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Introduction

xxvii

In the early 1980s, Len and Sandy Bosack, a married couple who worked

in different computer departments at Stanford University, were having trouble
getting their individual systems to communicate (like many married people).
So in their living room they created a gateway server that made it easier for
their disparate computers in two different departments to communicate using
the IP protocol. In 1984, they founded cisco Systems (notice the small

) with

a small commercial gateway server product that changed networking for-
ever. Some people think the name was intended to be San Francisco Systems
but the paper got ripped on the way to the incorporation lawyers--who
knows? In 1992, the company name was changed to Cisco Systems, Inc.

The first product the company marketed was called the Advanced Gate-

way Server (AGS). Then came the Mid-Range Gateway Server (MGS), the
Compact Gateway Server (CGS), the Integrated Gateway Server (IGS), and
the AGS+. Cisco calls these "the old alphabet soup products."

In 1993, Cisco came out with the amazing 4000 router and then created

the even more amazing 7000, 2000, and 3000 series routers. These are still
around and evolving (almost daily, it seems).

Cisco has since become an unrivaled worldwide leader in networking for

the Internet. Its networking solutions can easily connect users who work
from diverse devices on disparate networks. Cisco products make it simple
for people to access and transfer information without regard to differences
in time, place, or platform.

In the big picture, Cisco provides end-to-end networking solutions that

customers can use to build an efficient, unified information infrastructure of
their own or to connect to someone else's. This is an important piece in the
Internet/networkingindustry puzzle because a common architecture that
delivers consistent network services to all users is now a functional impera-
tive. Because Cisco Systems offers such a broad range of networking and
Internet services and capabilities, users who need to regularly access their
local network or the Internet can do so unhindered, making Cisco's wares
indispensable.

Cisco answers this need with a wide range of hardware products that

form information networks using the Cisco Internetwork Operating System
(IOS) software. This software provides network services, paving the way for
networked technical support and professional services to maintain and opti-
mize all network operations.

Along with the Cisco IOS, one of the services Cisco created to help sup-

port the vast amount of hardware it has engineered is the Cisco Certified
Internetwork Expert (CCIE) program, which was designed specifically to

www.sybex.com