Fifteen years later, the company has announced the results of a comprehensive end-customer survey conducted by the international CCIE community. Through this survey, Cisco is trying to gain insight into what digital infrastructures will look like over the next five years.

This research was conducted by a strategic research firm Illuminas, and commissioned as part of Cisco's overall 25th anniversary celebration. The survey was designed in a manner to know the unique perspective of some of the most knowledgeable information technology professionals in the networking industry.

According to Cisco, there are several factors that are driving innovation such as virtualisation, security and risk management, unified communications, video, and real-time collaboration.

The majority (two-thirds) of the CCIE holders surveyed expect virtualisation to be the top networking investment over the next five years. Virtualisation is seen as an energy-, space- and cost-saving measure and the respondents believe that a holistic and comprehensive virtualisation strategy can increase operational efficiency and simplify management.