Cisco Adds Intelligence to Networking with AON

Networking Giant, Cisco Systems on Tuesday unveiled its new technology called AON to make networks more intelligent and easy to work with for corporates.

The new technology named Application Oriented Networking would make it easier for networks to understand the kind of data being transferred and apply rules such as visibility and security levels based on the same.

"Intelligence throughout the network changes IT forever," said John Chambers, speaking in a keynote address at Cisco’s "Networkers 2005" conference in Las Vegas, likening such service to "application-dial tone."

With the AON business unit, Cisco is betting that it can stimulate revenue growth by adding more sophistication, or "intelligence," to its current networking hardware line. The AON products will be "application-aware," which means that they can inspect information that’s being transmitted and route messages based on predefined policies, according to Cisco.

Charles Giancarlo, chief technology officer, said Cisco started developing AON technology because most of the software used by corporations consisted of “stovepiped applications” designed to manage customer information, financial records and purchasing data which often did not speak the same language and thus had trouble communicating. Mr Giancarlo said by being able to read entire messages as they passed across a network, AON technology would enable corporations to respond to changing business conditions more quickly. John Chambers, chief executive, said it was “one of the most fundamental changes in my lifetime”.

AON needs to work with the key software businesses use, so Cisco has recruited partners to help launch AON. IBM plans to integrate its WebSphere software into AON, and over the next year, SAP will integrate Business One into AON to better serve its small and midsize customers with branch offices. Tibco Software Inc. is integrating its messaging software.