Interop: Cisco, NBA Star Tout Internet Of ThingsInterop: Cisco, NBA Star Tout Internet Of Things

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When Cisco VP Robert Soderbery walked onstage for his Tuesday morning Interop keynote, his attire -- which combined conventional dress slacks with neon-blue basketball high-tops -- immediately indicated that he had more on his mind than software-defined networking (SDN), one of the conference's most-buzzed topics.

Indeed, over the next half hour, he detailed why the Silicon Valley giant sees programmable networks not as ends in themselves but rather as pieces in a larger puzzle that include the Internet of Things, a new breed of applications and closer relationships between business units and IT.

The role of Soderbery's footwear? Cisco believes its technology can transform virtually any industry, including not only predictable verticals such as medicine, financial services and manufacturing, but even -- as the shoes foreshadowed, and as a guest appearance by NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving confirmed -- professional sports.

[ How to make sense of all the new data pouring in over the Internet? Read IBM Crunches Internet Of Things Data. ]

IT is undergoing a major transformation in which "a new kind of application" will deliver "benefits we've never seen before," said Soderbery. These applications, which rely on connected devices that produce unprecedented streams of raw data, will be network-centric, meaning that companies will benefit only if they give IT a bigger role in business and marketing projects, he said.

"IT has been about connecting supply chains, finance, operations, logistics" and other back-office tasks, he said. "But now, IT is about the front office, about customer and client-facing applications, about B2B applications, about making things and distributing them around the world."

These statements echo those made by Cisco CEO John Chambers earlier this year when he described the company's vision for the Internet of Things. He said that by connecting sensor-equipped objects to both people and one another, businesses can deliver the right information to the right person at the right time. This actionable data, he claimed, could aggregately add $14 trillion in profits to the global economy over the next decade.

As an example, Soderbery described how MGM Resorts, which manages a number of hotels on the Las Vegas strip, has built a mobile app that uses a guest's location to provide personalized information about nearby attractions and amenities. To address potential privacy concerns, the app is opt-in and governed by user preferences. Cisco has emphasized such privacy provisions since it began touting location-based analytics last fall.

For the hotels, the app is intended not only to make guests happier, but also, through the data the app collects, to provide better insights into merchandising and marketing initiatives. The app thus represents, Soderbery said, an IT-driven way for Cisco customers to monetize their existing Wi-Fi infrastructure through better consumer engagement and better collections of end user data.

NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving and Cisco VP Robert Soderbery

For many IT staffers, though, most days are spent putting out fires, be they help desk tickets, security breaches, or any of a number of additional problems. If application-building is to become part of the IT purview, admins will need to free up time for such initiatives. Cisco believes its architecture can do exactly that, simplifying traditional management tasks while also opening the door to these new applications and opportunities.

The architecture, called Cisco ONE, combines a number of products Cisco has launched over the last year, such as its Unified Access technology, which unites wired and wireless networks under a shared control interface, and its OnePK set of APIs, which open existing Cisco hardware to new functions and programmability. Soderbery said that thanks to Cisco ONE, IT administrators can manage all aspects of the network from a single control plane, rather than, as is usually the case in legacy architectures, controlling single components and policies individually. Admins can also harness APIs in the control layer to deploy network-aware applications, hook into cloud services, stream video and more.

To illustrate how these capabilities translate to better revenue or services, Soderbery highlighted benefits for several traditional verticals. The technology could allow healthcare professionals, for example, to remotely treat patients thousands of miles away, and, as Cisco's current ad campaign illustrates, to better coordinate various medical workers -- EMTs, ER doctors, nurses -- during emergencies.

But Cisco representatives have been talking about these sorts of advances for months. Where does basketball fit in?

Just as sensors might collect data in a manufacturing plant to optimize operations, they could also, as researchers are already exploring in baseball, be embedded in other objects, such as the connected basketball Soderbery showed off during his speech. Although it looks and handles like an ordinary basketball, it can measure factors such as arc and rotation in real time. Such variables might be useless to a sharpshooter like Steve Nash but could pinpoint correctable technique errors for the Dwight Howards of the world.

Video-based analytics is another way Cisco's technology could apply to sports. The presentation included an iPad app that analyzes footage to give coaches and fans real-time insight into the game. Such a data-heavy product would require a robust network architecture to link cameras, distributed intelligence and the end device -- but Soderbery argued all the gadgetry could pay off in big ways.

The demonstration juxtaposed a video of Kyrie Irving driving to the basket with statistics ranging from his speed and how high he jumped to information about surrounding players. Advanced metrics are already making their mark in sports; there is, for example, the Oakland Athletics' embrace of "Moneyball," and the ongoing playoff run of the Memphis Grizzlies, whose VP of basketball operations John Hollinger is among basketball's best-known number crunchers.

But most of these metrics are collected and analyzed after a game is over. With technology like Cisco's, coaches and fans could enjoy sophisticated insights in real time. For example, some questioned whether Golden State coach Mark Jackson made the right decision Monday night when he played star guard Stephen Curry for the entirety of a double overtime playoff loss to the San Antonio Spurs. Critics reasoned that Curry tired down the stretch, and that he might have been more effective if he'd been given a brief rest. Such comments are largely subjective, but next-gen apps such as the one Cisco demonstrated could quantify fatigue in a way that meaningfully changes coaching decisions.

As for Irving, he joined Soderbery onstage for the keynote's final minutes, following the app demonstration. The Cleveland Cavaliers point guard kept his remarks brief, endorsing technology such as Cisco's as a way to improve his game while connecting with fans.

He also treated the audience to a quick game of horse against Soderbery. Irving won the contest in one-sided fashion, predictable given that few networking executives can go toe-to-toe with NBA All-Stars. But then again, if Cisco's architecture delivers on its promises, maybe Soderbery could pull off a few surprises if there's ever a rematch.