Futuriom's Top Ten Stories of 2023

It’s the end of the year, the time when we at Futuriom take a look back at the articles and blogs that have drawn the most interest over the past 12 months. We do this not just to satisfy our curiosity but to check the topics and trends that have captured the most attention among our community of IT and cloud tech experts.

We picked some stories based on the sheer numbers of views, but we also used our discretion on the impact of the story. So pull up a chair, reach for that eggnog (or toddy, hot chocolate, etc.) and check out the following top ten stories on Futuriom’s site in 2023 – listed in order from lowest to highest number of views.

10. "Why Cisco is Buying Isovalent." Isovalent investors and employees got an early Christmas present, with Cisco on December 21 announcing that it will acquire this six-year-old leader in open-source, cloud-native networking technology. Terms of the deal were unannounced, though digital news service The Information reported the valuation at $650 million. This is a recent story that's only a week old. But the story already has 1,100 page views and our LinkedIn post on the deal already has more than 10,000 impressions. More importantly, this is a big deal for Cisco. So we expect this story to grow over time. 1,100+ page views

9. "Why Cisco Bought Splunk." As you can already tell, Cisco is in the news a lot (more to come). In a deal that was rumored and discussed since early 2022, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) announced in September that it will acquire data management and analytics company Splunk (Nasdaq: SPLK) in a $28 billion deal aimed at strengthening Cisco’s position in security, observability, and artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI. 1,700+ page views.

8. “Cisco Viptela Customers Deal with SD-WAN ‘Time Bomb.’” Last May, the expiration of a certification authority (CA) on one of the chips running Cisco’s Viptela gear (vEdge 100/1000/2000) caused massive headaches for users of these edge software-defined networking (SD-WAN) devices. While many customers wrung their hands, hoping their WANs wouldn’t fail, former Viptela employees, many of whom had left Cisco, piled onto Reddit and Twitter with helpful advice. Cisco wasn't quick to find a long-term solution. 1,700+ page views.

7. “Aviatrix Switches CEOs.” In July, former Splunk CEO Doug Merritt took over as CEO, president, and chairman of the board of this pioneer multicloud networking provider, replacing Steve Mullaney, who came out of retirement four years ago to take the helm. Both men are acknowledged to have brought the company successfully forward at different stages of its growth. With the momentum of hybrid and multicloud adoption, that growth continues to ramp. 2,000+ page views

6. “What Are Network APIs?” Network application programming interfaces (APIs) are protocols, routines, and tools used by software developers to build applications that can communicate over a network. In this Tech Primer, we examined telco network APIs and how they are used to help telecom operators leverage 5G network characteristics to support revenue-generating use cases. It has proven to be a popular search topic -- at the top of the page in Google searches for Network APIs. 2,200+ page views

5. “Ciena Breaks New Optical Ground.” Just in time for MWC in Barcelona, optical networking leader Ciena unveiled WaveLogic 6, the next generation of its optical core transceivers, of particular interest to customers in metro and wide-area optical WANs. Ciena boasts that these components offer 1.6 Tbit/s single-carrier wavelengths for metro networks, with 800-Gbit/s across the longest connections and an overall 50% reduction in space and power per bit compared to existing Ciena WaveLogic 5. The WaveLogic 6 series is due in the first half of 2024. 2,700+ page views.

4. “What Is NetDevOps?” Software development and operations (DevOps) and network operations (NetOps) have been combined in a movement known as NetDevOps. In this Tech Primer, Futuriom’s Raynovich explores how NetDevOps is building network automation into the application development process – a move we think is central to hybrid and multicloud networking. This is also topping Google searches for NetDevOps. 2,800+ page views.

3. “Ciena Passes 100,000 in 800-Gb/s Sales.” Ciena in November reached a milestone in shipments of its WaveLogic 5 Extreme 800-Gb/s modems. Demand for these components has tripled since 2022, driven by hyperscalers and telcos intent on expanding their optical backbone networks. Expect to see further momentum, as customers cope with increased data volumes, cloud computing, AI, and mandates for greater sustainability. 3,000+ page views.

2. “Is the Cohesity IPO Back?” We’re not sure why talk of this particular potential public offering gains thousands of eyeballs, but IT pros are clearly fascinated with it. For two years now, the privately held cloud-native secondary storage and data management-as-a-service (DMaaS) company has seemed on the brink, having confidentially filed for IPO back in December 2021. But market conditions and tumult in the ranks seemed to put things on hold. In 2022, Cohesity hired Silicon Valley veteran and former COO of VMware Sanjay Poonen as CEO, heralding strong new leadership. Will 2024 be the year? 4,000+ page views.

1. “Introducing the 2023 Futuriom 50.” Futuriom’s list of the top private companies and top trends in cloud technology is always a hit with readers. And recently, we've been busy scouting the field once again for a fresh report in January. (And don't miss our F50 profiles, starting with one on Fivetran this week.) 7,800+ page views.

So there you have it -- our list of the most-read articles on Futuriom.com. What do you think? As ever, we'd love to hear from you. Write to us at analyst@futuriom.com