What is the good strategy of buying and upgrading layer 1~3 network system?

What is the good strategy of buying and upgrading layer 1~3 network system?

ICI believes the correct upgrading strategy is “zig-zag”. This means for every core network system, or equipment, when you buy a new one, you should always firstly consider the main-stream supplied model in the market, and reserve an upgrade space for future 3-5 years; after the first procurement, at the time of 3-5 years, you could easily do an upgrade, perhaps upgrade to full configuration at the max computing or networking power. After another 2-3 years, when the value of this system is fully utilized, you could forklift to another whole new system. With this strategy, you could enjoy below key value,

a.       New system is main stream in performance.

b.       Easy to get supply and support, vendor-independence.

c.       Upgrade cost is minimized because 3-5 years later the spare parts price is much lowered.

d.       Waste of operating cost (e.g. rack space, power, cooling) is minimized.

What is the real core value of Cisco, and why other people are OK to pay much higher prices to buy Cisco routers and switches?

Cisco core value is meeting enterprises’ need. Any modern organization larger than 20 people has to consider the network (own, virtual, or cloud) as the fundamental infrastructure of information exchange. Such information exchange is no longer technical oriented, but application and business process oriented. Therefore, the industry of communication has totally changed to a cost, reliability (availability), flexibility and scalability matter. This is governed by the rule of modern financing model of enterprises, which is far more powerful than technical innovations.

Cisco for 30 years has seriously worked hard to understand the actual business needs and the pressure of growth of business owners and runners. Therefore, Cisco provides the largest and most pervasive support systems for any enterprise level network systems.