Cisco Unveils Application-Oriented Networking; The Next Phase of the Intelligent Information Network Provides Network-Embedded Intelligence for Secure Application Communication.

LAS VEGAS -- Cisco Systems, Inc.(R) (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced today Cisco(R) Application-Oriented Networking (AON), new technology that adds intelligence to the network, enabling the network to better understand business-application communications to support more effective and efficient business decisions.

Cisco's approach to AON is based on innovative new technology that moves beyond the packet level to read application-to-application messages flowing within the network - such as purchase orders, investment transactions, or shipment approvals. With AON, the network now speaks the language of applications. This new technology supports Cisco's vision for the Intelligent Information Network and is the first network-embedded intelligent message routing system that integrates application message-level communication, visibility, and security into the fabric of the network.

"The nature of the enterprise network is evolving from a low-function communication service to a high-function Enterprise Nervous System (ENS). This is changing application design and IT management practices in fundamental ways. In a conventional architecture, intelligent application systems interact through a low-function, fairly 'dumb' network. In an ENS-based architecture, by contrast, the network is as intelligent as the applications. The ENS offloads logic from the application systems by transforming and redirecting messages and providing other services as appropriate." Roy Schulte, Gartner, Inc. Vice President and Research Fellow.

Enterprise IT executives today are challenged with how to better secure, integrate, and optimize business applications to improve productivity and competitiveness. Unlike expensive ad hoc approaches, Cisco AON technology uses the intelligence and reach of the network to provide improved real-time visibility and responsiveness to rapidly changing business conditions.

Because it takes advantage of the existing network footprint, and requires no changes to existing applications, Cisco AON technology also provides excellent investment protection. In addition, by reducing the need for custom software development and extensive systems integration, the Cisco AON solution reduces cost and complexity, speeds application deployment, improves change management, and facilitates regulatory compliance.

New Family of Application-Oriented Networking Products

The new family of Cisco AON products enables business applications and the network to work together as an integrated system. Announced today are Cisco AON modules for data center switches and for branch office routers.

The Cisco AON family complements current Cisco packet and content-aware products by providing true application message-level awareness of business applications. Beta customers are impressed with initial results and the potential they see for streamlining their business processes.

"We have been integrating closely with the Cisco AON solution to monitor and report on the transport and delivery of Financial Information Exchange (FIX) messages, a financial services industry standard protocol used by Radianz' customers for exchanging equity orders," says Brennan Carley, CTO at BT Radianz. "Historically, enterprises couldn't see beyond the network firewall and were essentially blind to factors affecting their business beyond that point. With this solution, our clients will gain much more granular information with the ability to see a FIX message leaving the firm, confirm it arrived at the trading partner, and see the time it took to complete the transaction."

Comprehensive Lifecycle Services and Support

To accelerate successful Cisco AON deployments, Cisco and its technology partners will provide a lifecycle portfolio of professional services that align customers' business and technical requirements through all six phases of the deployment lifecycle: prepare, plan, design, implement, operate and optimize, specifically designed for this new solution.

Collaborative Efforts with Industry Leaders

Cisco's AON approach is also based on collaborative efforts with industry leaders, such as IBM and SAP, which share its vision for helping customers to better manage business applications and business processes through network-embedded solutions.

"Two industry-leading companies, IBM and Cisco, are working together to help customers to become more flexible, to use their IT infrastructure in support of their business goals, helping them to become On-Demand businesses," said Robert LeBlanc, general manager, WebSphere, IBM Software Group. "IBM's collaborative efforts with Cisco in support of AON will allow WebSphere and Cisco customers to capitalize on this emerging architecture to reduce complexity, consolidate IT, and improve performance."

"As one of our key partners supporting the Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), Cisco is working with SAP to integrate ESA with Application-Oriented Networking to deliver end-to-end solutions for enterprise data centers, branch offices, and small and midsize businesses," said George Paolini, executive vice president, Platform Ecosystem Development at SAP. "By combining ESA and AON with SAP Business One, SAP's simple yet powerful solution for small and midsize organizations, we will have the ability to deliver even more significant customer benefits for parent companies and their subsidiaries, such as improved application security, easier application deployment and even better integration, better business visibility, and network-based policy management."

In addition, Cisco is collaborating with EDS, SAIC, TIBCO Software, and Verisign, as well as innovative services and software firms, including: Actional, ConnecTerra, Contivo, CXO Systems, Infogain, ManTech, Trace Financial, and TransactTools to provide a broad range of Cisco AON solutions. Cisco also has created a full set of Cisco AON partner support, training, testing, certification, and marketing services to help fuel and sustain this ecosystem.

Evolving the Intelligent Information Network

In 2003, Cisco began articulating a 3 to 5-year vision for developing an Intelligent Information Network by increasing network intelligence to create a more resilient, adaptive, and integrated framework for communications. Phase I is comprised of the integration of video, voice, and data across a system of networks, while Phase II adds the virtualization of networking, storage, server, and security services. Now, with AON, Cisco is introducing the third phase with intelligent network-based systems that enhance the communication, visibility, and security of business applications.

For more information about Cisco Application-Oriented Networking, visit www.cisco.com/go/AON.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, this year celebrates 20 years of commitment to technology innovation, industry leadership and corporate social responsibility. News and information are available at www.cisco.com.

Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or Website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

A[micro]   Industry Support for Cisco Application-Oriented Networking (AON)

A[micro]   Actional
A[micro]   "As the recognized leader in service-oriented architecture (SOA)
management solutions, Actional is collaborating with Cisco Systems to
deliver end-to-end business-process visibility and control to
customers. Using Actional technology, the information flowing through
Cisco AON can be correlated and dynamically mapped with other
components in the SOA for enterprise-level control. This enables
customers to develop a more secure, visible, agile, and intelligent
SOA."

A[micro]   Tom Ryan
A[micro]   President and CEO, Actional

A[micro]   ConnecTerra
A[micro]   "By collaborating with Cisco Systems, ConnecTerra, a leading
supplier of radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure
software, will deliver next-generation, network-centric RFID solutions
to enterprise customers. Taking advantage of the existing
infrastructure at sites enabled with Cisco AON will allow
ConnecTerra's customers to fully utilize more secure and accurate
information gathered from RFID devices and delivered by Cisco AON.
Additionally, customers will benefit from advanced device monitoring
and management capabilities, enabling better business visibility
quickly at lower cost."

A[micro]   Linda Bernardi
A[micro]   Founder, President and CEO, ConnecTerra

A[micro]   Contivo
A[micro]   "Contivo, the leading provider of automated data integration
solutions, is collaborating with Cisco Systems to integrate Contivo
Vocabulary Management Solution (Contivo VMS) with Cisco AON. Together,
the two solutions will provide comprehensive semantic transformation
for customers to address key issues including integration with legacy
applications and the implementation of standards within multiple
vertical markets. With this combined offering, customer
infrastructures will benefit from Cisco AON capabilities such as
message-level communication, visibility, and security in a pervasive
network-based solution with lower maintenance and total cost of
ownership."
A[micro]   "Contivo has been working with Cisco for several years and is
pleased to deliver a Cisco AON solution that customers and partners
can trust to deliver substantial savings and reduced risk."

A[micro]   Keith Fiengold
A[micro]   CEO, Contivo

A[micro]   CXO Systems
A[micro]   "CXO Systems, a leader in enterprise business and risk
intelligence software, is collaborating with Cisco Systems to create a
new class of real-time risk-intelligence solutions for a variety of
vertical markets. By using Cisco AON technology, CXO Systems can
analyze and display AON-enhanced information in its executive
dashboards to enable improved business visibility and real-time
decision making. Enterprise customers using CXO dashboards will
benefit from more timely and mission-critical information, managed and
delivered by AON--an intelligent message-routing system with
pervasive, adaptable message-level communication, security, event
capture, and visibility."

A[micro]   Malcolm Frank
A[micro]   President and CEO, CXO Systems

A[micro]   EDS
A[micro]   "At EDS, we believe that innovations at the edge of the enterprise
network are creating the need for more effective ways to manage
information. Together with Cisco, we are building a globally secure
service grid that will enable our clients to take advantage of this
information explosion. We see Cisco's AON intelligent message routing
system as an innovative technology that enhances the delivery of
services at the edge of enterprise networks. We are currently
evaluating how adoption of AON technology in our own infrastructure
can enable the seamless flow of information resources across the
enterprise."

A[micro]   Stan Alexander
A[micro]   CTO, EDS

A[micro]   ManTech International Corporation
A[micro]   "Our federal government customers, including many who operate in
highly sensitive and secure environments, must accommodate new demands
for information access and sharing in a secure and policy-compliant
manner, while spending less on infrastructure hardware and software.
Through our new AON Services Practice, ManTech will be able to deliver
quickly and seamlessly all the benefits of Cisco AON--improved
real-time visibility of business policies throughout the network, more
security through distributed enforcement of application policies, and
greater investment protection since implementing AON requires no
changes to existing applications."

A[micro]   Robert A. Coleman
A[micro]   President and CEO, ManTech International Corporation.

A[micro]   TIBCO Software, Inc.
A[micro]   "By integrating TIBCO's enterprise backbone for service
infrastructure with Cisco AON, we're extending our real-time messaging
to the network, and making information and interactions ubiquitous
throughout the enterprise Through our combined efforts, customers can
now use the network as a new source of real-time business information
to further automate end-to-end business processes and improve IT
infrastructure adaptability, reliability and security."

A[micro]   Ram Menon
A[micro]   Senior Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, TIBCO

A[micro]   TransactTools
A[micro]   "TransactTools, the leading provider of enterprise software for
transactional connectivity management in the financial industry, is
collaborating with Cisco Systems to deliver real-time transaction
monitoring and high-performance application messaging within the
network itself. TransactTools will use the Cisco AON framework to
deploy adaptable message-level communication, transaction visibility,
and policy enforcement for high-risk financial transactions at the
network-device level across the IT infrastructure. For customers, this
best-of-breed combination represents the next generation of
high-efficiency enterprise infrastructure for mission-critical
transaction management."

A[micro]   Sam Johnson
A[micro]   President and CEO, TransactTools

A[micro]   VeriSign
A[micro]   "Interoperability between VeriSign and the Cisco AON family of
products will enable customers to seamlessly deploy and manage
VeriSign Managed PKI Services across the network. As more and more
enterprises recognize the need for increased security solutions to
protect their networks from malicious activity, the integration of
MPKI and Cisco AON will provide them with an easily deployed
end-to-end security measure."

A[micro]   Mark Griffiths
A[micro]   Vice President, Authentication Services, VeriSign, Inc.