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Cisco is proud to announce it has received the 2014 Humanitarian Partnership Award from the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross. The award recognizes the support Cisco has given to the American Red Cross’ mission, and salutes the significant impact Cisco has made in Silicon Valley.

Cisco’s relationship with the Silicon Valley Chapter, and the American Red Cross in general, is deep, enduring, and reciprocal. We have been strategic disaster response partners for more than a decade, and we share a common focus. While the American Red Cross is frequently first on scene to provide food, shelter, water, and relief services during disasters, Cisco’s rapid response IT solutions – and its employees — are not far behind, as supporting critical human needs is a key component in Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pledge.

Over the years, Cisco has supported the American Red Cross by making cash and product donations, lending technical expertise, and encouraging extensive employee volunteerism, not only in Silicon Valley, but throughout the United States and the world.

Cisco "Ready When the Time Comes" volunteers are a critical element in their communities' disaster readiness.
Cisco “Ready When the Time Comes” volunteers are a critical element in their communities’ disaster readiness.

Continue reading “Cisco Honored for Supporting Disaster Relief in the Bay Area”



Authors

Khanh Russo

Lead the critical human needs investment portfolio

Cisco Foundation

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When Cisco first introduced FCoE in 2008 we knew that it was going to be the foundation for something very powerful in the data center. FCoE combined the best of both worlds in the Data Center – Ethernet and Fibre Channel storage – and allow them to run side-by-side using the same wire.  It’s a very simple concept, but with broad-reaching and profound implications: now, instead of needing two wires, you only need one. Instead of needing two different types of switches, you only need one.And now FCoE is been recognized by our customers and industry peers as Market Leader and voted no.1 for 5th time!

IT Brand Pulse, today announced the results of brand leader surveys conducted in January 2014 covering Servers, Converged Systems and Converged Networking.  Survey respondents were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in thirteen product categories. For each category, respondents chose the brand leader in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation.

For FCoE Switches, Cisco established brand leadership for the fifth consecutive year with an all-encompassing win in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation 

Innovation Award

Cisco also took over the Embedded Blade Server Networking Market spot for the first time in several years, and IT pro perceptions also showed Cisco as the Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. Market share leader NetApp/Cisco FlexPod extended its reach into the brand awards by being tapped as the Converged System Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation champion.

Continue reading “IT Brand Pulse Award 2014: Cisco established brand leadership for the fifth consecutive year”



Authors

Tony Antony

Marketing

Solutions

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Earlier this year Cisco announced the Cisco Prime Virtual Network Analysis Module (vNAM), an integral component of the Cisco Cloud Network Services portfolio. While a virtual NAM has been available on the Nexus 1100 Cloud Services Platform (a UCS appliance for virtual services), it has not been available in a generic VM form factor, which now provides greater deployment flexibility for NAM customers, as they look to monitor application and network performance in their virtual data centers. The result is greater visibility at more points in the network.

Cisco Prime vNAM combines application-awareness with the ability to look deeper into various network overlays, such as VXLAN, LISP, and CAPWAP, to deliver rich analytics that help assure services levels, accelerate operational decisions, and increase business agility. Its versatility permits it to be used to:

  • Monitor workloads in multi-tenant cloud deployments
  • Analyze network usage by application, host or virtual machine (VM) to identify unusual traffic patterns or bottlenecks that may affect performance and availability
  • Troubleshoot performance problems consistently across physical and virtual environments
  • Take advantage of an integrated web-based interface to remotely manage a site
  • Validate infrastructure updates such as WAN optimization, Cisco TrustSec, and quality-of-service policy changes

Prime vNAM can be deployed in the cloud to monitor hosted workloads, at remote sites to monitor the end-user experience, or almost anywhere in the network to eliminate blind spots.

Continue reading “Improve Cloud Traffic Visibility with the New Cisco Prime Virtual NAM”



Authors

Gary Kinghorn

Sr Solution Marketing Manager

Network Virtualization and SDN

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Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future” – Jedi Master Yoda.
Yoda image credit: www.yodaquotes.net

Yoda+pic

“Planning for the future can be challenging . To effectively prepare for the unknown it is best to design into any plans, the added flexibility. This is especially true with IT. ” wrote Amit Jain  AmitJain

In a very clear article , published for the NetApp Community , Amit explores solutions  to wire your data center storage network once with a flexible network technology that can be re-configured through software to run any storage protocol

Wether you are ready to make the transition from FC to Ethernet or not, Amit suggests elegant architectures which provide maximum flexibility.
He explains on one hand the primary reasons to adopt Multi-hop and end-to-end FCoE, on the other hand the advantages of Cisco 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks with Unified Port (UP), and the new functionalities provided by NetApp Unified Target Adapter (UTA 2), which prepare you for a future transition if you decide to wait .

“Ethernet-based data center infrastructures offer a degree of future-proofing because the physical transport can support multiple protocols and data traffic types, including block and file storage traffic”  insists  Amit.

endtoendunified

 

To stay ahead of the game, I encourage you to read here the full article, and to check Amit’s series of blogs on customer adoption of end-to-end Ethernet-based Multi-protocol storage networks.

