Cisco Connect 2013: tomorrow starts here

Cisco has brought together more than 1,200 professionals in Madrid to exchange impressions about what a world marked by the Internet of Things and big data will be like. Three years from now, 1.2 million minutes of video will cross the Internet, while the cloud will support 62% of workloads. Although only 1% of things are connected to the Internet today, in 2016 there will be 19 billion devices with an IP address. Without a doubt, an exciting world that raises concerns but, at the same time, foresees new businesses in which Cisco wants to participate together with partners and clients.

under the slogan Tomorrow Starts Here, the Kinépolis complex in Madrid hosted this Thursday Cisco Connect 2013, an event organized by Cisco, with the collaboration of Intel, in which more than 1,200 professionals have been able to share their experiences and try to elucidate what a future marked by the Internet of Things and big data will be like.

Although only 1% of things are connected to the Internet today, in 2016 there will be more than 19 billion devices, and four years later this figure could reach 50 billion. And, as was revealed at Cisco Connect 2013, the Internet of Things could move 11 trillion euros in ten years.
One of the aspects that will experience the greatest growth will be the exchange and distribution of video through many of these devices. 1.2 million minutes of video will cross the Internet every second in 2016, contributing to a 13-fold increase in global Internet data traffic between now and 2017 (even multiplying 4G traffic by 40 in these years).

Regarding the cloud, the cloud will support 62% of the workloads. Global mobile data traffic will increase 13 times between 2012 and 2017. According to some studies, 60% of CIOs, many of whom gathered at this event, hope to improve decision making thanks to big data.

José Manuel Petisco, CEO of Cisco, opened this day by putting on the table an interesting survey by the Boston Institute that demonstrates that the Internet economy contributes US$2.3 trillion to the G20 global economy. In fact, if the Internet economy were a country it would be the fifth world power.

In relation to the new Internet of Everything environment, Petisco has stated that "if we have been able to evolve in voice, data and video, now we want to take all devices to the cloud to manage all that data in an intelligent way for our businesses. The Internet of Things is a huge opportunity for everyone and will transform markets such as energy, health, transportation,..."

"From client-server we have moved to a mobile cloud infrastructure to access professional or personal applications that will be in the cloud. We could say that we have moved from the web economy to the app economy. And Cisco is going to open its network to partners and clients so that they can develop applications on it," Petisco stated.

For the director of Cisco in Spain, "the intelligent network through the different Cisco infrastructures will be at the center of this change that will entail Big Data, unified access, BYOD, social networking, unified data center, the next generation of video-voice, security..." To this end, in 2012 alone, Cisco invested 6,000 million dollars in R&D, on a turnover of 48,000.

For his part, Laureano González, managing director of Cisco, stated that "the future has no limits. People, Data and people will be able to be connected to the Internet under the IPv6 protocol." González recalled how things have changed since the Internet was born in 1969, linking university centers in California with the University of Utah (ARPANet) with just a few kilobytes of information exchange. Today, every day, more than 41 billion messages are generated through mobile messaging systems alone.

Thanks to technology such as virtual meetings with WebEx, real-time communication with Jabber and social collaboration with WebEx Social, Cisco has understood that the Internet represented a social and economic revolution that perhaps we are not yet very aware of.

"In fifteen years we have gone from 0 to 21 Exabytes of video per month and 1.6 of mobile data. In the next four years, video traffic will multiply by 2.5 and mobile data by 7. And all this taking into account that 99% of things have yet to be connected to the Internet," González assured.

New business opportunities

We are facing a new era in which the device goes with the user, without the user having to move. At Cisco Connect 2013, it has become clear that it will be an era of devices and an Internet of all things, processes, data and people.

Physical devices and objects will be connected to each other and to the Internet for making intelligent decisions with processes that provide correct information to people or machines. And in this new environment, how much is at stake? Cisco estimates that in the next ten years, 14.4 trillion dollars in benefits will be generated from cost savings and the generation of new businesses (only in private corporations, without considering consumption or public administration). This value will flow between companies, mainly between those that best manage the Internet of Things. Basically 45% of this value will be between machine and machine. While two thirds of the business will come from specific industrial applications, the third will be related to horizontal applications

Cisco predicts that the Internet of all things will have the potential to grow the profitability of global corporations by an average of 21% by 2022. To help its clients achieve these goals, the company is immersed in areas such as energy, industry, B2C, smart cities, connected home, security... developing applications and operations in relation to sensors, connectivity, analytical data, management, control and much more.

Computing

Norberto Mateos, Southern Europe Regional Director at Intel, focused his presentation on how we will enable new devices with greater functionality and complexity to more efficiently control energy, cost and size. He has even anticipated that by the end of the decade we could be reaching quantum computing.

“Consistent and perfect computing experience must take into account compatibility, manageability, security and personal experience,” he assured.

Mobile devices, the Internet of Things and services lead to the explosion of the data center. “This will mean eight times more pressure on the networks, 16 times the storage capacities and 20 times the computing capacities… but the increase in the volume of data will mean opportunities,” Mateos assured.

Intel's processor architecture will enhance mission-critical, HPC, Big Data, Cloud, Enterprise, SMB, communications and microservers with versatile processors for a new era of flexible and efficient data centers.

Videoscape Unity: a new multi-screen experience

Among the different solutions exhibited in the Cisco Connect 2013 exhibition area, Videoscape Unity stood out, Cisco's proposal that aims to connect broadcast, multi-screen distribution and immersive experience for the end user... and all this through a completely open architecture.

Videoscape Unity enables service providers and multimedia companies to provide a new experience through intuitive and synchronized video multi-displays. The platform includes a digital video recorder in the Cloud so that consumers can restart their recordings, access old programs and view content from anywhere and on any screen.

For the first time, video operators have an open software platform that goes beyond the concept of 'Television Anywhere', and that allows them to offer their customers an immersive, multi-screen video experience with which to reinforce their service offering.

Videoscape Unity offers Multiscreen Cloud DVR (Digital Video Recorder), which allows video recording and storage in the Cloud, so consumers can restart recordings, access old programs and view content from anywhere and on any screen; a video anywhere environment, expanding the concept of TV anywhere through search, location and viewing functions, so that consumers can enjoy live and on-demand content - managed or not by service providers - on any connected device, regardless of their location; video for all connected devices in the home (Cisco Connected Video Gateway serves as a single entertainment hub for IP video and QAM management, easily distributing content and metadata to any IP device) and cabled IP video, offering consumers greater choice of IP video content and services across a wider range of devices managed by service providers, with the ability to add additional unmanaged devices.

Videoscape Unity has been created by integrating Cisco Videoscape with the functionalities and business model of NDS, a leading company in video software and content security acquired by Cisco in 2012. The new platform includes a complete set of network, Cloud and client components connected through open interfaces. These cloud and network components enable new personalized video services and allow synchronization of multiple displays to create a single, unified experience for subscribers, regardless of the device used.