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Bill Shields

Senior Marketing Manager

Product and Solutions Marketing Team

Bill joined the Cisco family in November 2010 as a Marketing Manager on the Cisco UCS Product Marketing team. Now a Sr. Marketing Manager, his duties include managing the development Cisco’s UCS TCO/ROI tools; providing sales team and partner tool support; server competitive analysis and positioning; is the marketing manager for UCS X-Series Modular Servers, UCS B-Series Blade Servers, UCS C-Series Rack Servers, UCS S-Series Storage Servers, and UCS Mini. Additionally, he provides support for Intersight Infrastructure Service.

Prior to joining Cisco, Bill was previously with Hewlett-Packard in a number of roles including almost seven years in server options marketing and ProLiant Essentials Software training development and delivery.

Bill’s certifications include a Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) from the American Society for Quality and Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute. He earned his MBA in Marketing from the University of Houston.

Articles

November 1, 2016

DATA CENTER

Understanding the Cost Premium of Public Cloud for Active Data

2 min read

If you’ve read any of my past blogs, you’ll know I focus a lot on the economic impact of Cisco UCS. Today I’m comparing the TCO of hosting data intensive workloads on-prem vs. in the public cloud. What started out as a 2RU rackmount consolidation discussion (more on that next week) turned into a public cloud […]

May 6, 2016

DATA CENTER

Video Transcoding with the Intel Xeon E3-1285L v4 Processor

1 min read

Intel® recently released a white paper on FFmpeg Linux transcoding performance with Intel Quick Sync Video using the Intel Media Server Studio on the Intel Xeon® E3-1285L v4 processor.

April 1, 2016

DATA CENTER

Processor Updates to UCS Mini and M-Series

1 min read

Yesterday, Girish blogged about the new Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 v4 product family and Cisco’s world record benchmark performance. Today, I want to update you on the changes to UCS Mini and our M-Series Modular Servers.

March 9, 2016

DATA CENTER

UCS Mini with StorMagic SvSAN

1 min read

Do you need a server and storage solution for your remote sites, to ensure that your business critical applications are always available? Cisco and StorMagic have a solution for you.

February 3, 2016

DATA CENTER

Cool Updates to UCS Mini and M-Series

1 min read

Tuesday Girish blogged about the new UCS Innovations and at the end of this post there is a list of other blogs with more details on other updates. Today I’ll go a bit more in-depth on what’s new for UCS Mini & M-Series Modular Servers.  

December 7, 2015

DATA CENTER

UCS M-Series and Citrix XenApp Bare Metal Deployments

1 min read

If you are one of the 330,000 organizations using Citrix XenApp (or if you are considering it) you need to consider Cisco’s UCS M-Series modular servers. What are M-Series modular servers? M-Series servers are composable infrastructure that disaggregates storage and networking from the CPU/memory complex allowing workloads to be optimally matched to resources. An ideal […]

November 2, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini Customer Success Stories

2 min read

When we launched UCS Mini, it pushed us into new territory with an exciting offering that bundles servers, storage and networking into a single solution — much like the traditional UCS — but in a smaller form factor and lowered the cost of entry to a UCS solution. It allows customers of any size (SMB, […]

August 11, 2015

DATA CENTER

Latest additions to the Cisco UCS M-Series Modular Server Portfolio

1 min read

Cisco UCS M-Series Modular Servers deliver exceptional value for online content delivery like gaming, web serving, transcoding, and HPC. Built around Cisco’s virtual interface card (VIC) technology and the policy-based management of UCS Manager, this new design brings the award-winning architecture and management of Cisco Unified Computing to the world of parallelized workloads.

June 5, 2015

DATA CENTER

Find and Fix Problems Faster with New Splunk Integration for Cisco UCS

2 min read

IT infrastructures are increasingly complex and include a broad range of technologies and platforms hosted in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Cisco UCS has become a world leading server platform in large part because the unique UCS architecture enables organization to harness the power of virtualization and dramatically simplify infrastructure management. Splunk is a great […]

April 14, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini for SAP and SAP HANA

1 min read

On the way to tradeshow week (May 4th), I decided to do a brief blog series on UCS Mini tied to these shows. Last week was Microsoft Ignite. This week SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference in Orlando and the discussion of UCS Mini for SAP and SAP HANA.

April 9, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini Finalist for Best of Interop Awards 2015

2 min read

When we launched UCS Mini back in September, it pushed us into new territory with an exciting offering that bundles servers, storage and networking into a single solution — much like the traditional UCS — but in a smaller form factor. It also allowed Cisco to effectively target branch or remote offices and the mid-market with […]

May 6, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini and Citrix Desktop Virtualization

1 min read

This week, Cisco is at three industry tradeshows (Microsoft Ignite booth #122, SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference booth #330, and EMC World booth #221). Next week is Citrix Synergy in Orlando.

April 21, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini and EMC Storage

1 min read

On the way to tradeshow week (May 4th), I decided to do a brief blog series on UCS Mini tied to these shows. I’ve covered Microsoft Ignite and SAPPHIRE NOW in the past two weeks. Last up, EMC World in Las Vegas.

