Year: 2013

November 13, 2013 1 Comment
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Cloud Service Provider deploys End-to-End FCoE

In one of my earlier blogs, – “How to get more SAN mileage….” – I had highlighted how one can deploy End-to-End FCoE using a converged Director-class platform, like Nexus 7000, connected directly from the converged access switch, like UCS FI, in order to get the utmost agility. Well, this is how ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC), a Cloud Service provider, deployed its network to get significantly higher mileage.

CTCCTC provides a wide range of IT services for business customers in Japan. The company’s Cloud Platform Group recently launched its innovative ElasticCUVIC shared private cloud service, which helps customers reduce infrastructure cost and management complexity. With large numbers of VMs, CTC wanted to simplify its data center architecture and IT management while optimizing scalability.  The challenge was to deliver high-performance, easy-to-manage cloud services at scale.

The company evaluated several storage networking solutions and turned to Cisco for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) solutions, which greatly simplify the infrastructure and management. CTC built its two newest data centers in Yokohama and Kobe with ultra-high performance and flexibility in mind. CTC implemented an End-to-End FCoE architecture using Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches, Cisco UCS servers, and FCoE connections between the switches, servers, and FCoE storage arrays.

CTC-Deploy

With the converged FCoE architecture, ElasticCUVIC is enabling CTC customers to gain Continue reading “Cloud Service Provider deploys End-to-End FCoE”



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Amit Jain

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8 of 9 HIPAA Network Considerations

Discovering a breach where ePHI has been stolen certainly falls into the ‘not a good day at work’ category.  It can be catastrophic for some, especially if the compromise occurred months ago and wasn’t detected.  Or if a 3rd party discovered the breach for you, which occurs more often than we think, 47-51% from 2010 – 2012 based on the Ponemon Institutes 3rd Annual Benchmark Study on Patent Privacy and Data Security.

On our list of 9 HIPAA Network Considerations, we are onto topic #8, Breach discovery times: know your discovery tolerance.

  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. Ignorance is not bliss
  5. Risk Assessment drives your baseline
  6. Risk Management is continuous
  7. Security best practices are essential
  8. Breach discovery times: know your discovery tolerance
  9. Your business associate(s)must be tracked

From the 2013 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, two thirds of the compromises were not discovered for months, or longer.  What is your tolerance for “not knowing?”  Can that discovery time tolerance be justified through reasonable due diligence, or are you back at the “ignorance is bliss” phase (blog #4), which could be interpreted as Willful Neglect in the case of a breach of PHI?

Source: Verizon 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report
Source: Verizon 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report

Continue reading “8 of 9 HIPAA Network Considerations”



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Terri Quinn

Security Solutions Manager

Security Technology Group

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Cybersecurity: Where are the Biggest Threats?

Rarely a week goes by that we don’t hear of a database compromise that results in confidential data—many times consisting of personally identifiable information (PII)—falling into the hands of those who should not have access to the data. Protection of our PII is becoming increasingly critical as more and more information is collected and stored through the use of Internet-enabled devices.

The following is an excerpt from a recent post by Patrick Finn, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s U.S. Public Sector Organization, that focuses on the threat of data breaches impacting government organizations and provides some guidelines for how these organizations can assess and remediate these threats.

“Cyber crimes, cyber thievery, and cyber warfare have become an everyday reality. In fact, security breaches are so prevalent that, according to a new study from the National Cyber Security Alliance and a private sector firm, 26 percent of Americans have been the victims of a data breach in the past 12 months alone. Not only do breaches reduce citizens’ trust in government to protect their confidential data, they also cost government agencies a significant amount of money. For most CIOs and other government keepers of data, these statistics prompt one immediate question – “Can this happen to us?” Unfortunately, the answer to this question is: yes, it can.”

For more on this topic please visit Patrick Finn’s entire post over on the Cisco Government Blog.



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John Stuppi

Technical Leader

Cisco Security Research & Operations

November 12, 2013 3 Comments
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The Dirty Secrets of Server Power

Power efficiency remains a top decision point for many customers looking to modernize their data center. Customers searching for an accurate way to compare server power among vendors are often directed to use power calculators without taking into account the many factors that drive power utilization. This notion preys on the simplistic nature of the power beast – lower number is better… but are we missing the (power) bus entirely?

The dirty little secret is that there is no industry standard for power calculators, and vendors can essentially publish a calculator around whatever workload they like (or no actual workload at all). Continue reading “The Dirty Secrets of Server Power”



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Kevin Egan

Director, Compute Systems Group

Cisco’s Data Center Business Group

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Force the Competition to Reevaluate Their Game Plan

It goes without saying that to stay relevant in today’s global and ever-increasingly competitive economy, every company and organization needs to bring on their A-game. This means having a solid business strategy, the drive to beat the competition, real differentiation, a team that is willing to go the extra mile, as well as an innovative IT strategy with technologies that enable positive business outcomes.

Find out who is rising to star status—and why—in the newest edition of Unleashing IT, a Cisco and Intel® thought-leadership resource that keeps you to up to date on IT strategies and technologies that enable business transformation.

The Fall 2013 edition showcases game changing innovations achieved by companies such as Capital One, Red Door Spa, and Alegent Creighton Health—including how they did it.

If you’re new to Unleashing IT, get in the game by subscribing now. If you’ve already subscribed, log in online and get up to date on the latest customer success stories, resources, and upcoming events.

Redefine the sport of business outcomes through IT thought-leadership, and force the competition to reevaluate their own game plan.



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Adrian den Hartog

Senior Marketing Manager

Field Marketing US Commercial

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STEM Education Must be a Hands-on Approach

Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields are critical to innovation and the continued development of the U.S. economy. However, trends are showing that while there are and will continue to be plenty of jobs in these fields, many students are unprepared or lack the desire necessary for employers of the future to fill these jobs effectively.

