Year: 2014

December 4, 2014 1 Comment
Avatar

Veterans Corporate Technology Day Connects Veterans to Meaningful Careers

After returning to the United States, the transition from battlefield to civilian workplace can be difficult for veterans. Many have a hard time translating their leadership skills and military experience to something that will resonate with hiring managers.

One of Cisco’s priorities is to make that transition easier. By the end of FY2015, we plan to connect 7,000 U.S. military veterans to ICT training, credentials, and job opportunities through different programs and initiatives.

 

On 4 Cisco campuses, veterans learned about Cisco's efforts to find meaningful in the technology field
On 4 Cisco campuses, veterans learned about Cisco’s efforts to help them find meaningful careers after returning from active duty

Cisco employees also get involved in our efforts to support military veterans – one of those ways is by organizing annual Veterans Corporate Technology Day (VCTD) at several Cisco campuses. This year, more than 194 veterans attended VCTD at Cisco campuses in California, North Carolina, Colorado, and Texas on November 20, where they learned more about careers and opportunities in the technology field.

The event connected veterans with over 25 Cisco volunteers, who shared personal transition stories and highlighted Cisco’s veterans program.  Veterans left knowing that tools like Cisco Networking Academy courses and the Future’s U.S. Military Pipeline can bring them closer to building their IT skills and finding careers after serving their country.

Cisco volunteers showed off exciting projects to veterans, inspiring them to put the skills they learned in the military to use in the civilian workplace
Cisco volunteers showed off exciting projects to veterans, inspiring them to put the skills they learned in the military to use in the civilian workplace

Cisco also received the “Statement of Support” award from the United States Secretary of Defense in recognition of our veteran hiring efforts.

Find out how Cisco is helping put U.S. veterans to work by reading about Warren and David Neal on our CSR website.



Authors

Avatar

Austin Belisle

No Longer with Cisco

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Navigating the Journey to the Cloud

Over the years, cloud computing has been at the center of emerging trends including big data, mobility, security and Internet of Things (IoT). Today’s cloud hosting technology feature capabilities such as rapid elasticity, resource pooling and on-demand self-service. Cloud providers are offering customers the ability to consume theses services with flexible service level agreements. Across government, agencies are more empowered than ever to select, implement and utilize these capabilities to efficiently deliver citizen services and transform the business of government.

However, there are important questions about costs and capabilities that cloud adoptees must answer when creating their strategy and choosing their provider.

  1. What does it cost to deploy the services? What are the costs of the onboarding, and potentially, the off-boarding processes?
  2. Do the cloud service capabilities align with the problem that you’re trying to solve?
  3. Is the cloud provider capable of delivering the specific services and analytical tools your agency needs?

Continue reading “Navigating the Journey to the Cloud”



Authors

Avatar

Mike Younkers

Senior Director, Systems Engineering

US Public Sector - Federal

Leave a Comment
Avatar

IoE Takes the Shirt Off Your Back, and Makes It Smarter and Healthier

Connecting Dark Assets: An ongoing series on how the Internet of Everything is transforming the ways in which we live, work, play, and learn.

It may be true that the clothes make the person, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet. But even he never imagined how the Internet of Everything (IoE) would be changing the nature of the clothes we wear. IoE is the ongoing explosion in networked connections among people, process, data, and things. And when IoE is applied to wearable technology, it places the “people” element at the center, connecting users with information they can use to live healthier lives.

The new workout shirt Ralph Lauren introduced in August at the U.S. Open tennis tournament is a great example. With sensors knitted into the fabric, the “Polo Tech” t-shirt records heart rate, breathing rate, breathing depth, steps walked, calories burned, and heart-rate variation. A small clip-on “black box” sends this wealth of physiological information to a smartphone app, which displays the length and intensity of your workout in an attractive graphical format, and keeps track of progress over time. When you’re done with your workout, you can just unclip the black box and toss the shirt into the washer.

