More than 50 percent of computing workloads in data centers will be cloud-based by 2014, and global cloud traffic will grow more than 12 times by 2015, to 1.6 zettabytes per year — the equivalent of over four days of business-class video for every person on Earth, according to According to the Cisco Cloud Index.

Based on these trends, Cisco said it has updated its switching portfolio with 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) and 40 GE capabilities, the next speed limits for networking.  These new capabilities provide a holistic architectural approach across campus, data center and service provider environments, and give customers a significant advantage while addressing emerging trends like cloud, video, mobility, and the proliferation of 10 GE.

With this announcement, Cisco, which already offers the industry's broadest switching portfolio, becomes the most extensive provider of 1/10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet and converged networking switching solutions.  Supporting the transition to higher networking speeds, in addition to Cisco's recently announced CloudVerse solution, is a key element of Cisco's strategy to help its customers meet the demands of emerging cloud computing trends and the resulting data deluge.

Cisco is delivering investment protection with 40 GE performance options to its Catalyst 6500switching line, and 40 GE and 100 GE capabilities in its Nexus 7000  portfolio for interconnecting data centers to service providers.  To expand its campus aggregation and data center top of rack switching, Cisco also announced two new fixed-configuration platforms that provide high-density 10 GE switching.

Making it easy to use this capacity, Cisco announced simpler network virtualization functionality for its Catalyst 6500, 4500 and Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 1000 product lines with a new technology called Easy Virtual Network, as well as scalable virtual services with a new Nexus 1010-X appliance for the data center.   Together, these enhancements will help businesses scale their networks, simplify operations, and protect their existing Cisco switching investments – many of which have been deployed for a decade or longer.

Today's announcement underscores Cisco's continued leadership in switching. Cisco recently reached switching milestones of 10 million deployed 10 GE switched ports since 2002, and 23,000 NX-OS customers, the operating system that supports Cisco's entire data center portfolio.