The Special Olympics is an organisation that strives to create a better world, using the power of sport to foster the inclusion of all people, especially those living with an intellectual disability. Cisco is proud to have partnered with this organisation recently to organise the NSW Special Olympics Community Disability Sports Day.

The event was held last month at Centrebet Stadium -- home of the National Rugby League’s Penrith Panthers -- and saw 65 intellectually disabled people from Sydney’s West participate. Arriving through the same tunnel that the Penrith Panthers run out of at the start of each game, the participants had the opportunity to play a range of sports and activities, honing their skills in rugby league, cricket, football, bocce and some modified Olympic events such as javelin and discus.

Of the 65 athletes who attended, 90% had never experienced the Special Olympics before. These athletes are now able to take advantage of Special Olympics programs that offer regular sport, competition pathways, healthy lifestyle solutions and leadership opportunities.

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By: VCE CTO Trey Layton at EMC World 2013     (@treylayton)

Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said “change is the only constant in life.” And without question, change is the lifeblood to our industry and like any transition, albeit from VHS to digital, from board games to mobile apps, or even dare I say it, Tom and Jerry to Jerry Springer, the “customer” conversation takes on a new shape, with new questions and a fresh dialogue.

Today, we’re seeing something very similar with a natural transition towards convergence in the data center market. No longer is the conversation about the impact on IT departments, but about how to influence change to meet the business needs of the company. Refocusing an entire business around a common goal is no easy feat, especially within those longer standing companies with more traditional, more siloed approaches to their business – and as such skill sets are once again going to have to change or people will find their options becoming limited. Like the technology they’re going to have to adjust; it’s a natural transition for not only the IT department, but leaders across multiple faculties of the business.

Economic and competitive pressures are demanding we do more with fewer resources. Take Columbia Sportswear who deployed Vblock systems in order to transform IT to be much more service orientated in order to fulfill business requests that much faster. Rapid deployment and ease of use also enabled Columbia to redirect IT staff to find new ways to solve business problems, rather than focused on the IT “plumbing”. Above all, the need for flexibility is commonplace in today’s business environment and hence require their IT to “never say no” regardless of the project that comes through the door.

VCE is leading the charge into the next generation data center, simplifying and accelerating data center modernization efforts for our customers. Simply put, VCE represents the next evolution of IT, one focused on the next generation data center and the future of cloud computing.

So where do we go from here?

As the IT industry and the needs of the customer continue to evolve, so will VCE and the Vblock systems. Already we’ve taken our Vblock family to the next level by enhancing the existing 300 and 700 systems and expanded our portfolio by adding the 100 and 200 systems. We also developed Vblock Specialized Systems that are optimized for SAP HANA software and added our own layer of intelligence to existing management toolsets by creating VCE Vision Intelligent Operations to enable and simplify converged operations.

As we look to the future we will continue to innovate on top of the success we’ve already seen to ensure converged infrastructure retains its position as the foundation for next generation data centers. And trust me, there’s a lot more coming to you this year, including the notion of “hyper-convergence” – something you’ll hear a lot more from me on in the coming months.

Join us at this year’s EMC World in Las Vegas to experience for yourself the simplicity behind the Vblock converged systems and see what the future holds for the next generation data center.

Tags: Cisco, cloud, Columbia Sportswear, Converged Infrastructure, EMCworld, SAP. HANA, Vblock, VCE

Mobile Device Management or MDM is ideal for addressing many challenges inherent to our ‘Bring your own Device’ culture. MDM can help enforce policy for mobile devices but when you look closer, you begin to realize it does not solve everything. The challenge is when we ask our MDM technology to make policy decisions out of context.

Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers centralized policy and network intelligence as an MDM compliment for a complete security solution

This is where Cisco comes in with ISE or the Identity Services Engine. We did a Fundamentals of ISE awhile back that still serves as a great backdrop for getting your head around it. ISE is frequently lauded for its ability to provide a single repository for all the potentially complex rules and regulations we need on our network. The point right now however is ensuring we know where ISE begins/ends in reference to MDM. Neither can act completely alone and accomplish everything most customers are hoping for in a BYOD solution especially. But where do we begin and end?

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Tags: Fundamentals, in the lab, ISE, Jimmy Ray Purser, MDM, networking 101, security, TechWiseTV

This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

As a parent, we all understand that the health of our child takes precedence over economic concerns, geographic distance, and just about any barrier you can name. Many parents know the stress of finding the right doctor to treat a child’s illness, and the difficulties involved in traveling to see that one specific doctor. For critically ill children, the long wait to see a pediatric specialist can be devastating.

About 1 million children in California have ongoing physical, behavioral, mental, or emotional conditions that can affect their ability to function and participate in activities important to their development and, in some cases, can shorten their lives. According to a recent report published by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, these children with special healthcare needs use more healthcare services than other children and account for more than 40 percent of all healthcare cost among children nationwide, despite making up only 16 percent of the U.S. child population. Though advances in medical care have extended and improved the lives of millions of children, more than four in five of children with special healthcare needs still fail to receive one or more basic aspects of quality healthcare, statewide and nationally.

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Tags: children, healthcare, pediatrics, remote, telehealth

Increasing population and growing citizen expectations, all in the shadow of budget constraints, are causing government agencies around the world to look to the cloud to help enable them to do more with less.

Cloud solutions for government not only help enable a more streamlined, productive workforce, but they empower government agencies to meet rising citizen expectations and free up resources for investment in other mission-critical areas.

In India, this rises to a whole new level. The government of India has launched GI Cloud, which is a national cloud initiative that will enable government at various levels to leverage cloud computing for efficient delivery of e-governance services.

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Tags: cloud, GI cloud, government, india, State Local Government