The Polo Tech shirt was created in partnership with Canadian company OMSignal, which is developing an array of connected clothing designed for fitness and everyday life. One shirt monitors stress levels and can lead you through a series of relaxation techniques when your stress gets too high. It can also nudge you to get up and move around if you’ve been inactive for a while. The company even envisions a maternity tank top in the future that monitors both the mother’s and baby’s vital signs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMiOmJHXyC4

Continue reading “IoE Takes the Shirt Off Your Back, and Makes It Smarter and Healthier”



Authors

Avatar

Joseph M. Bradley

Global Vice President

Digital & IoT Advanced Services

Leave a Comment
Avatar

VersaStack Solution: Five Things Channel Partners Need to Know

Today, Cisco and IBM announced that we’re joining forces to deliver a new integrated infrastructure solution targeting big data, cloud and mobility deployments.  The VersaStack Solution by Cisco and IBM will combine Cisco’s UCS Integrated Infrastructure—comprised of the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), ACI-Ready Cisco 9000 Nexus switches, Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director—with IBM Storwize storage systems.  Sound interesting? Here are the top five things Cisco partners need to know about VersaStack:

  • Data Center Evolution: Cloud.  Big data.  Mobility.  The Internet of Everything.  All of these macro-trends are fundamentally challenging the current IT model. Today, operations—including people, management, software, and facilities—are responsible for the greatest costs in the data center. Nearly three out of four CIOs say that it’s difficult to stay on budget and on-time due to the complexity of deploying traditional IT infrastructure.  As a result, CIOs are looking to modernize their data centers to keep pace with dynamic business priorities.  VersaStack was designed to respond to these needs.
  • Red Hot Market:  CIOs are rapidly shifting away from traditional silos towards integrated infrastructure—in which the full stack of data center technologies is combined into pre-engineered, tested, and supported system designed to operate as a whole.  IDC forecasts[1] that the integrated systems market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33 percent over the next five years, reaching US$14 billion by 2017.

Continue reading “VersaStack Solution: Five Things Channel Partners Need to Know”



Authors

Avatar

John Growdon

Sr. Director – Unified Data Center Sales

Worldwide Channels

Leave a Comment
Avatar

VersaStack Solution: A Foundation for Innovation

The growth of cloud, mobility, and Internet of Things is accelerating change in the data center. The challenge is to have IT infrastructure that can keep pace with this change. IT leaders want infrastructure that is easy to deploy, increases operational efficiency, and offers the versatility to meet the dynamic requirements of the business.

In order to address these challenges, Cisco and IBM are joining forces to introduce the VersaStack solution, a new integrated system that combines the performance and innovation of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure—which includes the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), ACI-Ready Cisco 9000 Nexus switches, Cisco MDS switches, and Cisco UCS Director—with the versatility and efficiency of the IBM Storwize V7000 storage.

https://youtu.be/HHtgEABDYts

Why now?
It’s actually quite simple: market momentum and customer demand. Cisco is the leader in the integrated systems segment based on the tremendous success of Cisco UCS. Integrated systems help customers accelerate the time it takes to deploy IT infrastructure and integrate new technologies while reducing risk. Our mutual customers and channel partners have been asking for an integrated system that combined Cisco UCS with IBM Storewize.

What is available today?
The first reference architecture (or Cisco Validate Design) is targeted at virtualized infrastructure by combining Cisco UCS integrated infrastructure and IBM Storwize V7000 storage with VMware vSphere hypervisor. The solution connects Cisco UCS and networking in a redundant, high available configuration with IBM Storwize V7000 storage delivering real-time compression and data analytics capabilities that increases storage utilization and performance.

What can we expect in the future?
One of the exciting things about VersaStack is that it provides a foundation for innovation between Cisco and IBM. The VersaStack solution will provide a platform to bring our unique capabilities together. Obviously, Cisco and IBM both bring more to the table than network, compute and storage technologies. For instance, Cisco will provide innovative technologies such as Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Intercloud Fabric (ICF). IBM will contribute software tools for network and information management, big data and analytics, and mobility. Essentially we have the opportunity to innovate together beyond the hardware stack. The goal of the VersaStack solution is to deliver an integrated system that will simplify cloud, big data and mobility deployments.

Continue reading “VersaStack Solution: A Foundation for Innovation”



Authors

Avatar

Satinder Sethi

No Longer with Cisco

December 3, 2014 Leave a Comment
Avatar

Enabling BYOD for your Organization

 

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) technology promises many benefits to organizations.  For example, increased productivity results when users can access data with any device, anywhere, anytime.  By both simplifying and automating security and policy management, IT management costs can also be reduced.  There are equipment savings as well, since organizations can leverage the use of personal electronics that their employees already own.

