AWS Taps Ex-Cisco Exec to Drive Networking Push

In the latest sign of Amazon Web Services’s efforts to develop its own networking technology—used for routing data around the world—the cloud computing giant has hired a technology industry veteran who helped jumpstart the industry trend of do-it-yourself networking hardware. 

JR Rivers, a onetime Cisco executive who later co-founded and ran Cumulus Networks—a networking company backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital—is joining AWS, according to multiple people with knowledge of the hire. Rivers' hire comes as AWS prepares to launch its first hardware product with networking capabilities for outside customers—a collection of servers, storage, and networking devices called Outposts.