IT managers are in an interesting situation – all the developments in virtualization, compute, and mobility are bringing new opportunities for architecting an efficient IT infrastructure. They are looking for ways to do more with less infrastructure. These developments are accelerating resource centralization, with more and more critical assets moving into the enterprise headquarters and data center and this is creating a ripple effect on branch and remote offices. To meet regulatory compliance and cost-control requirements, many organizations are optimizing resources and reducing complexity in the branch office. Read More »

Tags: Distributed VDI, ISR G2, UCS-E Series, vdi, VMware View

MGM Resorts in Las Vegas is all about hospitality.

Being one of many major resorts on the renowned Las Vegas Strip, MGM was anxious to connect with guests – and have guests connect to them. They needed to offer something that the competition didn’t. So MGM partnered with Cisco to implement an IT infrastructure that would give guests what they were asking for while also enhancing business-focused technology capabilities. Read More »

Tags: hospitality, Hospitality WiFi, MGM, Vegas Baby!, Wifi for Hotels

I often find myself with colleagues and friends having an app discussion that at times feels like an exciting discovery session and other times feels like an “app showdown”. It’s either a case of “Wow, that’s cool”, or “My apps are better than yours”. I prefer the former discussion to the latter, because in the end we can all benefit from learning about new ways and new tools to make our day more productive, or our lives easier, or just a lot more fun!

Well, here’s an app that accomplishes all three of those goals – the new Cisco Enterprise Networks App. It will help you be more productive, because if you are interested in The Cisco Cloud Intelligent Network (CIN) and/or Cisco Unified Access (UA), you can focus on just those -- in one convenient place.  Download it, and you’ll be able to access the latest CIN and UA videos, presentations, and product information and Cisco technology innovations as well as access to our social media channels. That’s bound to make your life a little easier! Read More »

Tags: apps, Borderles Networks, Cloud Intelligent Networks, enterprise networks, unified access

My last post was all about finding IPv6 prefixes on the IPv6 Internet. I think the next natural question is “What about IPv6 traffic?” or more specifically, “What about IPv6 traffic on my network?” In this post, I’ll talk about some network tools, or instrumentation, that can be used to find and measure IPv6 traffic that is out on your network. Network instrumentation is going to be important whether you plan to integrate IPv6 into your network or not. “What?” you might ask, “why is instrumenting my network to detect IPv6 important if I’m not going to run IPv6 in my network?”

Read More »

Tags: ACLs used to identify IPv6, Cisco Services, IDS/IPS for IPv6 identification, IPv6, IPv6 discovery with QoS policy, IPv6 on Switching, IPv6 Traffic, netflow, SNMP MIB

In this blog, let us take a look at how Catalyst access switches enable and enforce context aware access to IT resources.

Many types of devices, including laptops, smartphones, and tablets, are used by end users to connect to the network wired, wirelessly, and remotely through VPN. With bring your own device (BYOD) access, the devices can be personal or corporate owned. Every enterprise has policies that dictate who can access what applications and databases, when and how. Traditionally, IT manages the policy either by introducing appliances at points in the campus where users connect or by manually configuring all the access switches. Appliances incur additional capital and operational expenses, whereas manual configuration of the switches requires maintenance of every switch. Moreover, the network can carry traffic using Ethernet, IPv4, IPv6, or other technologies, so the configuration must keep up with changes in technology, which leads to higher operational complexity and costs.

Read More »

Tags: 3560-X, 3750-X, 4500E, Cat 6500, catalyst, context-aware, secure access, Security Group tags, SGT