Cisco reorgs again, folds net management into new cloud group

Network World - Even though it completed the bulk of a major restructuring earlier this year, Cisco continues to tweak its internal organizational structure.

Cisco has combined its Network Management Technology Group (NMTG) with two other business units and folded all into a new organization to be headed by CIO Rebecca Jacoby, according to a Cisco memo obtained by Network World.

The memo, authored by Cisco CTO and Senior Vice President of Engineering Padmasree Warrior and Pankaj Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Service Provider Group, states that Cisco has formed the Cloud and Systems Management Technology Group under Jacoby to align engineering and services in an effort to gain market share in cloud, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS).

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CSMTG will include NMTG, which is now under the direction of Vice President and General Manager Jamie Lerner, as well as Cisco's Intelligent Automation Services business unit and Service Delivery Platform operations. The memo did not state the status of Jesper Andersen, senior vice president of NMTG, who landed at Cisco three years ago from Oracle.

Andersen is still listed in his most recent role on Cisco's Executive Bio site.

The rationale for naming Jacoby to head the new group, meanwhile, stems from her cross-organizational experience as Cisco's CIO, a role she will retain.

"This role more than any other will bring alive our ability to deliver integrated products, services and software," the Cisco memo states. "We needed some very specific skills for this role -- strong leadership; the ability to influence and manage across boundaries; an understanding of infrastructure, operations and application deployments across Enterprise and Service Provider customers; and product, software and services knowledge. Rebecca is uniquely positioned to take on this role due to the synergies she has built between IT and Engineering over years of Cisco-on-Cisco deployments."

Cisco did not respond to inquiries about the memo in time for this posting. As CIO, Jacoby will continue to report to Randy Pond, executive vice president of operations, processes and systems; but she will also report to Warrior and Patel in her new role as head of CSMTG.

By aligning services and engineering under CSMTG, Cisco is hoping to accomplish several additional goals, according to the memo. They include:

Build advanced management and automation capabilities in Cisco software by utilizing operational practice knowledge found in the company's Advanced Services delivery teams.

Create IaaS, PaaS, SaaS solutions based upon Cisco's hardware, software and services components.

Leverage the Advanced Services teams to sell management and automation solutions in cloud and legacy environments across all market segments.