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In my last blog I introduced challenges Enterprises are facing in their WAN deployments and the definition of ONF SDN. While the broad definition of ONF’s SDN architecture implies many theoretical answers to these challenges, we need to be pragmatic. Let’s take a look at the practical differences in LAN and WAN networks that affect how you’d deploy SDN on each.  Continue reading “Enterprise Networks: Practical Differences in LAN and WAN SDN Deployments”



Authors

Satish Katpally

Senior Marketing Manager

Application Centric Infrastructure, SDN, ONE Software Suites

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Education Telepresence

This six-part series focuses on transformation of the traditional higher education system in the United States.  Read parts 1 through 5 on the Cisco Education Blog.

Part 1: The Need for Change

Part 2: Shared Challenges

Part 3: Navigating Culture

Part 4: Modernizing Teaching and Learning

Part 5: Scaling Best Practices

Educators share a common crisis in the delivery of higher learning.  They suffer many of the same challenges, with regard to access to quality educational experiences, the need to replace outdated teaching methodologies, and the imperative to prepare students to become part of the workforce of the future.

Continue reading “A Six-Part Series: Transforming Higher Education in the US – Recommendations – Part 6”



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Renee Patton

Former Global Director of Education and Healthcare

Global Industry Solutions Group

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Mary Ann Azevedo
Mary Ann Azevedo

Guest Blog by

Mary Ann Azevedo is an award-winning journalist based in Silicon Valley.  She has covered business and technology issues for Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, the San Francisco Business Times and the Houston Business Journal.

An excellent piece by Mary Ann Azevedo is now available on the “The Network” (originally published June 24 , 2013) which expands upon many of the themes we have discussed on this Cisco Manufacturing Blog site. Start reading here, and the ‘Read More’ link will take you to the full article:

Ten years ago, an employee at a manufacturing firm would have to use pen and paper to conduct a plant floor inspection or quality control check. With handwritten notes, there was the potential for mistakes. The time it would take for a discovered problem to be addressed would vary considering how long it took for someone to learn about it and find the resources to solve it.

But as mobile technology has advanced, those same workers now have the option to instead use a mobile device such as a tablet or an iPad to perform the same functions. And those that do are finding that they are saving time and money while reducing the risk for errors and increasing safety in the workplace.

Manufacturers may have been slow to adopt mobility in the workplace but that reluctance seems to be gradually fading as once more conservative manufacturers are viewing the use of mobile as a way to get a leg up on their competition, notes Heather Ashton, research Manager for IDC Manufacturing and Retail Insights.Manufacturing employees “are becoming the smart connected worker by taking the technology with them,” she notes. “They’re moving throughout their workday connected at all times, which is huge.”

Not only they are adopting the use of mobile more, they are actually developing their own applications.According to a spring 2012 IDC survey (see chart in main article ), nearly 40 percent of 373 surveyed manufacturers across a variety of sectors said they intended to develop half or more of their applications for mobile platforms in 2012.

Eaton Corp. is one example of a company that has developed its own mobile application to enhance operations. John Gercak, vice president of information technology for Eaton’s $4 billion vehicle group, said his team in the United States and India spent about seven months developing the “Powertrac.”

The mobile application, which went live last December, uses a global positioning system (GPS) on an iPad and a cellular network to track the company’s test vehicles for supporting its products.

“With this app, the driver takes the iPad with them in the vehicle while on the track and we’re able to see in real time on the Web exactly where the vehicle is at all times,” he said.  Gercak said this is particularly useful because “if there’s a safety issue, we’re able to tell and notify the drivers in advance so as to avoid any potential accidents. Before if a vehicle was broken down, we weren’t able to know right away and contact the other drivers so from a safety perspective, it’s very helpful,”  Read More >



Authors

Peter Granger

Senior Sales Transformation Manager

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From the outset, Cisco Unified Fabric has been ahead of the curve and ahead of the market in its innovation and the value that it brings to Cisco customers. Its introduction brought about a profound shift to data center fabric: unification of the IP and storage networks.  Today it is foundational – a primary building block for cloud-based, virtualized data centers, providing architectural flexibility and consistent networking across physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

Customers know this too, as evidenced by Cisco’s continuous leadership in this market maintaining the #1 market share for Data Center Ethernet Switching with over 70% of the market*, and #1 in FCoE SAN Switching with 77% of the market**.

