Cisco Launches Intersight, Management & Automation In Focus

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) recently unveiled its management and automation platform, Cisco Intersight. The platform is designed to be compatible with the company’s Unified Computing System (UCS) and HyperFlex Systems so that adoption related complexity can be avoided.

Cisco Intersight is aimed to simplify data center operations with its systems management as-a-service offerings and reduce the requirement of on-premise management system. The platform also provides system lifecycle management via its machine learning, analytics and automation technologies.

With the advancement of cloud infrastructure, hybrid cloud and multicloud technologies are gaining higher adoption rate. The need for scalable, multi-site deployment based on cloud containers and other micro-services has increased the need for management and policy regulations.

Cisco Intersight, which will be available in the fourth quarter of 2017, is well-equipped to address all these issues. The platform will have two versions, The Cisco Intersight Base Edition and The Cisco Intersight Essentials Edition.

We anticipate this platform, with its upgraded features, to gain widespread acceptance. This will impact the company’s top line positively. Shares of Cisco have gained 11.1% year to date, outperforming the industry’s rally of 10%.

Growth of Data Center and Artificial Intelligence

Per a recent article by Accenture Research, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to increase productivity by almost 40% by 2035. Information and Communication, Manufacturing and Financial Services industries will be the top gainers from AI growth.

In one of its recent reports, MarketsandMarkets stated that the data center solutions market is expected to grow from $18.56 billion in 2015 to $32.30 billion by 2020 at a CAGR of 11.7% during the mentioned time frame.

We believe Cisco with its enhanced product portfolio is poised to gain from the growth of the industries. Notably, the completion of the acquisition of hyperconvergence software provider Springpath that was announced in August 2017 will strengthen its solutions suite, thereby improving the top line for Cisco.

Nevertheless, stiff competition from industry peers like Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Web Services, Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) , Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP) , F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV) and FireEye remains a concern for the company.

Zacks Rank

Cisco currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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