Follow Amit Jain on Twitter  @amitjain_Leo

 



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Each week, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco partner news and stories, as well as point you to important, Cisco-related partner content you may have missed along the way. Here’s what you might have missed this week:

Off the Top

Cisco picked up a number of Channel Champions awards at this years’ XChange Solution Provider event in Los Angeles, CA. Edison Peres announced the wins this week, after accepting them at the event Tuesday evening.

As always, we all thank you, the Cisco partners, that truly make these awards happen. Your commitment and hard work are what power these awards, and your vision and feedback are what drive the evolution of Cisco programs and tools.

Be sure to check out the awards for this year and give us your thoughts. Continue reading “Cisco Partner Weekly Rewind – March 7, 2014”



Authors

David Durham

Content Strategist

Channels

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A recent article in the Wall Street Journal featured a hotel that will soon be using mobile technology to bypass the check-in process. Guests will have the option to check-in through their smartphone and also use their smartphone as their room key.

The benefit of this new check-in and room key innovation is two-fold: the hotel guests will benefit from the pure convenience of it and hoteliers can help maintain a secure property.

Antonio Connected Guest Keyless_futureMobility_2 25 14

However, automated check-in and the ability to use mobile devices as a key to the room is only one aspect of the entire technology stay. This is just one component of what’s possible and what’s going to be expected by guests visiting hotel properties in the future.

There is a tremendous demand by the guests to simplify and enhance their interaction with the hotel. According to a recent HVS London study, more modern hotel guests value experiences and the feeling of “being connected” over traditional hotel luxuries. With this in mind, the future of a connected guest experience does not begin and end with new keyless door entry capabilities.

In fact, the new technologies happening in hotels are also happening across various industries. New mobile capabilities in retail, education and transportation are creating new ways for customers, students and citizens to receive engaging content that can transform their experience. Some examples include:

  • Retailers can offer shoppers mobile updates when they are in the store about new products and special sale items.
  • College freshman can receive turn-by-turn directions to landmarks, buildings and events – all based on the student’s schedule and current location on campus. Continue reading “Unlocking the Connected Guest Experience”


Authors

Antonio Dimilia

Industry Director - Hospitality and Travel

Business Transformation Team

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Recently, Lopez Research published a white paper entitled Building Smarter Manufacturing with the Internet of Things (IoT). It is a worthwhile read especially for industrial and manufacturing companies as they wrestle with the implications of IoT for the factory floor and beyond. 

The paper describes what IoT means for manufacturers today, including some of the compelling business benefits and value from improved connections between people, processes and data. A recent video infographic, ‘Manufacturing Tomorrow’s Possibilities’ produced by Cisco Consulting Services cites some statistics, including how intelligent connections across the value chain resulted in ‘reduction of time to market drives 1.2% bottom line improvement’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUxwWCX_GME Continue reading “Making Smarter Manufacturing and IoT a Reality Today”



Authors

Chet Namboodri

Senior Director

Global Private Sector Industries Marketing

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Is the combination of cloud computing and mobility a perfect storm of security threats?

Actually, yes. And you should prepare for them as if there is a storm coming.

As businesses become increasingly mobile, so does sensitive data. In fact, in a recent survey conducted by ESG,

31% of security professionals say that the biggest risk associated with cloud infrastructure services is, “privacy concerns associated with sensitive and/or regulated data stored and/or processed by a cloud infrastructure provider.”

Data Security Through the Cloud

 

With cloud-based services, it is key to have visibility into applications and provide consistent experience across devices accessing the web and cloud applications. More users are leaving the standard PC behind and engaging cloud applications through a mobile device, making application-layer security and user access security critical. Smartphones and tablets are able to connect to applications running anywhere, including public, private and hybrid cloud applications, opening your data to potential attacks. Security professionals need assurances that their cloud security provider will appropriately secure customer data while ensuring availability and uptime.

 

The conversation is no longer if you’ll be attacked, but when. And will you be prepared?

Read the full article: Data Security Through the Cloud



Authors

Evelyn de Souza

Cloud Data Governance Leader

Chief Technology and Architecture Office

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Learn how to deploy cloud connectivity for your data center with confidence and help enable critical business operations in this Data Center Design Zone webcast Series on March 11 at 8 a.m. Pacific Time.

Register  March 11 at 8:00 AM  Pacific Time

 
Cisco Virtualized Multiservice Data Center (VMDC) integrates Cisco and third-party products across the cloud computing ecosystem into a validated, end-to-end system that customers can deploy with confidence. Specifically, the Cisco VMDC Data Center Interconnect (DCI) solution provides validated guidelines for cloud data center connectivity across metropolitan and geographical distances.

webinar

The VMDC DCI solution helps enable critical business operations across multiple data center sites, including:

  • Application business continuity
  • Application disaster recovery and avoidance
  • Application geo-clustering and load balancing
  • Complete workload mobility

Please join us at the March 11 webcast   Hope to see you all at the webcast !

Tony Antony
Sr. Marketing Manager

 



Authors

Tony Antony

Marketing

Solutions