Center for Cisco Heritage

12/10/2024

Happy 40th Birthday, Cisco! 40 years ago today, cisco Systems was incorporated in the city by the bay. A small but mighty team committed their hearts, minds, and credit cards to get the fledging enterprise off the ground. Here's to the next 40 years of innovation and connection!

09/06/2024

Just received at The Center for Cisco Heritage... our first piece of Splunk memorabilia!

The Splunk Fez is presented to members of the SplunkTrust, the small community of Splunk MVPs recognized for their knowledge of the company's products and their contributions to the Splunk-verse. Big thanks to Sarah Harbin at Splunk for sending three fezes our way!

08/22/2024

Just received at the Center for Cisco Heritage... Lego Cisco 7960 IP Phone

THANKS to Ben Ng - longtime Cisconian and CCIE master - for bringing us this cute little Cisco 7960 rendered in Legos. They were a big hit at this year's Cisco Live! in Las Vegas and Ben saved one just for us.

08/09/2024

Following on the celebration of Talos's 10th anniversary, we were introduced to Ninja Snorty, who currently resides on Cisco's San Jose campus. He was installed in 2017 for the launch of the Security Ninja program. Ninja Snorty is 7 feet long from the end of his prodigious nose to the tip of his curly tail. You don't want to mess with this pig.

08/02/2024

Happy 10th Birthday, Talos! Talos - Cisco's threat intelligence research organization - had its genesis in the 2013 acquisition of SourceFire and debuted at Black Hat in August 2014. To learn more about Talos's founding, history, and responses to the biggest tech threats of the last decade, visit

Relive some of the major cybersecurity incidents and events that have shaped Talos over the past 10 years.

07/17/2024

This month in Cisco History...
In July 2000, Cisco unveiled its "Internet Home" - a 1700-square foot furnished house built out in a corporate building on the San Jose campus. The Internet Home featured an “always on” broadband Internet connection linked to every room (and device) in the house via the Cisco Internet Home Gateway. The home – full of Jetson-esque bells and whistles - was the embodiment of a new reality, one where the Internet would be just another utility, as important to everyday life as water and electricity. Do you remember the Internet Home?

06/21/2024

This Just In... Jabber!
This nifty little box brought IM to the enterprise, continuing the acceleration of business communications. Cisco acquired Jabber in 2008 to capture and integrate their scalable chat system into Cisco platforms. This box and the powerful software inside was developed by Chris Newton and Peter Millard at Jabber. This donation comes to us from Ashley Roach, who was the Product Manager at the time and is still a Cisconian 16 years later.

05/30/2024

Cisco's Carrier Routing System - the world's fastest router debuted 20 years ago this week! The CRS (or HFR, as it was known internally) launched with a splashy ad campaign asking everyday folks what they would do with the power to move so much data. Prophetic.

05/24/2024

There's nothing we love more at the Center for Cisco Heritage than the call that begins, "We're cleaning out a closet. Do you want to come take a look?" "Yes, indeed!" One San Jose closet offered up these three Aironet Wireless Access Points. It seems these rugged beauties were barely used; one arrived to us in its original shipping box. The Aironet Wireless Access Points were (and still are!) built to withstand all manner of environmental hazards, including temperature ranges from -40 to 149°F and wind gusts up to 165mph. But don't worry - we'll keep them safe, dry, and cool.

05/13/2024

The Center for Cisco Heritage is proud to announce the publication of our Cisco Crisis Response/Tactical Operations Oral History collection. CCR/TacOps team members - current and former, staff and volunteer - shared their recollections in a series of interviews conducted by Cisco Archivist Kristin Morris. You can check out all the interviews via our online collection platform, https://ciscoarchive.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/CHMC~7~7.