Continuing to innovate …
During Cisco Live Orlando last week, Cisco unveiled a two additions to its Unified Fabric portfolio: Dynamic Fabric Automation, which automates network provisioning and simplifies fabric management, and new Nexus 7700 Series switches, providing 40G/100G scalability and comprehensive feature set with new F3 modules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXEGqTTuLms

Cisco also announced the vision for our revolutionary networking architecture with Application Centric Infrastructure.  Yet again, we are evolving our infrastructure to help IT departments dramatically simplify how they provision their data center resources (networking, servers, storage and services) that are critical to the performance of their applications. As we heard from Padmasree Warrior, “the Application Centric Infrastructure will give our customers the agility to deliver applications to end-users where they want, when they want, and to any device they want  – securely, rapidly, and at a lower cost.”

We continue to innovate as no other IT company does, providing the vision and technology to transform the data center. Tomorrow starts here.

 

*Source: Infonetics, Q1CY2013 DC Network Equipment Report  **Source: Dell’Oro, SAN Switching, Q2CY2013



Authors

Frank Palumbo

Senior Vice President

Global Data Center Sales

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The phrase of the week “Beat the Heat.” Boy is it hot in the Bay Area where Cisco’s headquarters are located. So what are many people doing to cool down? Heading to their local ice cream shop of course. Now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with social but check this out. One thing in particular caught my eye at our local ice cream shop, they are getting into the social media game. Take a look.

Creating Buzz with Social
Creating Buzz with Social

A great example of how social media is used to help improve business. Not only are they showing people they have social media pages but also asking them to take pictures and showing them where to post. While many of the larger chains have twitter handles and facebook pages, this is definitely a must for small businesses as well. This particular ice cream shop is called Sweet Rendezvous and while they offer the normal cookies n’ cream, my kids favorite, and rainbow sherbert, they also offer flavors like saffron and cinnamon chocolate. If you check out all the reviews on Yelp, I’d say they have the right idea and business on these hot days isn’t too bad at all. So whether it’s for bringing in customers or even recruiting employees, creating a social media platform is a must for any business these days.

 

 



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Joie Healy

Director

Corporate Communications

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Last week, Cisco Live in Orlando gave me the opportunity to discuss the future of technology with a broad cross-section of business leaders and self-professed “geeks”—both in person and via social media. In my keynote on Tuesday, I outlined a vision of what life in 2023 could be like, enabled by the Internet of Everything (IoE). And I enjoyed some lively conversations in response to this vision. Here are a few of the themes that emerged:

  • First, many people were surprised at just how fast things are changing, and the sheer volume of people, processes, data, and things that are being connected at an exponential rate.
  • People appreciated not just seeing a vision of technology, but having that vision connect back to the real-life issues we all will face around work, healthcare, aging, and the need to nourish our relationships with family and friends, even at a distance.
  • Third, the people with whom I spoke are engaged and positive about the future, recognizing opportunities for a whole array of new services and capabilities that will be enabled by the 50 billion IoE connections we’ll have in 2023.
  • Finally, many people expressed the importance of talking about technology not just for technology’s sake, but in terms of how it can  help humanity—how we can use technology and IoE connections to better produce and deliver food, manage and conserve our resources, make high-quality healthcare more available, improve education for underserved populations, and make our cities more livable.

Continue reading “Reflections on Cisco Live—an Engaged, Positive View of How We Are Building the Future Together”



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An Increasing amount of organizations continue to shift their view of IT infrastructure as being a cost center to an enabler of business growth. Hence, businesses are looking for infrastructure that can deliver agility and availability while enabling diverse applications to coexist in the same infrastructure.

The Krones group, headquartered in Neutraubling, Germany, helps makes happy hour happen. Krones plans, develops, and manufactures machinery and complete plants for the fields of process, bottling, and packaging technology. The company processes millions of bottles and cans daily on behalf of breweries, the soft-drink sector, and manufacturers of wine, sparkling wine, and spirits.