There’s a lot to enabling BYOD.  IT can’t afford to manage every single device that wants to join the network.  There are also security issues, such as preventing stolen mobile devices from providing unrestricted access to sensitive data.

Cisco has worked with OneNeck IT Solutions to provide a comprehensive BYOD solution for businesses and other organizations.  OneNeck IT Solutions is a Cisco Gold Partner.  They have advanced specializations in mobility and security and are leading the industry in helping companies successfully embrace BYOD technology.

The OneNeck BYOD solution includes:

  • Identity Services Engine: Unifies policy-based service enablement that ensures corporate and regulatory compliance of all devices on your network.
  • Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client: Simplifies the VPN experience with enhanced remote access technology.
  • Intelligent Network infrastructure: Security is embedded into wired, wireless, and VPN access points to provide greater visibility and enforcement.
  • Mobile Device Management: Seamlessly integrates your BYOD strategy with solutions from leading market providers.
  • Virtual Desktops: Provides secure access to desktops from any device.

OneNeck also offers many advanced features to assure the security of both devices and the network.  You can read more about these features in this blog from OneNeck. To learn more about Cisco’s BYOD solutions, visit http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/trends/byod_smart_solution/index.html.



Authors

Avatar

Xander Uyleman

Senior Manager

Global Partner Marketing

2 Comments
Avatar

GLOBECOM 2014

Dan Crawfordby Dan Crawford, Marketing Manager, Cisco

It has been nearly 20 years since I last heard the static and ding-guh-donga-dong sounds of dialing up wireline internet, over 14 years since the first digital “2G”phones became available, about eight years since “3G” networks were widely deployed, and five years since 4G LTE rolled out in the U.S.

Following the trend of the past two decades, logic would propose thatwe are due for another major leap forward in networking and communications technology.  One place to learn about the latest advancements Continue reading “GLOBECOM 2014”



Authors

Avatar

Greg Smith

Sr. Manager, Marketing

Cisco Solutions Marketing

Leave a Comment
Avatar

Part 3 – SDN Questions to Ask at the Gartner Data Center Conference

My final observation from my days at the London Gartner Data Center Conference is related to SDN and ease of network management – or otherwise.  Hopefully this discussion will give you some ideas for good questions to ask at the Las Vegas conference, which is running as I write this.

Cisco UCS on show at the Gartner Data Center Conference
Cisco UCS on show at the Gartner Data Center Conference

Before I start, if you are at the conference in Las Vegas, please do take time out to visit the Cisco stand #305 to find out more onCisco solutions including Unified Computing and ACI.  Also take some time to say hello to our with new, exciting team members from our Metacloud acquisition – it’s fantastic to have such OpenStack and DevOps expertise in particular part of the Cisco team.

To catch up on my earlier questions, see my part 1 and part 2 blogs – questions you can ask at any SDN conference or of any vendor, since this blog series is not just about the Gartner conference. Now on to more SDN questions to ask ….

 

Continue reading “Part 3 – SDN Questions to Ask at the Gartner Data Center Conference”



Authors

Avatar

Stephen Speirs

SP Product Management

Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

1 Comment
Avatar

Thoroughly Modern Malta – Melita Furthers Malta’s Smart Island Vision with Carrier Wi-Fi

Lisa Garza Bio Pic

By Lisa Garza, Marketing Manager 

I had the pleasure of visiting this vibrant island country while we were filming this video. The Republic of Malta sits in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and north of Libya, a strategic crossroads with a visible history that dates back to thousands of years BC. Some of the oldest standing temples in Malta pre-date the Egyptian Pyramids by a millennium.

What a joy, then, to experience the thoroughly modern nation that Malta has become, thanks in part to the vision of the telecommunications provider Melita. The name Melita itself reflects the long history of the country – thought to derive from an ancient Greek word for “honey-sweet”, reflecting a unique species of bees that are found in Malta. Continue reading “Thoroughly Modern Malta – Melita Furthers Malta’s Smart Island Vision with Carrier Wi-Fi”



Authors

Avatar

Keith Day

Marketing Director

Service Provider Mobility Business