Cisco Blog > Government
Not long ago this joke was buzzing around the Internet:
Question: Why was the computer late to work?
Answer: Because it had a hard drive.
David Letterman does not have to look over his shoulder but the corny little joke is loaded with possibilities for a discussion about the power of the Cloud and communities.
As the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2013 make their way toward New York this week for the annual dialogue among 250 invited global thought leaders (including Cisco’s Dr. Norman Jacknis, who will give this year’s “Revolutionary Community” keynote talk), the ingredients for the secret sauce used to re-energize communities for the 21st Century will be revealed by its “chefs. “ I am guessing that one of the revealed secrets will be that the idea of being late for work has become passé. Connectivity, when invested in properly, unleashes a new knowledge workforce and revives communities that have been looking for ways for their local economies to flourish. Certainly broadband connectivity and more affordable access to the cloud remain big drivers for community revival and at least part of the secret toward solving many problems, including commuting and productivity.
So is vision. Attendees will also hear from people like BlackBerry co-founder Mike Lazaridis , who will discuss why he believes quantum computing will be the next silicon for his community, Waterloo, Canada, the 2007 Intelligent Community of the Year. He has invested CAN$250 million in a fund to begin to make it so. He has the right environment. Waterloo, a city of only 120,000 people, produced 10% of all the publicly-traded companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2007. This was not an accident. It shares traits with Intelligent Communities everywhere.
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Tags: cloud, digital inclusion, intelligent communities, Smart Cities
The massive population shift towards urban areas has continued to evolve the challenges that community leaders and city planners need to address. With limited resources, obstacles that range from traffic congestion and pollution to infrastructure constraints and overcrowding are increasingly amplified – all of which requires a paradigm shift in how we approach and manage these types of situations. Driven by Cisco’s vision for the Internet of Everything (IoE), our Smart+Connected Communities program supports the integration of intelligent networking technologies to connect cities and help leaders address these challenges. However, we fully understand that this is not a one-shot solution. The transformation of cities not only requires relevant technologies and a change in the way we think, but also how we collaborate with city stakeholders and ecosystem partners.
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As a follow up to my introductory blog on Securing the Internet of Everything, I would like to discuss further the security implications that will comprise proposed framework. As the applications of the IoT/M2M affect our daily lives, whether it is in the Industrial Control, Transportation, Smartgrid or Healthcare, it becomes imperative to ensure a secure IoT/M2M system. As the use of IP networks are employed, IoT/M2M applications have already become a target for attacks that will continue to grow in both quantity and sophistication. Both the scale and context of the IoT/M2M make it a compelling target for those who would do harm to companies, organizations, nations, and people.
The targets are abundant and cover many different industry segments. The potential impact spans from minor irritant to grave and significant damage and loss of life. The threats in this environment can be similarly categorized as those in the traditional IT environments. It’s useful to consider general platform architecture when discussing IoT security challenges. Below is the platform architecture that uses to frame IoT/M2M discussions.
While many existing security technologies and solutions can be leveraged across this architecture, perhaps especially across the Core and Data Center Cloud layers, there are unique challenges for the IoT. The nature of the endpoints and the sheer scale of aggregation in the data center require special attention.
The architecture is composed of four similar layers to those described in general network architectures. The first layer of the IoT/M2M architecture is comprised of Read More »
Tags: architecture, cloud, data center, dos, Internet of Everything, IoE, IoT, ip, M2M, mpls, network, security, Service Provider
In a multi-point TelePresence press briefing on Friday 31st May Cisco Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Managing Director, Ken Boal, and VP for Global Technology Policy, Dr. Robert Pepper, teamed up to deliver the Australian and New Zealand specific findings of the annual Cisco Visual Networking Index.
The latest forecast paints a picture of a world which is consuming the Internet at an astronomical rate with the Cisco VNI predicting that in 2017 there will be more than 19 billion devices connected to the internet! Dr. Pepper and Ken Boal were quick to point out to the attending media from ANZ that these 19 billion devices will increasingly be made up of devices that many people never thought would be Internet-enabled. As we move into the era of the Internet of Everything, more and more items will be connected to the Internet. Livestock, wearable tech and household appliances were just some of the examples given.
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The Australian Government’s announcement last week of the National Strategy for Cloud Computing is a welcome development and one that really moves the needle on the government’s procurement policies for cloud computing.
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, used the opportunity to set out the government’s vision for using the cloud to boost innovation and productivity across Australia’s digital economy.
Cisco has been working closely with the various stakeholders to help shape the strategy and feels passionately about the significant benefits offered by cloud computing. Our vice president of global technology policy, Dr. Pepper, has been particularly vocal on the topic; not least at Cisco Live in Melbourne earlier this year when he strongly advocated for advanced cloud computing services to be made available over a high-speed broadband network.
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