April 7, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini – Powering Microsoft Applications

1 min read

Since Cisco UCS Mini launched last September, Cisco and our partners (Citrix, EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Nimble Storage, Oracle, SAP, and VMware) have been hard at work putting together a wide variety of solutions. On the way to tradeshow week (May 4th), I’ll be doing a brief blog series on UCS Mini tied to these shows.

February 20, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Manager Plug-In for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c

1 min read

Cisco is pleased to announce the latest version of the UCS Manager Plug-In for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c (OEM).  This new version (12.1.0.9.0) is posted on the Cisco Communities website. The plug-in provides health monitoring and status checking.

February 9, 2015

DATA CENTER

Cisco Voted Top Platinum Sponsor – JDE Summit 2015

1 min read

The JD Edwards Summit brings together over 700 business partners from around the world for a week of product updates, industry discussions and intense training.  A number of vendors were asked to present solutions that are specific to this customer base.  Cisco and Nimble Storage presented the UCS Mini based SmartStack solution where the entry […]

December 18, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini Wins infoTECH Spotlight Award

1 min read

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) announced the winners of the 2014 infoTECH Spotlight Data Center Excellence Awards today. Cisco is honored that UCS Mini is one of the recipients! To quote from the TMC press release: “The 2014 infoTECH Spotlight Data Center Excellence Award recognizes the most innovative and enterprising data center vendors who offer infrastructure […]

December 16, 2014

DATA CENTER

The Economic Impact of a VersaStack Solution

1 min read

I’ve written a number of blogs on the economic value of Cisco UCS and how it is changing the economics of the datacenter. Now, for the first time we performed a TCO comparison of our new VersaStack solution and how it stacks up versus the competition. The VersaStack solution combines the innovation of Cisco UCS […]

September 4, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Mini – Edge-Scale Computing

2 min read

Cisco’s Unified Computing System, originally designed for the datacenter is now optimized for Branch Office / Remote Office (ROBO), point-of-sale, and smaller IT environments with the announcement today of UCS Mini.  This solution delivers servers, storage, and 10 Gigabit networking in an easy to deploy, compact form factor. Expandable to 15 servers, UCS Mini provides […]

May 30, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS PowerTool Scripting Contest – Winners Announced

1 min read

To highlight the power and ease of use of the UCS PowerTool SDK and XML, a Windows PowerShell scripting contest was run from March 27th to May 11th. Championed by Technical Marketing Engineers Eric Williams and Jeff Foster, the contest exceeded its goals with 24 scripts submitted. The most popular category was configuring a new […]

May 14, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Power Scripting Finalist & Update #4

2 min read

The UCS Power Scripting Contest closed on May 11th and the five finalists were announced at Microsoft TechEd today. They are:

May 8, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS at Microsoft TechEd 2014

1 min read

If you are coming to Houston next week for Microsoft TechEd, please set aside some time to stop by the Cisco booth (#701) and attend our sessions to learn how we are partnering in the datacenter.

May 2, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Power Scripting Contest Update #3

2 min read

Many IT organizations use Microsoft PowerShell to automate and accelerate data center management tasks. The Cisco UCS PowerTool module for PowerShell provides users a comprehensive list of cmdlets to manage all components of Cisco UCS.  Users can use these cmdlets to write PowerShell scripts to simplify, speed up, and error proof UCS management and deployment.

April 25, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Power Scripting Contest Update #2

2 min read

A number of useful scripts have been entered in the UCS PowerTool/PowerShell contest. Here is what’s been happening since the 11th.

April 21, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Changing the Economics of the Datacenter at Cisco Live!

1 min read

For those of you who follow the Cisco Data Center blog in general and my blogs in particular, you’re probably thinking it is time I updated you on this topic. You’re right! But it is almost time for Cisco Live and I will be presenting it there.

April 11, 2014

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Power Scripting Contest Update #1

1 min read

The scripts have started rolling in and I wanted to update you on what’s been posted to date. Maybe you could use them in your environment? To review these scripts and participate in the contest, head over to the Cisco Communities.

March 27, 2014

DATA CENTER

Simplifying Cisco UCS Management with Microsoft PowerShell

1 min read

Many IT organizations use Microsoft PowerShell to automate and accelerate data center management tasks. The Cisco UCS PowerTool module for PowerShell provides users a comprehensive list of cmdlets to manage all components of Cisco UCS.  Users can use these cmdlets to write PowerShell scripts to simplify, speed up, and error proof UCS management and deployment. […]

Cisco Volunteers Helping to Feed the Hungry

1 min read

Little known to most people, including residents of Houston, Texas, there is a peanut butter cannery here, and it is capable of producing over 1 million jars of peanut butter a year. Thanks to the coordination efforts of Terry Edge, a Cisco Channels Manager, two teams of Cisco employee volunteers produced 12,595 jars — 21,254 pounds — of peanut butter this […]

December 20, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS – Year End TCO Wrap-up

1 min read

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to revisit the economics of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). Cisco UCS has fantastic technology. Technology that technical decision makers are demanding. But what about business decision makers? The question for them is how will UCS save them money?

October 17, 2013

DATA CENTER

Now is the time to refresh to Cisco UCS!

