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While Cisco (News - Alert) might be to networking what Microsoft is to desktop software, even Cisco can’t resist moving to the cloud. That means retraining nearly 14,000 employees around the world, according to TechTarget’s SearchFinancialApplications.

A large company like Cisco with many campuses spread out over the globe needed a solution that could scale to a large number of people. The company ended up building cloud-based “social learning networks” dubbed Cisco Collaborative Knowledge and Career Connection under the Learning@Cisco umbrella.

“We had to find something more innovative because all of the tools out there are pretty much standalone tools. So, we created an internal social learning platform called Career Connection,” Kathy Bries, senior director and general manager of Learning@Cisco told SearchFinancialApplications.

In IT, learning never stops once a person receives a degree or a certification. There are always new products, new programming languages, new networking protocols, and new technology paradigms. Learning really is a lifelong process for anyone involved with technology.

The biggest change in enterprise IT is the shift toward the cloud. Many companies are finding it easier to move all their old infrastructure to cloud providers. This means dispensing with a lot of networking hardware. For many organizations, Cisco has been the networking hardware company.

Instead of fighting the trend, Cisco has embraced the cloud. The company bought cloud security provider OpenDNS earlier this year, as well as offering its own cloud network management software.

Such a dramatic shift means more new skills for its workforce to learn. Learning@Cisco is meant to connect employees with experts, as well as giving them metrics on how well they are doing with their learning efforts.

As part of Cisco’s embrace of the cloud, Learning@Cisco is an internal SaaS (News - Alert) system, available company-wide to not only enable learning, but collaborative learning as well. Collaborative knowledge lets users vet experts and Career Connection gives employees a roadmap to learning that they can use to further their development in the company.

The move mirrors traditional companies like Microsoft (News - Alert) that are promoting the cloud. As a major networking hardware manufacturer, Cisco might be in better shape as its products still form the basis for cloud data centers.