If Krones needs a taste tester for one of their facilities I just may know someone with a little experience. 😉

The company’s data centers and IT solutions are an important part of their business. Their legacy IT infrastructure consisted of 200 physical servers and 700 virtual machines spread across three locations with business critical applications running Solaris operating system on a RISC-based architecture.

Krones wanted a server solution for both their UNIX and Microsoft Windows systems. The key requirements were to:

  • Increase flexibility and efficiency using virtualization
  • Improve performance
  • Optmize the infrastructure for zero downtime
  • Deliver a seamless migration for mission-critical applications
  • Reduce complexity and speed up provisioning

Continue reading “Krones Group dramatically improves IT efficiency by migrating from RISC-based architecture to Cisco UCS”



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Tim Stack

Product Marketing Manager

Data Center and Virtualization

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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Omnibus Final Rule, released January 2013, introduced some significant changes and updates. At the same time, over 100 HIPAA audits concluded in 2012. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) released initial analysis of these audits in May 2013. The HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule and 2012 HIPAA audit results may influence how you run your network in the future. Here are nine network considerations that could impact your network and IT processes.

  1. HIPAA Audits will continue
  2. The HIPAA Audit Protocol and NIST 800-66 are your best preparation
  3. Knowledge is a powerful weapon―know where your PHI is
  4. Risk Assessment drives your baseline
  5. Risk Management is continuous
  6. Security best practices are essential
  7. Ignorance is not bliss
  8. Your business associate(s) must be tracked
  9. Breach discovery times: know your discovery tolerance

Each of these considerations will be explored in a nine-part blog series, posted on the healthcare blogs site.



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Terri Quinn

Security Solutions Manager

Security Technology Group

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We’re just a week away from Microsoft’s annual partner soiree – Worldwide Partner Conference 2013 (WPC) – where ~16,000 channel partners from around the world will converge in Houston to learn about all things Windows Server, SQL Server, Surface, Office 365, System Center, and much more…

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 Why Cisco @ WPC 2013?

Cisco is at WPC as Microsoft is a strategic partner in the datacenter.  Working with Microsoft helps Cisco bring IT solutions to market that our customers are demanding be it private cloud solutions around Windows Server or upgrades to large Exchange and SharePoint environments. These requests are absolutely in line with what we have been hearing from customers:  Cisco is their strategic IT partner, not just a communications partner.

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What Should I look for?

My colleague Bill Shields posted a Cisco Data Center blog post the other day on our booth area and the solutions we will be showcasing:   UCS B-Series blade and C-Series rack servers and solutions such as FlexPod and VSPEX;  SQL and Exchange solutions; Cisco UCS Manager and PowerTool, Cisco’s PowerShell utility; and Windows Server 2012 networking featuring Cisco Nexus 1000V. There is a reason UCS, UCS Manager, and Nexus 1000V have been awarded Best of Tech Ed recognition three years running… Stop by booth #1401 and see why!

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Cool Must See Item #1: Nexus 1000V Switch for Hyper-V

We just started shipping our Nexus 1000V Switch for Hyper-V. It brings enterprise-class cloud networking to Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V. The Nexus 1000V Switch for Microsoft Hyper-V offers consistent operational experience across physical, virtual, and mixed hypervisor environments; reduces operational complexity through dynamic policy provisioning and mobility-aware network policies; and improves security through integrated virtual services and advanced Cisco NX-OS features

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 Cool Must See Item #2: Cisco PowerTool for PowerShell

Over the past several years we have seen PowerShell emerge from Microsoft as a base platform for management tool offerings such as System Center as well as being a scripting platform used by IT Administrators to drive increased automation and consistency in various deployment, configuration, and maintenance tasks. Cisco’s PowerTool for PowerShell is our ‘PowerShell library’. It provides a wealth of UCS, UCS Manager, and Nexus 1000V cmdlets that can improve the management of your Microsoft oriented datacenter. 



Authors

Rex Backman

Senior Marketing Manager, Big Data Solutions

Data Center and Cloud