Is “localization” so complicated?! In 2018, Inspur and Cisco Networks continue to demonstrate China’s strength

[51CTO.com original article] In 2017, the names of Inspur Cisco Network appeared on the procurement lists of many cities' government cloud. Relying on Cisco's strong network genes and Inspur's comprehensive localized channel system and market system, Inspur Cisco Network, as part of Inspur's cloud strategy, became the most recommended brand of Inspur network products, and gained a lot in the field of government cloud. In 2018, Inspur Cisco Network had another "good start" - it was successfully shortlisted for the procurement list of Shaanxi Province, and the new switch CN6000 was also on the list.

After a smooth start, what development plans will Inspur and Cisco Network have in 2018? Standing on the shoulders of two giants, Inspur and Cisco, how will Inspur and Cisco Network enhance its brand influence and create another miracle in the domestic network market? Just recently, several leaders of Inspur and Cisco Network accepted interviews from reporters and answered the reporters' questions one by one. In the eyes of this startup that was established less than 15 months ago, a market full of opportunities and challenges is slowly unfolding in an orderly manner.

The benefits and pressures of leaning against a big tree to enjoy the shade

Many people do not agree that Inspur Cisco Network is a startup. In their view, this joint venture was born with a "golden spoon" and has been supported by two giants, Inspur and Cisco, since its inception. It has already "won at the starting line." However, what they fail to see is that because "it's good to lean on a big tree for shade", Inspur Cisco Network also has to bear more expectations and higher requirements. It is understood that the company's sales target is very "challenging", far beyond the imagination of ordinary startups.

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"We are still a newborn baby, not yet fully grown, and need more support from everyone in the future." At the beginning, Chief Technology Officer Ming Zhou compared the company to a baby. He admitted that Inspur is a global leader in servers and storage, while Cisco is a global leader in networking. Therefore, the biggest challenge facing Inspur Cisco Network is to quickly integrate the excellent DNA of the two parent companies. He believes that the company's strategy is very clear - product localization, service localization, and R&D localization, all of which revolve around how to better integrate networking, computing, and storage in the Chinese market. "In 2018, from the perspective of localized brand building, gaining recognition from the government market should still be the top priority for Inspur Cisco Network."

As the Chief Technology Officer, Ming Zhou also shared Inspur Cisco Network's views on the development trend of network technology. He believes that from the perspective of data center hardware development trends, bandwidth acceleration will be dominated by 25G and 100G, which is a very obvious trend; from the perspective of the development trend of decoupling, the integration of the entire data center network, including virtualization, cloud computing, and storage, will also be a very hot topic. Ming Zhou believes that SDN is very important and is a core technology. Network companies must have this foundation, and future decoupling will definitely move in the direction of SDN. He also emphasized that "OTT companies may be the first wave of users of SDN decoupling, because OTT companies have very clear needs for themselves and are large in scale, which can drive the entire IT industry. The second wave is telecom operators and large enterprises, and the third wave may be some small and medium-sized enterprises."

Localization is so complicated

In fact, when it comes to the launch of Inspur Cisco network products, many people have misunderstandings, thinking that it is as simple as localizing Cisco products. Some people even think that it only requires English-Chinese translation. In this interview, Zhang Dandi, the person in charge of Inspur Cisco network products, also gave a detailed explanation. It turns out that behind each product launch, there is so much hard work and effort.

Zhang Dandi, Ming Zhou described her work status as "so busy that I almost don't have time to sleep". She told reporters that after the establishment of the joint venture, her first task was to select models. She needed to combine Inspur's advantageous business and solution scenarios with network products with Cisco's technical background, and finally provide a holistic solution for domestic users. She also revealed that when selecting products, she would focus on products using commercial chips, and also pay more attention to factors such as the product's SDK and NX-OS API, because based on this relatively open architecture, the API can be compiled to provide customers with customized services in product service orchestration and operation and maintenance as quickly as possible.

She told the reporter that product localization is an extremely complex process. When absorbing products, it is necessary to plan the functions and performance, and to select the most suitable products for Chinese users. The follow-up work also includes localization of product documents, training of network management and services, matching of databases, and many other tasks. "In order to speed up, we have compressed almost all the time, and at the same time, we have to refine all the processes. We work overtime on almost all holidays. It can be said that compared with the network product release cycle of the same industry, the joint venture company has advanced by nearly half the time.

The reporter learned that Inspur Cisco Network has currently released the CN series of data center products, which basically include switches for various needs of data centers, such as the CN12700 and CN8000, which integrate storage, data and networks. In addition, Inspur Cisco Network will also cover the enterprise network-level application market. Zhang Dandi revealed that she and her team have also selected models for enterprise networks. The first batch of S series products are network equipment ranging from 10G switches to Gigabit, including Gigabit power, including second and third layers. "In the future, we will still focus our products on the data center and enterprise network levels. At the same time, we will continue to strengthen local services and deploy local R&D teams to keep up with customer needs."

The future of Inspur and Cisco: One begets two, two begets three, and three begets everything

"If we compare Zhang Dandi and her team's work to the chefs in a restaurant, then the role of the product solutions department is the waiter." Zhang Tao, head of the solutions department, made an analogy. He believes that the responsibility of the solutions department is to clearly introduce the features of the solutions in a language that customers are familiar with, so that customers can gradually understand them.

For Inspur and Cisco, the solution leader's job is to integrate the existing network product features with Inspur's industry solutions. Only by linking servers, networks, software, and customers through the network can we truly achieve an end-to-end overall joint solution. "Our job is to make the network one of the three pillars of the Inspur Group. For Inspur, the integration with Cisco's excellent network technology genes is not a simple 1+1=2, but a qualitative change of 'one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives birth to all things'." He emphasized that on this basis, Inspur can truly provide its own strength for the construction of China's cloud and the process of China's IT informatization.

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