To celebrate 30 years of innovation at Cisco (#We are Cisco), we've asked Cisco Champions what they think is the most important Cisco innovation to date. Cisco Champions are seasoned IT technical experts and influencers who enjoy sharing their knowledge, expertise, and thoughts across the social web and with Cisco. The Cisco Champions program encompasses different areas of interest, such as Data Center, Internet of Things, Enterprise Networks, Collaboration and Security. Cisco Champions are located all over the world.
(Cisco Champions are not representatives of Cisco. Their views are their own)

Here are their top answers.

Cisco Nexus Series
The most important innovation for me is the Data Center Networking Solution with Nexus Portfolio N2K, N5K, N7K, and N9K, that allows us to address all challenges for our customers. I really appreciate the new campus solution based on C6800 with IA switches which uses the same technology as FEX. It really simplifies architecture and reduces OPEX with a single point of management.

Bertrand Borderaeu
Network Consulting Engineer
@BBordereau

"Infrastructure As Code"
Cisco's current trend toward helping Architects, Engineers, and Operations folks design and build toward a more "infrastructure as code" mentality, is helping speed up Data Center and Nexgen WAN deployments.

Steven Robinson
Network Design Engineer
@WackoRobie

Cisco Certifications
I think the career certifications were a great innovation for Cisco into their portfolio. They've provided education, career paths, and created jobs for countless individuals.

Christian Roessler
Network Engineer
@roesnet

Cisco UCS
Speaking as a "server guy", it was the way UCS abstracted the configuration of servers away from the hardware. Cisco may not have been first, but they sure did it right and at scale. As this concept spreads to the other parts of the Data Center and out to end points, the hooks needed to truly virtualize and orchestrate everything are getting more and more prevalent. I'm really excited to see the changes coming up over the next couple of years around automation.

Happiness is never having to ask for a new VLAN.

Brad Christian
Consulting Arthitect
@vhipster

What Cisco innovation do you think has made the biggest difference in the last 30 years? Share your thoughts by commenting below.