2 min read

Intel estimates1 that one-third of the servers in production are more than four years old. At first, one might think that it is great to get this much service out of a capital investment, but the operational costs to run these outdated servers would pay for a complete technology refresh increasing performance and reliability while […]

October 6, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS vRack on Full Display at PASS Summit

1 min read

Cisco is proud to be a Platinum sponsor and exhibitor at PASS Summit this year. If you aren’t familiar with PASS Summit, it “is the world’s largest, most-focused, and most-intensive conference for Microsoft SQL Server and BI professionals.” Gary Serda has done an excellent job in detailing what the Cisco UCS team will be sharing […]

September 18, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Changing the Economics of the Datacenter at Oracle OpenWorld

1 min read

Next week at Oracle OpenWorld, I will be giving an abbreviated theater presentation on how Cisco UCS is changing the economics of the datacenter (full presentation below). If you will be at OOW, please stop by the Cisco booth (#1021 – Monday 9/23 @ 12:30pm, Tuesday 9/24 @ 4pm, & Wednesday 9/25 @ 2:30pm) for […]

September 13, 2013

DATA CENTER

A Brief IDF Recap from a First Time Attendee Representing Cisco UCS

1 min read

Given the diversity of the attendees, I wasn’t sure what to expect at Intel® Developer Forum (IDF) having never been to one before. Now I’m very glad to have the opportunity to discuss our updated blade and rack servers with Intel’s Xeon® E5-2600 v2 series of processors (aka Ivy Bridge v2) with potential customers, analysts, […]

August 19, 2013

DATA CENTER

Redux: Yes, Cisco UCS servers are that good

1 min read

Almost a year ago, I wrote my first blog post detailing what customers have been saying about their UCS experiences in our Case Studies, Solution Briefs, etc. The findings have been updated with the latest studies. While the percentages haven’t changed much, the number of customers reporting similar results (like Cisco’s market share) has gone […]

July 9, 2013

DATA CENTER

Relationships, Relationships, Relationships: Cisco at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

1 min read

When I think of why technology solution providers should attend Microsoft’s WPC, I decided to pay homage to one of Steve Ballmer’s mantras with my blog title. Last year, at Microsoft’s WPC in Toronto, I was approached by KEMP Technologies (a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner). They gave me an elevator pitch on their products and […]

June 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS vs. IBM Flex System: Complexity and Cost Comparison

1 min read

Complexity and Cost Comparison: Cisco UCS vs. IBM Flex System is report recently published by Principled Technologies. They evaluated both the technologies and costs of each solution and found a UCS solution is both less expensive to deploy and less complex to manage than an IBM Flex System. Off all the ways Principled Technologies shows […]

June 27, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Datacenter Solutions at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

1 min read

Next week, Microsoft will be hosting over 16,000 attendees from over 160 countries at their Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Texas. Cisco is again a proud sponsor of this event and complete details about our participation are available on Cisco.com. Stop by booth #1401 where Cisco will be demonstrating: UCS B-Series blade and C-Series rack […]

June 5, 2013

DATA CENTER

Why I love working trade shows like Microsoft TechEd for Cisco

1 min read

I have lost count of the number of trade shows I’ve worked over my career. But working trade shows for Cisco over the past 14 months has been a uniquely positive experience. Microsoft TechEd North America 2013 makes my 5th show evangelizing Cisco UCS and our solutions. I have been able to have long (sometimes […]

May 29, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Datacenter Solutions at Microsoft TechEd North America 2013

1 min read

Please visit Cisco’s TechEd web site to learn more about what we have going on at the show and visit www.cisco.com/go/microsoft to learn more about Cisco’s Microsoft capabilities.   I first attended Microsoft TechEd in 1996 in Los Angeles. What a learning experience it was. This year, I’ll be there staffing the Cisco booth (#1701) […]

May 16, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS – Changing the Economics of the Datacenter

1 min read

Cisco UCS has fantastic technology that technical decision makers are demanding. But what about business decision makers? It doesn’t matter how great the technology is, the question for BDMs is how will UCS save me money? I set out to answer that question, connecting UCS technology innovations to TCO improvement, for the Unifying Your Data Center Roadshow […]

May 4, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS vs. HP BladeSystem Power Efficiency Comparison

1 min read

Cisco’s server power engineering team recently compared the Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis with B200 M3 blade servers against HP’s BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure and HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 blade servers.

March 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Real world ROI results with UCS servers – a detailed study at Loughborough University

1 min read

I recently worked with Loughborough University on a financial impact study of their initial deployment of Cisco UCS. The study documents their findings of a dramatic improvement in IT efficiency, bearing out the advantages that attracted them to the UCS solution. Loughborough’s Customer Case Study has been revised with the results of this TCO study […]

February 4, 2013

DATA CENTER

The Truth about Cisco UCS Server Service Profiles and Templates

Cisco Unified Computing System Service Profiles and Templates contain over 127 different server identification and configuration settings.  These identity settings are abstracted from the physical server and stored in the UCS Domain where they can be leveraged automating and speeding deployment while reducing errors. Today, this Cisco innovation is still unique in the industry. The […]