Cloud-scale networking is being given a boost with software innovations co-developed by Cisco.

Enhancements to the Cisco IOS XR network operating system will aim to reduce management and operating network costs, as well as resulting in improved performance.

The move comes in response to the increasing demands being placed on networks, this has been created by digital business transformation.

The technology will work by enabling traditional and web service providers to converge their data centres and wide area network infrastructures.

It will do this by making networks more programmable, and by creating tighter integration with IT configuration and management tools.

This technology has been co-developed with several hyperscale web companies.

The company also released additions to its Network Converge System Series routing portfolio.

This includes software modularity and extensibility which aims to provide increased server agility with granular software packaging. The enhancement also includes IT and Network automation convergence with DevOps tools such as Chef or Puppet.

Large-scale automation has been added with data model-driven API’s providing network programmability.

The other addition includes greater visibility and control created by contextual network insight due to data-model-driven access to operational state data.

Near real-time network programmability has also been added through enhancements to its Application Engineered Routing solution.