In order to get more students interested in STEM, it is imperative that they learn through hands-on training, mentoring and demonstrations early in their education. In her latest blog, Amanda Williams, Community Relations Manager at Cisco, describes the importance of getting students physically involved in STEM to spark an interest for the future. Through the launch of the Cisco US2020 STEM mentoring initiative, Cisco employees are able work with students from various schools around the U.S. The students participate in activities such as robot building, engineering demos of circuit building, 3D printing, and pedal-a-watt to make a phone ring. Through this program, we are able to get students excited about the opportunities to learn more about STEM fields.us2020

While we still have a long road ahead of us when it comes to preparing and inspiring a future generation of STEM innovators, it’s encouraging to see students enjoying the learning process this new initiative provides. Continue reading “STEM Education Must be a Hands-on Approach”



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Patrick Finn

No Longer at Cisco

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Cisco IT Streamlines Big Data Operations with Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Like many IT organizations, Cisco’s internal IT department is deploying Big Data solutions to mine the ever-increasing data in-flow from a wide range of sources – and thus gain competitive advantage and insights.

The typical environment includes an ecosystem of different tools and data sources that looks something like this (image courtesy of @TorstenVolk):

HDE

Source: EMA Research

Cisco IT realized that as the demand for analysis of this data increased, the demands on their infrastructure and Day 2 operations management would likely grow exponentially. So they knew that they needed an enterprise-grade workload automation solution that could manage processes involving Hadoop, MapR, Cloudera, Informatica, Teradata, SAP HANA, BusinessObjects, Tableau as well as other analytics applications, data feeds and repositories.

Fortunately, we have a workload automation software solution – Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler – that meets those requirements and more:

TES2

 

Continue reading “Cisco IT Streamlines Big Data Operations with Cisco Tidal Enterprise Scheduler”



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Andrew Blaisdell

Product Marketing Manager

Products, Solutions and Industry Marketing (PSIM)

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Security: Front and Center at Cisco Live Cancun 2013

This year I was honored to be able to present and participate at Cisco Live Cancun, which took place last week. Many attendees from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean came to discover innovative ways that networking technologies can help them reach new markets and understand which solutions are right for their specific challenges.

Security was a hot topic this year!

Customers were able to connect with numerous experts for guidance and advice on security IT challenges that their company may be facing. Maintaining an appropriate security posture in “Bring Your Own Device” (BOYD) environments can be a challenge. This year I delivered a presentation about BYOD Security and Cisco’s TrustSec in an 8 ½ hour session titled “Bring Your Own Device – Architectures, Design and Operation” (TECRST-2020). Implementing BYOD requires a comprehensive solution that ensures the security and reliability of the network while enhancing user experience and productivity. The exponential growth of consumer devices and the need to maintain continuous connectivity to corporate and Internet resources has brought new challenges to corporate networks. Network managers struggle to provide adequate connectivity to employees while protecting corporate data. This session focused on the architecture and framework required to deploy the proper network infrastructure, security components and device management to support different endpoints, each with unique permissions into the network. A combination of lectures and live demos provided the information needed for customers to build an effective BYOD solution. The latest Cisco Validated Design guide (CVD) 2.5 for BYOD was covered highlighting different BYOD use cases, including TrustSec, converged access and the integration with Mobile Device Managers (MDM) to receive device posture information. Continue reading “Security: Front and Center at Cisco Live Cancun 2013”



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Omar Santos

Distinguished Engineer

Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) Security Research and Operations

November 11, 2013 4 Comments
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Close Peek at Cisco ACI : Network Abstraction, VXLAN, Programmability

Last week was a memorable one for me in more ways than one. First, the unveiling of Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) specifics by John Chambers and his Executive Management team via a public webcast on Nov 6. The announcement was a big success and received broad endorsement and support from a big eco-system of Partners, customers, Press and Analysts.

Second, personally it is special to me, as I became part of the ACI Marketing team two weeks ago, to join life in fast lane. In this blog I want to share my excitement with you, and focus on nuances of ACI that do not overlap with blogs already posted by Shashi Kiran and Harry Petty.

The excitement started with an ACI boot-camp, I attended last week. In 2 days, I got a good overview on the architectural advantages of Cisco ACI and the Datacenter pain-points it addresses. By now, many of you would have learnt that ACI is all about Datacenter agility and automation. Sounds easy, but you may be wondering how to attain this goal. I will give examples from my career as a software engineer in the 90’s, when I worked for Sun Microsystems. Those days, I wrote code for 2 –tier and three-tier enterprise software applications that required global deployment and access by users on the company-wide WAN.

My problem started as I went from the Application Development phase to Test/QA phase. I had to run from pillar to post coordinating my application deployment needs with security, network and database/storage admins to identify the best rollout strategy. There was no collaboration between Dev and Ops teams. The alpha and beta test phases required testing on multiple subnets, across geographies, via multiple protocols like to establish proper SLA/functioning of the application. If my application had to open say, a firewall port to allow a particular traffic type (non http) it was next to impossible to get security ops to agree. Opening non-http ports were considered a security risk. In addition, tight coupling of network constructs like subnets, VLAN, security, network services, IP addresses etc with one another, further impacted the network flexibility and application deployment process. (Refer to Figure-1 below for details)

abstraction

With ACI architecture, tight coupling between network constructs can be eliminated. Figure-1 above, illustrates this approach via Abstraction.

Continue reading “Close Peek at Cisco ACI : Network Abstraction, VXLAN, Programmability”



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Ravi Balakrishnan

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Datacenter Solutions