IBM are future proofing data & analytics for hyper-distributed environments. We've taken an entirely new approach to analytics that provides the flexibility of processing and analyzing data everywhere-at the edge and in the cloud, so it can be leveraged in time and context as the business needs to use it. This technology collaboration with IBM is in direct response to requests from customers that were struggling with complexity in their distributed data environments, like IoT.  Industry analysts, customers, partners, and even competitors are taking notice, demonstrating the increasing need for an intelligent IoT edge, linked to powerful cloud-based analytics.

The positive, cross-industry response to our game-changing approach to analytics reflects how we are solving critical challenges for businesses looking to transform their operations in the age of IoT. Customers like Columbia's Port of Cartagena,a modern container terminal in the Caribbean, are using Cisco Edge analytics and the Watson IoT Platform to expand its monitoring of equipment conditions such as engine temperature, engine speed and run hours to improve maintenance costs. Bell Canada is pushing the edge with analytics to deliver 4G LTE connectivity throughout the country, regardless of the location of the business.

And SilverHook Powerboats are taking on this wave tapping into Cisco's edge analytics software and Watson IoT business analytics, to help race pilots react immediately to environment and multi variate engine conditions in real-time, indicating the need to throttle back in a split second, for example, to help prevent the boat's systems from failure and to perform optimally. Previously, without this instant insight into the critical data, the outcomes could mean disaster at high speed.

As we lead this next chapter in analytics innovation, I hope you can join some of our key events in the next few months to learn more about where we are taking it to the edge-building innovative pathways to new analytics experiences that can change your business for the better.

We've just touched the surface and there is more to come! I look forward to seeing you in September at the 2016 Data and Analytics Conference!

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