Cisco : reaching for the stars with NASA
Cisco ’ s Jeff Scheaffer explains how the company is helping the US space agency digitally transform for the future of space exploration .
In common with NASA , Cisco invests heavily in R & D , spending $ 6.3 billion annually on new networking and security technologies . It ’ s a shared cultural asset that will help the company in its endeavors to assist the US space agency ’ s digital transformation – and future missions .
Jeff Scheaffer is VP Product Management & Strategy at Cisco , focusing on softwaredefined networking ( SDN ) transformation . These networks , Scheaffer says , “ are much more flexible environments – they ’ re better suited to ensuring application experience because software defined networks are more rapidly and flexibly reconfigurable , which improves our agility and our ability to respond to application quality of service and security issues .”
Data is – obviously – core to the joint missions of NASA and Cisco . As a networking provider , Cisco has a deep understanding of its AI stack and the foundational importance of data to a digital economy . “ We really pride ourselves on the idea that it ’ s built-in , not bolted on ,” Scheaffer says .
Cisco supports NASA ’ s six core ‘ thrusts ’: data and insight centric ; focused on collaboration ; culture and workforce ; “ modelbased anything ”; AI and machine learning ; and process transformation . These thrusts are “ completely integrated ” into NASA ’ s transformation architecture . Scheaffer describes Cisco ’ s programme for NASA as “ laser focused ” on achieving NASA ’ s mission .
“ It ’ s been a phenomenal partnership as we work with NASA to identify the next set of needs to drive the next generation of product innovation cycles . We ’ re thrilled to be partners and to support NASA and all of the collaboration and the benefit that comes from that partnership .
“ We ’ re really excited in partnership with NASA to be able to focus on using that investment to help us to create comprehensive , flexible , digitised infrastructure – real-world and real time analytics – in order to provide better experiences , agility , and trust .”
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