In June, we announced that Cisco was recognized by Infonetics Research as a Leader in the Policy Management scorecard, based on feedback from service provider customers, vendor market share, market share momentum, financials, brand recognition, reputation for innovation, and other benchmarks.

One area of strength highlighted in the scorecard wasCisco Policy Suite's early focus on new virtualization models. The policy function, and indeed the entire packet core, can be re-architected on cloud infrastructure to simplify and automate the effort to create, grow and shrink carrier-grade networks for consumer markets as well as bespoke verticals. The economies of scale provided by a NFV framework and tools allow the Cisco Policy Suite to continue to be at the forefront of virtualizing network functionality, which is critical in order to support the projected growth of data in the next 5 years.

The recently released Cisco Global Cloud Index (GCI) estimates that the annual global data center IP traffic will reach 10.4 zettabytes (863 exabytes [EB] per month) by the end of 2019, up from 3.4 zettabytes (ZB) per year (287 EB per month) in 2014. Our Service Provider customers have recognized that capabilities within NFV will enable them to scale to manage the traffic but also introduce services (and service platforms) that improve the user experience faster than ever before. Our customers recognize Cisco's legacy in the policy control and subscription profile management, and many are making the move to virtualized policy even more readily in new vertical industries like IoE and Connected Car with AT&T, healthcare, utilities, and others.

Infonetics also mentions areas where Cisco Policy Suite has room for improvement. One of the challenges noted is the lack of opportunities beyond packet core. While Cisco Policy Suite and Cisco Packet Core solutions are frequently sold together, the Policy Suite has always been a modular platform that supports applications for mobile, wi-fi and fixed-line networks. Cisco Policy Suite is an integral component in Cisco's Universal Wi-Fi for Service Providers solution. In addition, we are currently working with a tier-1 mobile network operator in Europe who is using the CPS platform to trial a multi-city Intelligent Access Selection solution to help manage smarter user transitions from LTE and Wi-Fi.

Infonetics also references what they call "software intensity," which they determined to be the ratio of software to the services required for implementation. Cisco has enjoyed year over year gains in market share because more customers are choosing Cisco Policy Suite to quickly deploy new services without lengthy custom development for each new service. One Cisco customer, MVNO K-Opticom, stated that they use "...next-generation policy and subscriber management solutions to administer its many services with accuracy and agility." MVNOs like K-Opticom depend on service creation velocity to differentiate themselves with creative pricing and content offerings.

Learn more about Infonetics' analysis of Cisco in the Policy Management industry from their report, downloadable here. For more information about Cisco Policy Suite, including our latest developments, please visit our website.